Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has been an integral part of horror cinema. From the Edison Studio’s 1910 adaptation to Universal’s iconic films, Dr. Victor Frankenstein and his various creations have been featured in over 100 productions in the last century. With Guillermo del Toro announcing his work on a Frankenstein redux, it seems only fitting to check in on the Frankenstein monsters that were never fully brought to life. Question is, will del Toro succeed or end up adding to the list?
#20 – Willis O’Brien’s KING KONG VS. FRANKENSTEIN
In 1960, stop-motion animator extraordinaire Willis O’Brien came up with the idea for a second sequel to KING KONG (1933) that would feature the giant ape taking on a huge version of Frankenstein’s monster. The creature would have been created by Frankenstein’s grandson and the action set in modern day San Francisco. O’Brien even did some preliminary sketches to map out the size of the title beasts (see below). The project was scripted by George (FRANKENSTEIN 1970) Worthing Yates and here is where things get complicated. First, the title was changed to KING KONG VS. PROMETHEUS to avoid potential lawsuits with Universal studios. The project was then shopped around and the studio that bought it was Japan’s Toho Film Studios, home of Godzilla. Initially they had plans to change it to GODZILLA VS. FRANKENSTEIN, but the project then morphed into KING KONG VS. GODZILLA (1962). But the Japanese weren’t done yet with the Frankenstein monster as Toho eventually also made FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD (aka FRANKENSTEIN VS. BARAGON; 1965), which featured a Godzilla-size monster tearing it up. For more on the film's potential plot, check out Toho Kingdom's write-up.
#21 – Dario Argento’s FRANKENSTEIN
Following the success of his animal trilogy, Italian director Dario Argento tried to mount a Frankenstein adaptation. Little is know about the project, but here is some info offered by in the Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds book on Argento:
Luigi Cozzi, who co-wrote the screenplay with Argento, says: “He wanted to take a very classical approach, but to set the story in pre-Nazi Germany, during the Weimar Republic. The Frankenstein monster would have been kind of a symbol of the birth of Nazism. We had trouble with the Americans there [specifically Universal Pictures] – they said Frankenstein was dead, and anyway, no one who wanted to see a horror movie cared about politics.” Packaged with Timothy Dalton (now James Bond) in the lead, the project was also offered to Hammer with no luck.
Prime Dario Argento doing Frankenstein with Royal Shakespeare Company era Timothy Dalton as Dr. Frankenstein? Sign me up! Sadly, it never got made but with Argento remaking DRACULA, who knows what the future holds?
#22 – David Cronenberg’s FRANKENSTEIN
Fresh off the success of SCANNERS (1981), David Cronenberg was announced to be developing his own take on the Frankenstein mythos. According to this interview with Cronenberg at Greencine, there wasn’t really much to it other than the title. Producer Pierre David mentioned the idea to Cronenberg and he said, “Sounds good to me” even though he said he had no interest in making it. David apparently took him at his word and ran ads in Variety announcing the project. Instead, Cronenberg moved away from David’s Filmplan International and made VIDEODROME (1983) – a film infused with a bit of Frankenstein itself – instead. Thank you Dave!
And here is a little blurb from Fangoria about the death of Cronenberg's FRANKENSTEIN project (with a bonus "Never Got Made" about a cool sounding anthology):
#23 – George Romero’s FRANKENSTEIN
Like Cronenberg, Romero was fresh off the biggest financial hit of his career with CREEPSHOW (1982) when a potential Frankenstein adaptation was announced. Laurel Entertainment seemed to have a “throw it all at the wall” approach with their projects and announced at least 5 Romero directed projects in the fall of 1982. Titles including this, COPPERHEAD, CREEPSHOW 2, and Romero’s adaptations of Stephen King’s THE STAND and PET SEMATARY. None of the projects got made by Romero (although he did provide the screenplay for CREEPSHOW 2). Anyway, here is the artwork they ran for Romero’s attempt:
Since ol’ George is still churning out flicks, this is still something I’d like to see him tackle. I mean, anything…ANYTHING to get him to stop making those damn zombie flicks.
One of the side effects of being a Video Junkie is that you always have more movies than you can watch. It is sad, but an inevitable truth. Currently I have somewhere in the range of 500 unwatched DVDs and I’m sure just as many VHS titles. This endless supply of orbital medicine gives me plenty of opportunity to play Video Junkie’s Video Roulette. This basically involves randomly selecting an evening’s night of great entertainment (or torture) out of a box while an Asian guy yells, “Mao!” at me. Video Roulette has led me down some strange paths before, but what I grabbed last night was really odd. Not to be confused with the Joe Pesci/NJ mob flick of the same name that haunts dollar bins everywhere, DEATH COLLECTOR is truly a one of a kind flick.
In the near future, the town of Hartford City is controlled by a ruthless guy named Hawk (Loren Blackwell). The law is represented by the Holt brothers, Jack and Wade. Jack (Frank Stewart) is the serious one who wants to carry on the family tradition, whereas Wade (Daniel Chapman) has dreams of being a singing cowboy. Problems erupt when Wade awkwardly seduces Hawk’s squeeze Annie (Ruth Collins) and Jack is fatally shot in the chaos. “Here’s a life insurance policy for $10,000. It’s all I got,” says Jack as he lies dying (really!). But little brother Wade has revenge on his mind and heads to Hawk’s corporate headquarters for, uh, revenge. He isn't very good at it apparently because he confronts Hawk, but his gun is out of bullets. D’oh!
What...the...hell? I'm not sure how films like this exist. Shot entirely in Connecticut, DEATH COLLECTOR plays out like someone saw Walter Hill's STREETS OF FIRE and said, "I can do that" with a budget of $50,000. Seriously, like Hill’s film or Alan Rudolph’s TROUBLE IN MIND (1985), this takes place in some kind of futuristic retro land. Folks walk through rock quarries (the future!) in cowboy hats and boots, yet everyone drives around in 1950s cars. You can’t fault this low budget production for not having ambition. And director Tom Gniazdowski (aka Tom Garrett) ain't done yet. No, he adds bizarre little quirks like main villain Hawk being obsessed with bowling. How obsessed? He kills a guy who makes him 5 minutes late to the lanes. There is an entire scene in the bowling alley where Hawk is giving Annie some advice on how to throw the ball. Naturally, she sucks at it and it allows for some risible dialogue where Hawk says, “You did it, babe. You became the ball. And you ended up right in the gutter where you belong.” And this isn’t even the oddest line from scripter John McLaughlin. Later in the film Annie is talking to Wade about killing Hawk and says, “Don't try setting him on fire either. I found out the hard way, he's just not flammable.” To quote the great Jack Burton, “I don’t even know what the hell that means!”
I'm not sure this is even a good movie, but it was oddly compelling and had me hooked for an entire viewing (and if you know me, that is quite a feat). Of course, there are the low budget aspects that make it entertaining too. One thing I loved was during Wade’s first performance, two audience members shown are an old guy and a beefcake shirtless dude playing cards. After Wade spends 5 years in prison, he heads back to the same bar and guess who is in the background? The old guy and the buff dude! That must have been one hell of a card game…or sloppy filmmaking.
This is one of those kind of movies where the lead guy need a shotgun and there just happens to be one on the wall. I also love that in the future that Double Dragon and After Burner are still popular in arcades. And there is a country-esque guitar theme that is played ad nausem that you will be humming it by film’s end. Lead Chapman looks kind of like really skinny Dolph Lundgren and sings his own songs with some challenging lyrics ("You make the breakfast...I make the bed") in this one. He was also featured in PHILADELPHIA (1993) as a guy who tells his story in a clinic (where he looked much worse) and he passed away from AIDS in 1994. Ruth Collins is good as the bimbo love interest, but doesn’t do any nudity. I only mention this because she was more than happy to pop her top in DOOM ASYLUM (1987). Also look for splatterpunk authors Skipp and Spector in a one scene cameo. Like I said, all of this makes the film hypnotic and kept me watching the screen from beginning to end. The film was originally released on the RaeDon home video label. But you can find it easily in vol. 1 of Media Blasters RareFlix sets alongside the entertaining THE DISTURBANCE (1990) and POSED FOR MURDER (1989).
Maybe it was something in the L.A. water, but horror movies set in prison became all the rage in the late 80s. The market was flooded with titles such as DEATH ROW DINER (1988), DESTROYER (1988), PRISON (1988), SLAUGHTERHOUSE ROCK (1988), and TERROR AT ALCATRAZ (1986). Even slasher flicks like THE HORROR SHOW (1989) and SHOCKER (1989) couldn’t resist throwing in some ol’ electric chair excitement. I’m shocked 80s Hollywood never got us a horror prison movie set underwater! Two of the lesser entries in this subgenre are THE CHAIR (1988) and DEATH HOUSE (1988).
Warden Edward Dwyer (Paul Benedict, the doorman from THE JEFFERSONS) re-opens a dilapidated prison with the help some trustee inmates (including Brad Greenquist and Stephen Geoffreys). Along for the ride are psychologist Dr. Langer (James Coco) and his assistant Lisa (Trini Alvarado), who try to help the prisoners with some 80s "I'm okay, you're okay" therapy. Of course, this prison has - I hope you have already guessed - a history and there is a ghost out for revenge. Seems some rowdy prisoners executed the former warden several years before and Dwyer, a guard at the time, failed to intervene. Naturally, this means lots of innocent (and presumed innocent) folks get chopped and zapped before the warden gets his comeuppance.
