Parker

(2013, US, Incentive Filmed Entertainment/Sierra Pictures/Sidney Kimmel Entertainment)

Dir. Taylor Hackford; Pro. Les Alexander, Steven Chasman, Taylor Hackford, Sidney Kimmel, Jonathan Mitchell; Scr. John J. McLaughlin; Cast Jason Statham, Jennifer Lopez, Michael Chiklis, Wendell Pierce, Clifton Collins Jr., Emma Booth, Nick Nolte, Daniel Bernhardt.

118 min.

Standard Statham head cracker bolstered by a decent cast and a steady pulse. He plays Parker, a crim’ with a conscience who will shoot a guy in the kneecaps and then call for an ambulance. When a crack team of hastily assembled thieves double cross him after a bank heist in Texas, he’s shot and left for dead. But Parker survives, jetting to Florida to seek revenge and thwarting the team’s next target – a jewellery auction worth several million. Parker’s morals extend to his long suffering girlfriend, as he somehow resists the rather obvious charms of real estate agent JLo who ends up assisting him on his rampage. Nick Nolte also appears as a well connected father in law – an old time crook with vague mafia connections who talks like he’s passing a kidney stone. The brief violence is consistent with The Stath’s visceral track record; the most punishing being a knife brawl with Daniel Berhardt in a Palm Beach mansion in which the pugilists smash through every conceivable interior hazard in a matter of minutes. Statham’s grizzled charm carries the film and further highlights the Brit’s acceptance from the mainstream Hollywood machine.

Death Dimension

(1978, US, Spectacular Film Productions)

Dir. Al Adamson; Pro. Harry Hope; Scr. Harry Hope; Cast Jim Kelly, Harold Sakata, George Lazenby, Terry Moore, Aldo Ray.

90 min.

Perhaps if Jim Kelly hadn’t taken so many bad decisions then maybe his action movie career may have progressed further into the 1980s and the era of the big guns. Kelly certainly had the right attitude, the good looks and the martial arts skills to make him a big star. If he had successfully avoided no brain turkeys like this one, then maybe his story would have been very different indeed.

As usual he makes the best out of a bad situation, playing a police detective alongside a Bruce Lee wannabe who travels to Los Angeles to bring to justice a heartless pimp called The Pig (played by Odd Job) who plans to sell a weather control device to terrorists, or something. The instructions for the device are bizarrely kept on a microchip embedded in the head of its creator’s student, who is kidnapped by the bad guy in an attempt to prompt a lashing from Kelly’s kung fu chops.

Adamson directs with all the excitement of a hernia. He drives this laborious chore at such an incredibly slow pace it is no wonder why so many of the cast are falling asleep. And quite what George Lazenby is doing in this is anybody’s guess.

Available in all bargain bins.

AKA: Black Eliminator; Freeze Bomb; Icy Death; The Kill Factor

Warrior King

(2005, Thailand, Sahamongkol Film Co./Baa-Ram-Ewe/Golden Network Asia Ltd./TF1 Films Productions)

Dir. Prachya Pinkaew; Pro. Prachya Pinkaew, Sukanya Vongsthapat; Scr. Napalee, Piyaros Thongdee, Joe Wannapin, Kongdej Jaturanrasamee; Action Dir. Panna Rittikrai, Tony Jaa; Cast Tony Jaa, Petchtai Wongkamlao, Bongkoj Khongmalai, Xing Jing, Nathan Jones, Johnny Nguyen, Lateef Crowder.

108 min.

Tony Jaa cements his standing as the best thing in modern martial arts cinema with this follow up to Ong-Bak which treads a similar narrative path, offering more in the way of Muay Thai madness.

Jaa returns as another naïve but enlightened country boy who travels to Australia to retrieve a stolen elephant (honestly) which has been nabbed by Chinese poachers and thrown on the barby. Jaa doesn’t much care for this, so with the resonating cry of, “You killed my elephant!” he unleashes hell’s fury with his trademark knee and elbow strikes.

Pinkaew directs with an almost fetishist enthusiasm for his leading man’s athletic capabilities. Therefore, the film sees Thailand’s proudest export escalate walls in lightening quick time in repeats of Ong-Bak’s breathtaking chase scenes. This sequence is beaten only by a full five minute Steadicam routine in which Jaa maims an entire building’s worth of fighters in a single take, culminating in a mass of bone-breaking which takes the film’s pain threshold to wince-inducing levels.

Tony also finds time to square off with a trio of foreign opponents, including a high-flying Capoeria fighter and the burly Nathan Jones. Jaa is pretty much indestructible – a visceral amalgamation of Bruce Lee‘s intensity and Jackie Chan‘s athletics – and alongside Ong-Bak he has driven two of the most breathtaking martial arts films ever made, all despite an unfortunate penchant for neckerchiefs.

AKA: Honour of the Dragon; The Protector; Revenge of the Warrior; Thai Dragon; Tom Yum Goong

Driven to Kill

(2009, US, Echo Bridge Entertainment/Insight Film Studios/Steamroller Productions/Ruslan Productions)

Dir. Jeff King; Pro. Kirk Shaw; Scr. Mark James; Cast Steven Seagal, Mike Dopud, Igor Jijikine, Robert Wisden, Inna Korobkina.

98 min.

Gang warfare and bad accents adorn this routine Seagal thumper. He plays a retired Russian mafia enforcer now crime writer who returns home to visit his estranged daughter and her fiance, the son of Seagal’s crime nemesis. The daughter’s attacked leaving Seagal to pick up the pieces, and then stab those pieces into peoples eyes and necks. The police seem perfectly happy to let Seagal go on a murderous rampage, teaming with the fiance to kill the crooks. Forcing a Russian inflection on his increasingly low and monotone growl means you need to have your ear next to the speaker to understand a single word Seagal says in this.

The Shepherd: Border Patrol

(2008, US, Sony Pictures/Stage 6 Films)

Dir. Isaac Florentine; Pro. Moshe Diamant, Gilbert Dumontet; Scr. Joe Gayton, Cade Courtley; Action Dir. J.J. Perry; Cast Jean-Claude Van Damme, Stephen Lord, Natalie J. Robb, Gary McDonald, Daniel Perrone.

95 min.

Now here’s a pretty terrible title for a Van Damme film. He stalks this one with the resigned look of a guy who has already made this movie a dozen times before. The cheap, straight to video feel makes it seem like the filmmakers haven’t watched a film for at least 15 years. Luckily Van Damme made JCVD after this, causing a career renaissance which would have seemed all but impossible at this stage in his career.

He plays a despondent New Orleans cop who joins the New Mexico border patrol to take on the drug cartels, with a ball-busting sergeant and a pet rabbit for company. The main culprits are a disillusioned troop of army-trained US mercenaries who use their Afghan contacts to control the shipment of heroin into the country. They’re bomb nuts and have experience dealing with jihadists, but you’ll find more political clout on a cereal box than you will here.

Undisputed II director Florentine sparks life into the fight scenes with great attention to stunt work and flashy kicks, particularly from Scott Adkins, whose anticipated fight with Van Damme at the end is the only excitement in a rather tired final act.

Invisible Target

(2007, HK, Universe Films/Sil-Metropole Organisation/Guangzhou Ying Ming Media Co.)

Dir. Benny Chan Muk-sing; Pro. Benny Chan Muk-sing, Daniel Siu-ming; Scr. Benny Chan Muk-sing, Ling Chi-man, Melody Lui Si-lam; Action Dir. Nicky Li Chung-chi; Cast Nicholas Tse Ting-fung, Shawn Yue Man-lok, Jaycee Chan Cho-ming, Jacky Wu Jing, Mark Cheng Ho-nam, Andy On Chi-kit, Dominic Lam Ka-wah.

130 min.

Ballistic Benny Chan cop movie which contrives to showcase a trio of hot HK talent: Nicholas Tse, Shawn Yue and Jaycee Chan, son of Jackie, in his first meaty role. Jackie Chan‘s shadow looms large over the film, as long time collaborator Benny Chan fashions out a slick, contemporary and overly long action film in keeping with his previous Chan actioners (New Police Story, Robin-B-Hood) with slight moments of charm which don’t go unnoticed. Much of this resides with Jaycee who looks remarkably like his father in a baby-faced role as a young rookie traffic cop administering justice the professional way. He lives a solitary, somewhat nerdy life with an endearing grandmother who casts whimsical aspersions towards his sexuality, becoming embroiled in a terrorist plot when his missing brother is rumoured to have ties with the bad guys.

Nicholas Tse is the brooding rogue officer who prefers his law enforcement with a bit more brio. A withdrawn Shawn Yue is nursing the effects of a murdered fiance who was blown to bobbins whilst shopping for engagement rings during a Heat-style standoff between the crooks and police at a bank raid. The three form a Wizard of Oz-esque trinity seeking redemption in a cliche ridden nest of subplots, bonding via a big knife fight at a Chinese arcade before dressing each other’s wounds back at Jaycee’s place.

They are targeted by the menacing Wu Jing and his stylish gang of renegade mercenaries, aided by bent cops in the HK police force, none of which you haven’t seen a million times before. But Benny Chan’s organic approach to the pugilism brings an old fashioned excitement, even if the more obvious uses of wires remove from the film’s realism. Jaycee doesn’t fight much but he’s a convincing screen presence, and the movie manages to remind viewers just why Hong Kong is still very good at producing this kind of mayhem.

Rage and Honor II: Hostile Takeover

(1992, US, IRS Media)

Dir. Guy Norris; Pro. Donald Paul Pemrick, Kevin Reidy; Scr. Steven Reich, Louis Sun; Cast Cynthia Rothrock, Richard Norton, Patrick Muldoon, Frans Tumbuan, Ron Vreeken.

98 min.

One of the better Rothrock–Norton outings – the so-called Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers of martial arts movies – which forms the apex of their onscreen partnership. Australian stunt coordinator and director Guy Norris plays to their individual strengths, offering them the mutual respect they deserve. He delivers straight and stocky B-movie action with a no frills approach, but it’s still a damn sight more convincing than the first film, even if this is the kind of movie where characters think out loud and brainy people wear glasses.

Rothrock returns as Kris Fairchild, a governmental Special Ops enforcer sent undercover in Jakarta to root out shady deals at the city bank. The manager has been laundering cash for top crim’ Buntao (Tunbuan) until a new, mysterious super crook calling himself Dazzo starts to muscle in on his turf, threatening to jeopardise a highly lucrative diamond deal.

Norton reprises Preston Michaels as an obligatory Australian bartender and kickboxing instructor now conveniently residing in Indonesia after retiring from the force, who reunites with Kris via new pupil Tommy (Starship Troopers‘ Muldoon) before helping with her investigations.

The training sequences between Norton and Muldoon are the most genuine parts of the film and stand out for their authenticity and as a showcase for Norton’s physical dominance, making the subsequent cartoon fisticuffs even more hokey in comparison. But this is a sturdy double header for both leads and a pleasingly innocuous slice of violence not without its own idiotic charm.

Four Robbers

(1987, HK)

Dir. Addy Sung Gam-loi; Scr. Addy Sung Gam-loi; Action Dir. Dai Sai-aan, Lau Jun-fai; Cast Lee Wing-saan, Lau Jun-fai, Ng Hong-sang, Shum Wai, Ku Feng.

86 min.

Cheap Hong Kong action film which rides the late 80s heroic bloodshed wave and rips off (mainly) films like A Better Tomorrow and City on Fire, only without any of the same quality. It starts off a bit like Scarface with a posse of four immigrant Mainland Chinese settling in HK and resorting to a life of crime, ruffling feathers among the local triads and the cops. The triads ship the boys over to Thailand to honour a drug deal but the local enforcement officers soon clock their whereabouts and an inevitable pursuit ensues. There’s nothing here particularly interesting, other than the name of the triad kingpin, who is called Well Hung.

AKA: Gangsters Express

Wake of Death

(2004, US/Germany, Bauer Martinez Studios/UKFS/Frame Werk Produktion)

Dir. Philippe Martinez; Pro. Alan Latham, Philippe Martinez, Stéphanie Martinez, Stanley Roup; Scr. Mick Davis, Laurent Fellous, Philippe Martinez; Cast Jean-Claude Van Damme, Simon Yam Tat-wah, Philip Tan, Valerie Tian, Tony Schiena.

90 min.

Discouragingly formulaic action drama directed for the most part like a perfume commercial – all slow motion, detached voiceover and operatic intention. The idea is to add weight to a dud Van Damme vehicle, but it actually sucks the life from it. Van Damme is on autopilot as a doting family man and nightclub owner with a vague heroic or criminal background (it’s never properly explained) who calls on some heavily militarised buddies to help him avenge the death of his wife, killed at the hands of a Hong Kong triad kingpin played by Simon Yam. Yam had been making a lucrative sideline murdering women with a flick knife and smuggling heroin into the US through a Chinese people smuggling operation – cooperated by bent cops in the LA harbour patrol – until his young daughter escapes and boards the next boat to Van Damme’s house. The recycled story and irksome pretentiousness makes the film look and feel like something from another era. Original director Ringo Lam was wise to leave this one very early in development.

Pantyhose Hero

(1990, HK, Bojon Films)

Dir. Sammo Hung Kam-bo; Pro. Sammo Hung Kam-bo; Scr. Roy Szeto Cheuk-hon, Barry Wong Ping-yiu; Action Dir. Sammo Hung Kam-bo; Cast Sammo Hung Kam-bo, Alan Tam Wing-lun, Yam Wai-hung, Billy Ching Sau-yat, Joan Tong Lai-kau, Ridley Tsui Po-wah, Jaclyn Chu Wai-shan, James Tien Chun.

99 min.

The moment Sammo Hung’s career commercially nose-dived can be pinpointed to around the time of this homophobic crime caper. It’s a brash, pernicious film which signals a shift in Sammo’s comedy from a childlike innocence into something altogether quite mean. Perhaps, in the midst of a growing AIDS epidemic, the film is indicative of Hong Kong attitudes towards homosexuality in the 1980s – where sexual activity between same-sex partners was still a criminal offence – but I doubt it. Watching it in the 21st century is like being caught in some kind of grotesque and unsettling time vortex. It is reassuring to know audiences at the time thought the same.

As undercover cops infiltrating Hong Kong’s gay mafia, Sammo and Alan Tam undergo three days of intensive gay training, which involves working out who is the more feminine and practicing their camp walk. “There are three types of gays,” says their mentor Jaclyn Chu quite categorically, as if gay people are clearly defined by their bad habits and devious intentions. They are told to “cultivate the mentality of disliking girls” by way of training their gaydar, hitting the local bars for an uncomfortable series of pick up scenes. With Sammo’s sinister portrayal of what he clearly sees as a strange and seedy subculture, coupled with a few AIDS gags thrown in for good measure (always a great topic for humour), you may have to keep reminding yourself that this is a comedy.

However, Sammo’s action is faultless; sublimely choreographed and brutally performed, particularly a punishing finale with criminal kingpin Yam Wai-hung and his crazy kicks. The action scenes are visceral, edgy and genuinely exciting, but it was Sammo’s crude comedy which was proving to be out of step with the changing attitudes of the time.

AKA: Pantyhose Killer