Overkill (1987)

Overkill (1987)- * *1\2

Directed by: Ulli Lommel

Starring: Steve Rally and John Nishio


"Different Worlds. Different  Weapons. One War."










Mickey “Mike” Delano (Rally) is clearly a man who wishes his name wasn’t Mickey. He’s also an L.A. Cop On the Edge. Putting him further on the edge than ever before is the recent influx of Yakuza in Little Tokyo. Mickey Mike makes it his personal mission to take down the gangsters that are ruining his beloved city and state. Towards this end, he teams up with Japanese-American cop Akashi (Nishio). Apparently Akashi has his own, more personal reasons for wanting to wipe out the criminals that are running wild in the city. Will Mickey Mike and the funky bunch be able to accomplish their mission? Find out today!

Not to be confused with Overkill (1996), in this particular Overkill, there’s nary a Jack Hazard in sight. Presumably that would count in the movie’s favor, but what we do have is one Steve Rally, of Maximum Breakout (1991) fame. Shirts, but in particular, sleeves, must feel like the equivalent of fiberglass insulation to his skin. When he’s not busy taking off his Powerhouse Gym tanktop, he’s shirtlessly fighting the baddies. 

But he has a lot of shirtless competition, as many shameless men go about their daily business unencumbered by the onerous burden of having a thin layer of cloth on their torso. Imagine a man who finds a half-shirt too confining, multiply awesomex10, add most of the leftover DNA of Freddie Mercury, and you have Steve Rally.  Plus he predates Matthew McConaughey by many years, and his mustache is much cooler.

Clearly director Ulli Lommel, whose name is not a palindrome no matter how hard you try to make it one, wanted to make “Shirts vs. Skins: The Movie”, but couldn’t, as there were no shirts,  so he settled on making a cop movie. Overkill is yet another “White boy in a world of dangerous Asians” movie much like its brethren Year of the Dragon (1985), Massacre (1985), or Showdown In Little Tokyo (1991). But Lommel’s movie is like the distant stepchild to these, even the equally low-budget Massacre. It’s not entirely dissimilar from Samurai Cop (1989), but we don’t want to sing the praises of Overkill too loudly, it’s not really in that classic’s league. 

The main problem is that there are a ton of weird close-ups, and the movie is incoherent because it looks like it was edited with a bandsaw. Plus it could have used a co-star of the caliber of Bolo Yeung or George Chung. Or even a White guy pretending to be Asian, like Robert Z’Dar as “Yamashita” in Samurai Cop, would have helped a lot.

Nevertheless, Mike Delano - or perhaps even Steve Rally himself - is livin’ the dream. He gets to be a rogue cop and defy his WYC (White Yelling Chief), live in a nice house with a hot babe as a girlfriend, and eat sushi while he sits in his hot tub or engages in any other activity that gives him a pretext to be shirtless. Which leads up to an inexplicable (plotwise) scene where Delano indulges in his true calling. We won’t spoil it for you, but you’ll definitely know what we’re talking about when you see it. 1987, the year of this movie’s release, was a big year for Miami Vice-mania and it shows here. You even see a little kid wearing a Miami Vice shirt, in the same scene where Delano wears a white sportcoat with the sleeves rolled up. Coincidence?

In the end, Overkill does have some highly ridiculous moments that make it worth watching, but even at 80 minutes, the movie drags at times. It’s kind of a 50-50 deal.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

Deathfight (1994)

Deathfight (1994)-* *1\2

Directed by: Anthony Maharaj

Starring:  Richard Norton, Chuck Jeffreys, Tetchie Agbayani, Cris Aguilar, Joe Mari Avellana, Franco Guerrero, Karen Moncrieff, and Ron Vreeken









 While in Bangkok on business, young Jack Dameron’s (Norton) parents are brutally gunned down. He is then raised by Papa Fung (Avellana) along with Fung’s son, now Dameron’s “step brother”, Chiang (Guerrero). All the while, Dameron immersed himself in the ways of martial arts.

Now, in the present day, Dameron is poised to take control of the lucrative family business, Bangkok Mercantile. He has a successful wife (Moncrieff) who is a lawyer, and things are looking up. But Chiang is an evil, corrupt man who, rather than climb the corporate ladder like his step brother, felt more at home staging illegal underground Deathfights. While the audience for these matches enthusiastically holds their cash in their hands, punchfighting isn’t enough for Chiang. He wants the corporate control as well. So he frames Jack for murder. Jack spends some time in prison, befriending Wiley (Strzalkowski). Once out of jail, Jack is on a search for the truth - but it’s going to involve putting his lifetime of martial arts training to use.

Here we have another Maharaj/Norton vehicle, and judging from the VHS box art, they were trying to make Richard Norton a more noticeable name for video store patrons perusing the shelves. While he certainly deserves it, he somehow never reached the level of the Seagals and Van Dammes in America. 

For Norton’s character, Dameron, shirtlessness is a way of life. His shirt, gratuitously or not, is either off or coming off, and there’s even some pre-Transporter (2002) shirtfighting. Rather than Guerrero’s character Chiang being the real nemesis to Dameron, it is in fact Chuck Jeffreys as I-Ron. Sure, his voice sounds dubbed and his hairstyle is ridiculous,  but the fight between Norton and Jeffreys is by far the high point of the film.

Deathfight needed a bit more energy, and actually it could have used some more punchfighting. Interestingly enough, Chiang calls it “Shoot Boxing”. This as opposed to Shootfighting. I know, it all gets very confusing. That’s why everyone should call it punchfighting. That would make all our lives easier. But there are other action bits as well, such as the classic barfights and fruit-cart style car chases. There’s a shootout at the end with a unique shot of a baddie falling out a building, seen from a unique point of view. That was noteworthy.

The movie is filled with “just bubbling under the radar” names such as Cris Aguilar from Savage Justice (1988), Raw Target (1995), some Bloodfist movies and Blood Ring (1991), Strzalkowski, also from Savage Justice and Raw Target, appeared in the other Norton vehicle Raiders Of The Sun (1992), and Ron Vreeken as Manson, who appears some kind of cut-rate Matthias Hues, was in Norton’s Under the Gun (1995), as well as Hurricane Smith (1992). Avellana and Guerrero are well known to B-movie fans, having been in countless productions, Filipino and otherwise.

Deathfight is so-so in most departments, but the presence of Richard Norton raises the watchability level considerably, and the fights, especially the Norton/Jeffreys brawl, raise it further.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty