A look back at a certified modern-spectacle ultimate-action banger from the Cage-man.
2011 was one of the last good years for fans of Nicolas Cage: The Action Hero™. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance was a worthy and totally bonkers contribution to the pre-MCU Marvel movie catalog. His other film that year, Drive Angry, cranked up the level of insanity even a notch more, and then in full 3D glory!
Director and co-writer Patrick Lussier came with the recommendation of the 3D gorefest My Bloody Valentine 3D, and for Drive Angry he also went all in on 3D violence, with an outcome that fortunately was less nasty and a lot more upbeat than its previous opus. The film was another financial nail in the coffin of Cage’s career on the big screen, but in this article we’ll give it it’s well-deserved due and have a look at this ultimate action spectacle!
Milton steals a car from Satan and crashes through the gates of hell back onto Earth. He incidentally saves the girl Piper from a bloody fight with her cheating boyfriend. They join forces to track down satanic cult leader Jonah King – with whom Milton has a death feud from his former life – while being chased by Satan’s accountant and a small army of state troopers.
Satan is Simply the Warden of a Large Prison. Quiet Man Actually, Thoughtful and Well Read.
I remember when Drive Angry came out, it was labeled as a grindhouse/exploitation flick. I really don’t know where that perception came from, it’s neither of those, as it’s way too clever and funny, and not sleazy enough for a film of this kind. The only thing it shares with the low-budget nasties of the past is a general revenge theme and a retro vibe, with classic locations such as diners, strip clubs, and an impressive array of vintage cars being driven and thrashed during the film’s runtime.
Besides the action, the main reason why the film works so beautifully are its characters and their funny banter. Cage’s performance is a bit restrained compared to the wildest moments in his career. But his Milton carries a grim secret and seeks an atonement that is unlikely to happen, not exactly the best reasons to walk happily among the living. But he still gets plenty of opportunity to pose as groovy avenger with a bad attitude, who shoots, punches and fornicates himself through the story.
I’m Gonna Take This Stick From Kentucky and Beat Your Ass With it!
His sidekick Piper is played by Amber Heard. Say what you want about her mud throwing escapades in the tabloid press, in this film she absolutely nails it as bad-ass Southern girl with a serious right hook. Milton goes after Jonah King, who is portrayed with great verve by Billy Burke with the creepy charisma of a psychopathic cult leader.
But the truly outstanding character is William Fichtner as The Accountant. Sent by Satan to correct the glitch of Milton’s escape, he punishes anyone with lethal force who even harasses him in the slightest way on his journey. He owns every conversation with a witty arrogance and subtle sarcasm, and is just incredibly charming.
The title promises a lot of car action, and it has a good chunk of vehicular mayhem, but there’s a lot more crazy stuff going on at the action front. The film moves with an insane tempo, punches land and bullets fly in large numbers, it’s hard to pack more excitement into a film as Drive Angry does. Milton indulges in a shootout with a whole squad of goons while having sex and drinking whiskey in his hotel room. Admittedly, this scene was ripped straight from Shoot ‘Em Up but who cares!
You Gonna Keep Stroking That .357 or you Gonna Yank it?
The car action doesn’t disappoint either with both Milton and his adversaries sharing a passion for muscle cars that are relentlessly going against each other, and it’s almost a shame to see some of them getting crushed. Many things go up in flames, a police barricade is resolved by a truck carrying a tank of hydrogen, and we can witness the lost art of cars that explode when hit by a single bullet. The film was released in 3D, and director Lussier makes full use of this gimmick with body parts, bullets and car parts flying towards the screen a lot. It’s great to see this display of carnage in 3D, but it all works just as well in one dimension less.
Drive Angry hits the sweet spot for spectacle cinema with the perfect combination of foul-mouthed humor, shotguns to the face and a lot of heart. It won’t easily be recognized as a masterpiece because nothing stands out except its enormous entertainment value, but for me this is all a film needs to have!
How does this threequel ultimately stand up against its competition in The Marine film series?
When The Marine 2 found modest success in the DTV realm it was only a matter of time before another sequel spawned. WWE dives back into the fight with THE MARINE 3: HOMEFRONT.
The new film brings in some new blood, with director Scott Wiper (A Better Way to Die, The Condemned) and WWE champion and reality tv show veteran Mike “The Miz” Mizanin as our new protagonist Jake Carter. How does the “threequel” stand up to its predecessors?
I watched a lot of television growing up. I was practically raised by it. This was before I had an endless stream of TV shows and movies available on different apps. I had to browse through whatever cable had to offer. With my luck I would usually find something and it would quickly go to commercial. Occasionally, that commercial would be a military advert. I have no idea if showing these ads to preteen boys have any effect but, I did remember them.
In retrospect, when Scott Wiper decided to open his film with a stock footage montage of random marines performing various exercises, it resembled more of a military advert than a functional part of his film. It may be naive or dumb to think this is a bad way to open a film titled “The Marine”. However, we were shown the capabilities of our protagonists in both of the prior films’ opening scenes. Whether it was the one-man rescue mission in The Marine or the sniper shootout in The Marine 2, they set us up for what’s to follow.
With the bad intro out of the way we find Jake Carter (Mizanin) stepping off of a bus in his rural hometown of Bridgeton. He’s welcomed home by his best friend and police chief Harkin (Jared Keeso) along with his sisters Lilly (Ashley Bell) and Amanda (Camille Sullivan). Attempting to adjust to civilian life, Jake begins to act as a father figure to his sisters. He also finally demonstrates what he’s capable of when he violently puts an end to a bar fight. It was so violent that Harkin was forced to give him a ticket.
While Jake struggles to adapt, a group of radical extremists led by Jonas Pope (Neal McDonough) are holding a bank up. Instead of stealing all the money Pope and his men burn half of it. This is part of Pope’s revenge mission against banks for what they’ve taken from his family. McDonough is always an actor you can count on. Those piercing eyes and white hair are always perfect villain features. You immediately dislike him upon seeing him. In this case, it’s no different, he’s this scary man on a mission that has to be accomplished at any price.
When Pope kidnaps Jake’s younger sister Lilly, their paths are forced to cross. She is trapped on an abandoned boat, which Wiper calls his “Nakatomi Plaza” in the behind-the-scenes clips on the DVD. Once the action started, it came as no surprise that The Miz handled himself well physically. Although, he will make you wish he was in a better film. Scott Wiper isn’t incompetent, he’s just uninteresting and most of his action scenes lack any sense of tension or weight. The FBI and Pope’s men engage in a shootout, but Wiper never makes it more than a weak perfunctory gunfight.
The fight between Mizanin and the late Darren Shahlavi (Ip Man 2, Bloodmoon) is one of the film’s bright spots. Shahlavi is great as always and the fight between him and Mizanin is the best piece of action in the film. There’s beefy hits and great use of the environment. It isn’t captured too terribly either, the choreography isn’t too buried. It is a shame that Wiper doesn’t approach the rest of the film with this energy.
In short, there’s an endless amount of direct-to-video films out there that may surprise you with how much attention to detail they have that goes above the output of films with a larger budget.
Unfortunately, The Marine 3: Homefront is not one of those films. Apart from The Miz being great in an action role the film doesn’t really bring anything interesting other than what you would expect from a mediocre direct-to-video film.
Article By: Cameron Levins is a filmmaker, comic book lover and fight scene enthusiast. Ever since his dad showed him Bruce Lee as a kid, he became obsessed with action films. In his free time he’s either day dreaming about an action scene or researching fight choreographers. Follow Cameron on Twitter here.
“There was an accident. About an hour ago, a small jet went down inside New York City. The President was on board.”
“The president of what?”
Throughout Escape from New York, we never find out what pushed Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) to go from a decorated war hero to committing federal crimes. Perhaps he’s the end result of someone who has stopped believing in America. Carpenter shows us a dystopian world set in 1997 that reflects his own lived experience post-1970. This was a decade with Watergate and the end of the Vietnam War, so it was not too difficult for audiences to connect with Snake’s rugged individualism and distrust of authority.
Films in the ‘70s like Death Wish, Taxi Driver, and The Warriors all portrayed New York City with the same societal decay, covering the streets in grime and darkness. Carpenter and cinematographer Dean Cundey took these ideas and imagined what they would look like 20 years into the future, creating an environment filled with danger and crime rates so high, that America gave up on the city entirely and turned Manhattan into a prison island.
A day before the international summit, Air Force One is hijacked by the National Liberation Front in protest against the American imperialist police state. The plane crashes in Manhattan with the president as the only survivor. Snake couldn’t care less about the president, the summit, or the potential to save the world from total war, but Police Commissioner Hauk (Lee Van Cleef) persuades him to embark on a rescue mission in exchange for a presidential pardon.
Escape from New York marks the first theatrical film collaboration between Carpenter and Russell. Here, Russell transformed himself from a Disney star to an action hero by drawing from Clint Eastwood’s performances in westerns like A Fistfull of Dollars to create a character who says little and wears a permanent scowl, yet expresses everything with his eyes. Even more so, he inherited the antihero persona with a comparable disillusionment with the world he lives in. Much like Assault on Precinct 13, the film itself also plays like a western where much of the action is in building tension rather than extended set pieces, making scenes such as the gladiator match much more impactful.
In Manhattan, Snake learns he must face off with the Duke (Isaac Hayes) to succeed in his mission. Carpenter draws parallels between the Duke and the president, with both holding a similar disregard for the lives of others – the Duke in his brutality and the president with his dismissiveness of the people who gave up their lives to rescue him. Snake also finds signs of humanity in others, including Cabbie (Ernest Borgnine), a taxi driver who seems to have carried on with his cheerful life despite the circumstances. One notable scene is when Cabbie casually lights a Molotov cocktail and throws it at nearby Crazies in mid-conversation with Snake.
Through these characterizations, Carpenter makes a distinction between societal decay among individuals and the institutions that preside over them. The film portrays its characters along an entire spectrum of morality but institutions such as the justice system and police state as having completely failed. Carpenter’s anti-establishment sentiments began with Assault on Precinct 13 and will be fully realized in 1988’s They Live. Here, he shows us that the cruel world we are presented with is justified by the rise in crime. However, the only crime we’re told is Snake’s robbery in the form of violence against property. Every plot element – the National Liberation Front, Snake’s robbery, and the militarization of the police – reveals the value of property over people. In the film’s world, and in reflection ours, America is built on this very idea.
The relationship between people and property is reflected in the final scene, where Snake asks the president about his feelings on the people who died rescuing him. Carpenter condemns the president in his belief that people are expendable property, and Snake punishes him by switching out his tape with Cabbie’s showtunes. Carpenter and Snake believe that this America isn’t worth saving. Instead, the world should perhaps follow in Cabbie’s footsteps and try to get back to a time when we could all listen to happy songs together.
Production on the indie actioner Double Cross is going strong full Steam ahead!!! With multiple setbacks over the last couple of months, (namely the loss of our friend, brother, and main antagonist, Master Louie Cruz) We finally have a silver lining at the end of the storm.
Filming Dates:
After much discussion and accommodating multiple actors’ schedules, we have a tentative date for our first block of filming, which will take place from February 28th through March 5th. We are hoping that with the amount of dialogue and action we have planned for this block, we will be able to have a teaser trailer released by mid-spring.
Finding “Rodriguez”
The future of our film was in limbo after the passing of Master Louie Cruz, who was slated to play the role of “Rodriguez”. After a few weeks of discussion, we decided to push through, find a new actor to play the part, and dedicate the film in his memory. We were extremely lucky not only to find someone to fill his shoes, but someone who knew Master Cruz and understood what the film means to everyone. Now slated to play the role of Rodriguez is Craig Blacklock, martial artist, self-defense expert, and fight trainer. Mr. Blacklock has black belts in Ninjutsu, Judo, Ju-Jitsu and hold an instructor level in Muay Thai. We are extremely honored to have him fill the shoes of our fallen friend.
Double Cross promises to be one of the best no-budget independent action films that has ever been made. We have a number of skilled martial artists including myself, Ezra Johnson (black belt under kickboxing legend Bill “Superfoot” Wallace), and Ethic DeJaun (3x World Martial Arts Champion). The film will be produced under my own banner of TKO Productions. David H. Ferguson of Ferguson Filmz will be sitting in the directors chair for this one. Keep it loaded here on UAMC for more updates on Double Cross and TKO Productions as well as you daily dose of all things action!!!!!
Ranking the best action movies from the great Mark Dacascos!
Hawaii is famous for many things, among them surfing, Albert Pyun, and also Mark Dacascos! The multidisciplinary martial artist entered the movie business in the early 1990s and became a mainstay with fans of direct-to-video action, while also making appearances on the big screen every once in a while. His calm, but charismatic demeanor, combined with some impressive fighting skills made him a perfect action hero. In this article, we have compiled a list of the ten best action films Mark Dacascos has made to this day. He is far from being done, so let’s hope we can update this list in the years to come with more masterpieces!
Sanctuary was the last of three successful collaborations between Dacascos and director Tibor Takacs in the realm of cost-effective 1990s action. Luke (Dacascos) worked as a government-hired assassin, but abandoned his profession. He becomes a priest but his past catches up with him, and much mayhem follows. More of a spy movie than a full-fledged action flick, Sanctuary has the typical hazy DTV thriller look.
Luke’s backstory is pretty bonkers and is the only thing that stands out from the run-off-the-mill plot. Fortunately we’re indulged with a couple of solid action sequences to keep things moderately exciting, and the film picks up the pace significantly in last thirty minutes with the action coming at a good rate. Dacascos does a good job with a brooding performance that occasionally erupts into brutal violence. Sanctuary is perfectly watchable, but only once.
Early video game adaptations were interesting experiments trying to bridge the gap between the digital and back then still analog screen. Double Dragon was the second entry into this genre, and tells the story of two brothers Jimmy (Dacascos) and Billy on their quest to prevent kingpin Shuko from obtaining two halves of an ancient medallion that grants its wielder infinite power. The brothers traverse a post-cataclysmic LA. that looks like a playground for adolescents, and make violent acquaintances with the different gangs dwelling in the ruins of the city.
The world-building is pretty much incomprehensible, the special effects are cheesy, and some of the action sequences are seriously wonky, but it’s never boring! Robert Patrick shines as master villain in Eurodance fashion and hairstyle, and Dacascos is tuned in properly with an upbeat performance, who also delivers the goods in a couple of nice fights. Double Dragon is as chaotic as a movie can get, but it’s a fun ride for the whole family. And it is oh so colorful, it’s the Mary Poppins of video game adaptations!
Redline (aka Deathline) saw Dacascos in a villain role, all complete with a bad fake Russian accent and circle beard. In a cyberpunk future, Wade (Rutger Hauer) is betrayed and killed by his fellow smuggler of biotechnology Marrick (Dacascos) during a run. Brought back to life by the Russian government, Wade is sent to go after Merrick. Director Tibor Takacs creates a perfect B-movie setting with a world where not many things make sense, but with a unique look that blends Eastern-bloc architecture, 1990s Techno music and fashion, and a neo-noir vibe á la Blade Runner.
Redline is primarily a Rutger Hauer vehicle, but whenever Dacascos shows up someone gets hurt, and he even gets to pull off some nice moves occasionally. On top of that there’s plenty of gunfights and nudity, the two of which occasionally coalesce into Kalashnikov-shooting half-naked women. A good pace and plenty of action make Redline a fun B-actioner that is actually worth a re-watch every once in a while.
Director Sam Firstenberg returned to his roots in this production of the late Cannon era that was also the real career starter for Mark Dacascos. Andrew (David Bradley) is a samurai master and a journalist. When he is sent to Turkey to investigate a sword killing, he is abducted and forced to partake in a deadly tournament where he faces his old nemesis Kenjiro (Dacascos). American Samurai is your typical tournament flick, the only variation it puts on the familiar Bloodsport theme is that this time it’s all about sword fights instead of bare fists.
It doesn’t have the good production values of Firstenberg’s opus magnum American Ninja, but its fight sequences are a lot better thanks to the many skilled martial artists involved, first and foremost Bradley and Dacascos. The latter impresses with an intimidating evil stare that is on permanently, literally in every scene. There’s all sorts of interesting weapons brought into the ring by the contestants, and the sharp blades give rise to some surprisingly gory moments. All in all, American Samurai is perfect entertainment for fans of arena fight films.
Being cast as a villain to take it up against John Wick is an accolade for every martial artist, and in the third installment of the saga Mark Dacascos was granted this honor. After the proceedings of the second film John Wick is expelled from the High Table syndicate. Every assassin in town goes after him, including the fiercest of them all, Japanese weapons master Zeno (Dacascos).
It’s only a supporting role but a spectacular comeback for Dacascos on the big screen in one of the best contemporary action franchises in the world. The final confrontation between Zeno and Wick is an epic fight in a labyrinth of glass, and the highlight of the film. After his impressive performance in John Wick 3, we can only wonder why we don’t see Mark Dacascos in more high-profile actioners these days.
Sabotage gave Dacascos the opportunity to shine as calm and cool ex-elite soldier with explosive fighting skills. Michael is a former Navy Seal who now works as a bodyguard. When his boss is assassinated, he joins the police investigation, and discovers a link between the murder and his dishonorable discharge many years ago after a mission in Bosnia got sabotaged. The story is properly convoluted for a conspiracy thriller, but there’s enough action thrown in to make keep the excitement level high.
The action sequences are stylish and brutal featuring a mix of martial arts, sniper kills (with one of the earliest instances of bullet time) and shootouts. For a film of its budget segment, director Tibor Takacs impresses with atmospheric locations, grainy visuals and a sharp cinematography. Same goes for the cast, with Carrie Anne-Moss, Graham Greene and Tony Todd all giving spirited performances. Sabotage is a movie that looks a lot better than your average DTV flick, and can be recommended for every fan of 1990s action thrillers.
Christophe Gans’ spectacular debut was a big nod to the Heroic Bloodshed genre, and another slam dunk for Dacascos early on in his career. Yo is an assassin for the triad clan Sons of the Dragon. When a woman witnesses one of his kills, he is bound to kill her, but falls in love with her. With an ongoing war between the triads and the Yakuza, Yo needs to make some difficult choices.
The film owes its visual style to John Woo’s classics with lavish and elegant set pieces and plenty of slo-mo takes. The action choreography inevitably is second rate compared to the grand master’s works, and yet Gans puts on an A-list spectacle with the full suite of martial arts battles, shootouts and explosions (lots of them). Dacascos owns every scene of the film without saying much, and succeeds in creating a mystical aura for his character while also displaying killer fight skills. Crying Freeman is a masterpiece, and if any action flick other than a John Woo film ever deserved attributes like poetic and dreamy, this is the one!
After their first successful collaboration Crying Freeman, director and writer Christophe Gans and Mark Dacascos teamed up again a few years later, and created an absolute masterpiece of modern French cinema. Grégoire de Fronsac and his Iroquois companion Mani are sent by the French king to track down a mysterious beast that roams through a province ripping peasants apart. Gans thoroughly dusted off the historic adventure genre and created a wild mix of costume drama, monster horror and martial arts flick.
The 18th Century french countryside becomes a mystical place full of secrets and dangers, and the plot takes one turn after the other. The atmosphere and composition of every scene is just perfect, and we are acquainted with many memorable and charismatic characters. Dacascos’ role is one of the most impressive in the film, as a mystical Native American who is also a martial arts master. Besides some frenetic chase scenes involving the mysterious beast there’s a couple of killer fight sequences, and Dacascos gives it all in the bloody battles. Brotherhood of the Wolf is action-packed, grisly and sexy, just my type of popcorn entertainment!
With Only the Strong Dacascos successfully demonstrated that he has the charisma and physical prowess to carry an action film as main actor. Ex-Green Beret Louis returns to his old high-school and starts a Capoeira class for the biggest misfits to straighten them out. He also takes it up with the local drug dealer gang. We all know it takes more than a few martial arts lessons to turn a rough life around, but we should embrace the romantic idea, and simply enjoy this action fairy tale.
Dacascos is great in his role as kind, but assertive Capoeira master, and the film puts a big spotlight on this beautiful martial arts school with its fluid and dance-like movements. The movie also benefits a lot from its charming characters, good and bad alike, and director Sheldon Lettich perfectly captures the urban vibe and some awesome street fights with a calm and effective cinematography. Even hardened action fans need a film like Only The Strong every once in a while, with its hopeful and uplifting vibe, something that has become exceedingly rare in the action genre.
Creature designer Steve Wang’s brief excursion into the action genre as a director gave us an ultimate classic of 1990s high-octane action! Toby Wong flees from Hongkong to the US from the grip of an evil corporation, carrying a valuable secret implanted into his chest. He crosses paths with song-writer Malik, and they join forces in their fight and flight from cowboy mercenary Vic Madison and his henchmen. With Drive, Wang and his action unit showed infinite enthusiasm and creativity, and deliver one flawlessly staged action sequence after another!
When there’s no one being beaten up or things exploding, the film switches to dialogues chock-full of cheesy jokes that do not advance the plot the slightest, but keep viewers entertained every single second. Dacascos shows some comedic talent while roundhousing people every other minute. He fights with shoes on his hands against half a dozen enemies trying to electrocute him, and empties out a hotel room throwing a mattress, a complete set of furniture and people towards his opponents. Loaded to the brim with excitement and laughs, Drive is the perfect action comedy, an exhilarating experience that up this day belong to the best the genre has to offer.
A look back on the most ultimate action movies from the legendary writer, director and composer.
Welcome to our Carpenter watchalong series! Every week we watch one of the director’s action films. Today, we start off with the action thriller Assault on Precinct 13, the film that put Carpenter on his path to making genre film masterpieces.
“There are no heroes anymore, Bishop. Just men who follow orders.”
The first thing we hear is a tense synth score in the opening credits, building anticipation to six members of the gang Street Thunder attempting to escape after stealing a stockpile of guns. Carpenter drops the audience straight into the action, erupting into a massacre when the police ambush and shoot down the gang. The gang’s warlords take a blood pact to pledge revenge on Los Angeles itself by targeting and killing random citizens.
Carpenter then takes us to a scene with a man giving his daughter money to get a vanilla twist at an ice cream truck. The electronic score kicks in again, slowly intensifying the sense of apprehension. As a first-time viewer, seeing the girl get shot was shocking due to its sudden and visceral act of violence. It reminded me of a scene in another ‘70s film, The Long Goodbye, where the gangster Marty Augustine suddenly strikes his girlfriend’s face with a glass bottle just to intimidate a detective. Both films use these scenes to depict societal decay in the 1970s and the monsters that it produces.
This sequence sets the rest of the movie’s events in motion as the father gets revenge on the shooter, and in retaliation, the gang pursues him until he manages to escape into a closed police station. The only people left to protect him are two police officers, including the newly promoted Lt. Bishop (Austin Stoker), and two office workers. The stakes are raised even higher with the arrival of a prison transport bus containing three prisoners, one of which is Napoleon Wilson (Darwin Joston), a convicted murderer on death row.
Wilson is a character that we often see in films today – an antihero of sorts with equal shares of charm and charisma. He represents a failed justice system. When we first see him in prison, he is kicked out of his chair by the warden for little more than a sarcastic remark. Wilson is also made to be sympathetic through his concern for a sick prisoner on the transport bus. This is all contrasted with a priest once telling him, “you have something to do with death,” marking him as destined to be a murderer on death row.
For a film as quiet and subdued as this, all of the characters at the station have a natural back and forth reminiscent of a screwball comedy. This is most apparent in the “potatoes” scene where Wilson and another prisoner named Wells decide who will attempt to escape the police station through a manhole. When the characters are forced to work together to defend the station, they bond and grow to respect one another. Take for instance when Wilson asks Bishop for a smoke. He’s used to people looking down on him in disgust and outright rejection, but Bishop shows him human decency in his kind response of “No, sorry.” These bonds are cemented later in the film when Leigh (Laurie Zimmer) gives him his first smoke.
All the action converges at the station, transforming Assault on Precinct 13 into a siege film. Carpenter fuses elements of the western and horror genres to enhance the action and set up the sociopolitical aspects of the film. Many of the action scenes are quiet and restrained, creating an eerie and disconcerting atmosphere. This is especially prevalent in the silencer shots, which are not only necessary for plot purposes but also to depict Street Thunder as a force with the ability to kill indiscriminately. Carpenter draws connections to Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo (1959), a western about a local lawman who must protect prisoners against armed invaders. He revises the plot to fit in with the social dynamics of the 1970s by incorporating criticisms of the police and justice system.
Assault on Precinct 13 is also at its heart a zombie film. Taking inspiration from George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968), Carpenter uses the zombie genre to deliver his political criticism. In the beginning of the film, we see Bishop driving to his shift at the precinct, listening to a news report on the previous day’s police ambush. The radio host skews the story and fails to mention the police’s direct involvement in the gang members’ deaths. As Carpenter makes it apparent that many gang members belong to marginalized racial groups, the news report justifies the status quo to LA residents that these communities should continue to be heavily policed. In addition, Carpenter characterizes the gang with excess and absurdity. The gang’s long and drawn-out blood pact scene, militant clothing, and indiscriminate killing can all be interpreted as satire of late-70s right-wing propaganda.
In contrast to the well-developed characters holed up in the police station, the members of Street Thunder are nameless and have no dialogue. They act as a mass and are unmovable, both in motive and action. Through their random killings, the film depicts them as a threat to society, but it’s essential to remember that their need for revenge is in retaliation to the brutal slaughter of their own members by the LA police. By having the police set the precedent for aggression, Carpenter demonstrates empathy for the gang and for anybody who gets pulled into the cycle of revenge and violence.
The movie ends with a ray of hope as Bishop, a police officer, and Wilson, a prisoner, walk out of the wreckage together. There is no one hero in the narrative. It’s rather a group of individuals who decided to band together to protect a father in need. Perhaps Carpenter is saying that the simple expression of human kindness across the divide of people and police is necessary to stop the needless violence.
Coming up next week: We watch Escape from New York, the first action film collaboration between John Carpenter and Kurt Russell.
A film which finds that ultimate balance between goofy and bad-ass!
After Tony Leung created his first diamond-in-the-rough Superfights, he continued to work with Seasonal Films for another US-based production, this time with the added star power of Gary Daniels. If you walked into a video store in the 1990s with dozens of DTV actioners on the shelf, it would have been easy to miss Bloodmoon with its generic title and simple premise, but it slams all its peers into the ground big time!
A mysterious masked man kills several martial arts masters at a blood moon. Retired profiler Ken O’Hara (Daniels) gets reactivated and reluctantly agrees to support detective Baker, who is working the case. When the investigation gets personal for O’Hara, both officers unleash their martial arts skills to put an end to the killing spree.
A serial killer that is a martial arts master and is out to get other martial artists is a pretty neat idea, and Bloodmoon must have inspired Donnie Yen’s Kung Fu Jungle two decades later that had exactly the same story hook. Just as in Superfights, there’s a lot going on plot-wise, we got the reconciliation of a failed marriage, a student-sensei relationship, classic 1990s hacker stuff and some completely irrelevant but hilarious scenes with the most choleric police chief in action movie history. And while Leung’s focus was clearly on the action sequences, Bloodmoon delivers perfect entertainment in between the fights with its cheesy dialogues, low-brow humor and oddball characters.
As so often in his films, Gary Daniels plays a cop with a serious martial arts hobby. This time he is joined by Chuck Jeffreys who is an impressive fighter himself. He also has some comedic talent, and to emphasize this, his character is a hobby magician who even pulls off tricks to entertain his fellow officers while investigating a murder scene. The late Darren Shalavi shines as flamboyant villain, a psycho killer with two deadly metal finger prostheses, who looks like the Phantom of the Opera. He is also a cyberspace enthusiast who enjoys a good hacker battle and likes to send emails with a creepy 3D art signature.
But let’s get to the true reason why you should watch Bloodmoon. It’s the fights, of course, and each one of them is a highlight of 1990s DTV martial arts action! In Superfights combat took place in open areas or at best inside of the ring, but for Bloodmoon, Leung staged most of the action sequences in confined spaces. This enabled a lot more interaction between the fighters and their surroundings, and gives us showdowns of a staggering intensity. People are literally bouncing off walls and perform other acrobatic feats, furniture and kitchenware are used creatively and violently, people are slammed through doors and windows, thrown off balconies, this list could go on for another couple of lines.
The choreography is fast and brutal, with some added slo-mo scenes to create this very special epic vibe. Gary Daniels gives the best martial arts performance of his life with tons of spinning and flying kicks, but the stunt work of everyone who took part in the action sequences is just fantastic. And Leung managed to capture all the insanity with a splendid cinematography using long, uninterrupted takes from all sorts of cool angles.
Bloodmoon is bad-ass and goofy at the same time, the perfect blend to create ultimate B-action magic! It’s definitely an upgrade to Superfights, and it would have been great to see Tony Leung putting out more films like it. But it seems the world was not ready for high-octane martial arts made in USA at the time, and he returned to Hong Kong. But we can all be grateful that he left us these two treasures of action madness!
A perfect match of ultimate action fights with the total cheesiness of a Saturday morning cartoon.
Superfights aka Karate Tiger 9 (1995)
Bloodsport is a great movie, but compared to a Hong Kong classic like Drunken Master that was made 10 years earlier, its fight scenes are pretty much child’s play. The Seasonal Film corporation co-produced Jackie Chan’s ultimate classic, and started to embark on a US venture in the 1980s to export their vision of martial arts cinema. Their first entries were the No Retreat No Surrender films, that gave martial arts fan three light-hearted and thoroughly entertaining fight flicks.
A few more movies would follow, and in 1995 Tony Leung heeded Seasonal Films’ call to direct Superfights. The film was the second one to introduce true Hong Kong style action to the US market, after Steve Wang’s Guyver: Dark Hero hit video store shelves one year earlier. While Wang’s rubber-suit-monster fight flick is a masterpiece in its own right, Superfights goes even more over the top! In this brief two-article series, we will have a look at the two ultimate martial arts classics Leung made during his two-year stint in the US. We start with Superfights, and continue with his sophomore Bloodmoon in the next article.
Jack is big fan of the Superfights fighting tournament series, and a veritable martial artist himself. After he saves the girl Sally from robbers (and immediately falls in love with her), he gets discovered by Superfights director Robert and signs a contract to join the crew. After winning a few fights, (some of them suspiciously easy) he discovers some dark secrets behind the scenes, and soon enough does not fight for money anymore, but his life!
Isn’t this one of the most awesome titles for a film ever! Superfights has it all, a crime story, a love story, a wise master/cocky student relationship, and a subplot about mind-control drugs. We really have to respect writer Keith W. Strandberg’s effort (who wrote all the script for Seasonal Films’ US productions) to break out of the standard tournament flick scenario with this overload of plot elements.
Calling the film tonally uneven would be a bit of an understatement. We start off with an upbeat vibe, continue with some scenes that stop just short of a soft sex flick, and end up on a serious tone when a sinister plot comes is resolved. But it’s really hard to take anything serious that is going on, thanks to the corny dialogues and the bumbling acting. A super-schmaltzy soundtrack, an ultra-schmaltzy training montage, and Jack’s bonkers outfit for the ring that will make your eyes bleed, Superfights seems like a parody at times. All this adds up to a completely off-beat vibe which I find absolutely charming.
Superfights could have been relegated to a niche flick for trash enthusiasts, but when the first fight starts it’s immediately obvious where all the creative energy of Leung and his team went. He assembled some incredible martial arts talents and unleashed an avalanche of MMA madness onto unsuspecting DTV audiences! His talent for staging spectacular fight sequences is visible in every scene, and Leung can credit himself with bringing the best elements of Hong Kong style action to US cinema with Superfights.
The choreography is fast, complex and totally crazy! Every fight is delivered with a stunning intensity, spinning and jump kicks are delivered every few seconds. The occasional wire work is used effectively, and there’s plenty of smashed furniture and windows. The fights are often filmed with long uninterrupted takes, also a first outside of Asia back in the days. And there’s hardly any opportunity to take a breath as the plot developments thankfully are kept brief, and the fights just keep coming. I can’t praise enough what is going on in this film, you must see it for yourself!
Almost all characters are portrayed by martial artists that are not professional actors, so any flaws in the dramatic arts department are instantly forgiven. Brandon Gaines’ performance as Jack is pretty awesome on every level, though. He radiates so much innocent charm that all his scenes are kind of adorable, and in the fight scenes he makes the screen explode. Superfights was the only film he ever made, and he would eventually become a Rabbi who, to quote from the website of his congregation: “uses his vast martial arts skills and expertise in Chinese medicine and the natural sciences to weave ancient knowledge with the most modern scientific thought”. I did not make this up.
Tony Leung’s squirrelly opus could have been a major classic if it wasn’t so schizophrenic, thanks to the clash of perfect action sequences with total cheesiness outside of them. It’s still great fun from the first to the last minute, and an absolute must-watch for every martial arts enthusiast. If you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, just watch any fight scene from Superfights, and you’ll be energized like the Duracell bunny!
UAMC reviews some of the best action classics from the ultimate legend.
It’s the turn of a new year, so what better time to start a journey through John Carpenter’s filmography? In this series, we’ll be watching all of the director’s action movies on a weekly basis, starting with Assault on Precinct 13 next Friday.
The schedule will look like this:
Jan. 21: Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
Jan. 28: Escape from New York (1981)
Feb. 4: Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
Feb. 11: They Live (1988)
Feb. 18: Escape from L.A. (1996)
Each Friday, my thoughts on the film will be posted to the site. We’ll talk about the performances, the themes, and of course, all of the action. So finish that bubblegum, and get ready for the ride!
In the meantime, if you’re looking for a brief background on Carpenter’s career and influence in action cinema, we have previously written about some other ultimate action John Carpenter films here!
Ranking the best (and most memorable) evil corporations from ultimate action movies.
Corrupt corporations and their sinister CEOs make for perfect movie villains. While almost all corporations in films are fictional, we wouldn’t be able to relate to their machinations without the numerous scandals and dubious practices of many real-life companies. In the action genre, the negative aspects of corporate governance are often pushed completely over the top, especially in dystopic settings where their power permeates every aspect of public and political life. In this article we present the top 10 evil corporations we love to hate. Weapons manufacturers, IT giants and oil companies, here come the worst of the worst!
10) Royalton Industries (Speed Racer)
The Wachowski’s Speed Racer is a colorful and action-packed story about a young racer and his journey to winning the legendary Casa Cristo 5000 Race. It is also the romantic tale of a small family business that takes it up against a corporation with seemingly infinite power. Speed Racer is the greatest racing talent of his generation, and the cunning CEO of Royalton Industries wants to have him on his team. He invites the Racer family to his show off his lavish car workshop and training facilities for the drivers. After Speed declines his offer, Royalton leaves no stone unturned on and off the race track to stop Speed Racer from winning, and even sends corporate ninjas after him!
Tron still stands as the best action movie Disney has ever produced, a visually unique and action-packed roller coaster ride. The next great kid-friendly action film on our list also raises the awareness for children to be skeptical towards the activities of large IT corporations in a most entertaining way. Programmer Kevin Flynn got cheated by his former colleague Ed Dillinger, and left his company, technology corporation ENCOM, in frustration. Dillinger has since risen through the ranks, and is overseeing the Master Control Program (MCP), a ground-breaking artificial intelligence. In this particular scene he disciplines one of his employees complaining about the MCP (while Flynn and his friends are breaking into the building), and one minute later is getting blackmailed by his AI that wants to take over the world.
Weapon corporations running a secret research project with the intent on creating human supersoldiers for profit are a perfect archenemy for any movie. The pilot trial of the Hard Man program ends in a deadly catastrophe, and Hayden Cale is instated as new CEO of the company to clean up the mess of her predecessor. After getting punched in the face by angry demonstrators on her first day of work, her first board meeting becomes a showdown with crooked executives that thankfully are ripped apart later in the film by the titular character.
The Resident Evil saga was director Paul W.S. Anderson’s attempt to find out how many times one can make the same film over and over until the audience gets fed up (the answer is six times). But every new installment revealed a bit more about the monstrous machinations of the Umbrella Corporation, that unleashed a zombie plague on the world. If this happens by accident, it’s bad enough, but a company that deliberately wants to end the world is a whole new level of evilness. In the sixth installment of the franchise, Umbrella’s CEO gives a convincing rundown of the countless problems the world faces, with the disruptive solution: annihilation of humanity!
Paul Verhoeven’s mind-bending adaptation of a classic Philip K. Dick story is one of the ultimate masterpieces of Sci-Fi action cinema. The colonized Mars is an archetypal dystopic society run by the heinous Vilos Cohaagen. One of his companies, Rekall, provides memory implants for people bored with their life. Douglas Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is one of them, and decides for the fake memory of a secret agent. From that point on, he finds himself caught in a violent conspiracy, and ends up supporting a rebel insurgency on Mars. After getting caught by Cohaagen’s goons, his “true” identity is revealed.
District 9 is a powerful metaphor on human cruelty and xenophobia in general, and the South African apartheid regime in particular. As if all this wasn’t grim enough, we’re also introduced to one of the most callous corporations to ever make it into a film, weapons manufacturer Multinational United (MNU). MNU bureaucrat Wikus van de Merve is tasked with relocating stranded aliens to a concentration camp. After an accident he undergoes a grotesque transformation and is quarantined. Merwe’s father-in-law and managing director of MNU, Piet Smit agrees to have Merwe’s DNA and body parts harvested for development of advanced weapon technologies, while Merwe is strapped to a table hearing every word Smit says!
Steven Seagal’s plea for Native American’s rights and preservation of wildlife, and his uncompromising condemnation of big oil corporations is a truly unique experience. Firefighter Howard Taft has regularly been cleaning up the mess of Aegis Oil corporation’s environmental disasters in Alaska. After asking too many questions, he gets almost killed by CEO Michael Jennings’ goons, and returns with a thirst for vengeance. Michael Caine is easily the most evil CEO on this list with a terrific overacting, who has his reckoning coming big time by the “macho man with a code of honor”.
Maybe not an evil corporation by intention, but Cyberdyne’s clandestine development of Skynet after salvaging remains of the T-800 turned out to be the biggest mistake in the history of mankind. No matter who and in what timeline was trying to prevent Skynet from gaining artificial consciousness, all efforts were doomed to fail as soon as the next installment of the franchise came out. In the Terminator 2 timeline, we get to witness the spectacular attempt of Sarah Connor and the now benevolent T-800 to prevent Judgment Day from happening by breaking into the Cyberdyne building and destroying the AI lab.
2) Weyland-Yutani (Alien Franchise)
If you’ve maximized your profits on earth, in the future, there’s a whole universe full of resources waiting to be depleted. This is the maxim of the Weyland-Yutani corporation that runs mining operations on extraterrestrial colonies with a complete disregard for the life of its employees. Being the sole survivor of the Nostromo’s crew in the first Alien film, Ellen Ripley’s emotional rapport to Weyland-Yutani in James Cameron’s Aliens turns into a tribunal exerted on her by soulless corporate suits, who are already secretly plotting how to exploit the Xenomorph’s traits for technology development.
The best action movie of all time also features the most ruthless fictional corporation of all time, Omni Consumer Products (OCP). OCP is a giant kraken that controls all aspects of public life, and the last step in the grand vision of it’s CEO’s (only known as The Old Man) is the conversion of Detroit into Delta City, a sprawling new municipality owned and run by OCP. The “only” problem is the rampant crime in Detroit that has developed as a result of OCP’s malignant anarcho-capitalism. Vice-president Dick Jones has the solution, but the presentation of his “peacekeeping machine” ED-209 in front of the executive board does not go as planned. Junior executive Bob Morton grabs the opportunity that presents itself after the disaster to advertise his Robocop program with the CEO.