Believe it or not, this is one of the few flicks produced by Angelika Films, a production company from the folks who founded NYC's famous Angelika Film Center (same logo and everything). For a group known for having its finger on the indie film pulse, they sure didn't know crap about making a viable commercial product. Actually, husband and wife industrial filmmakers Waldermar Korzenioswsky and Carolyn Swartz are mostly to blame here as they never make it horrific enough, unless you count their terrible attempts at comedy and the ill-fitting piano score and opening jazz tune. Just what the hell was the film supposed to be? And how can you waste such a good location and actors? The film ends with an on screen dedication reading "For Jimmy" as lead Coco died during filming. Poor Jimmy (in both regards).
The many stages of THE CHAIR grief:
THE CHAIR is one of those classic examples of my growth period as a teen when I learned that movies aren’t necessarily as good as the stills run in Fangoria to promote the film. I remember being impressed by the blue-hued pics of the first warden being fried with his skin bubbling as a result. Then you have Stephen Geoffreys in the mix. “Damn, that’s Evil Ed,” thought my fourteen year old brain, “He is gonna be awesome as a wacko prisoner. And James Coco, he is a respectable actor, right?” So with visions of Renny Harlin’s PRISON dancing in my head, I expected a dark prison ghost revenge tale. What I got instead was sentenced to my own video execution with a film that can’t decide if it is a comedy, drama, or horror film.
If heightened expectations were one of the reasons for my disappointment in THE CHAIR, they may be the sole reason for why my head hangs in my hands after watching John Saxon’s DEATH HOUSE. Originally profiled in Gorezone magazine, this one got built up in my brain by a certain mindset that was forever exorcised from my mind after I saw Bruce Campbell direct movies. “John Saxon is directing!?! He has worked with masters of horror like Wes Craven and Bob Clark. And tons of Italians! Surely he must have picked up something from them over the years,” rationalized my naïve 80s brain once again. And the plot sounded awesome: the Government was trying out an experimental serum on prisoners that makes them go berserk. “Wow, it will be like RE-ANIMATOR in prison,” said Will’s optimistic mind. Well, I had to wait much longer to catch this bad boy (20 years) and the only common ground it shares with Stuart Gordon’s classic is that it is in focus.
Framed by mafia boss Vic Moretti (Anthony Franciosa), Derek Keillor (Dennis Cole) ends up on death row, right alongside the mob boss' brother Frankie (Frank Sarcinello Jr.). But this is the least of Derek's problems as rogue government agent (and mob stoolie) Col. Burgess (John Saxon) is using the prison as a testing ground for a new experimental super-virus. Soon Keillor’s sole prison friend is executed and he turns into a rage filled zombie that causes a prison riot to break out. This doesn’t fare well for visiting TV reporter Tanya (Tane McClure), who just happens to also be a former biochemist (really!). And wouldn’t you know it, today just happens to be the day Warden Hagan (Alex Courtney) brought his family to visit.
In the end, DEATH HOUSE is a total mess that is still an oddly watchable mess. According to director Fred Olen Ray, Saxon fell behind schedule rather quickly and he was brought on to help move the project along. Perhaps sensing the film needed some extra umph, Olen Ray’s Retromedia released this on DVD as ZOMBIE DEATH HOUSE with the title addition not even trying to look like it wasn’t meant to be there. As for my childhood delusions, I finally got my “RE-ANIMATOR in prison” with BEYOND RE-ANIMATOR (2003). Guess what? It sucked. But that didn’t stop my stumbling brain from thinking at the time, “Damn, RE-ANIMATOR in a prison? This is gonna be awesome!”
After Filipino legend Cirio H. Santiago’s first post-apocalypse epic STRYKER (1983) did bang-up box-office of about 1.7 million in the US (which is easily 20 times the film’s budget), Santiago decided to stryke again (sorry, they can’t all be gems) with the quasi-sequel-ish, semi-remake-ish, “big” budget WHEELS OF FIRE!
Utilizing some of the same costumes and err… sets (can rock quarries and sand-dunes be construed as sets?), this time Santiago goes balls-freakin-out with the suped-up cars, post-nuke motorcycles (one has plastic devil forks mounted on the front - sweeeeet) and serious military hardware. You know you are in for a bigger event when the credits are splashy, loud and sport a fantastic, adrenaline-pumping, Brian May-inspired score by none-other than genre fave Christopher Young (back when he was just "Chris")!
A leather-clad wasteland wanderer driving a matte-black muscle-car named Trace (Gary Watkins, who bears a rather freakishly uncanny resemblance to Gerard Butler) decides to visit a nomad group so he can visit his sister Arlie (1982 Playboy Playmate Lynda Wiesmeier). Arlie has shacked up with another two-bit loser, Bo, who has bet her car keys in a steel pipe fight in the circled square. When he is about to be killed by the ringer that he eventually fights, Trace steps in a lays down a whuppin’ saving sis’ car. This pisses off the local wasteland chapter of a badass gang and the next thing you know, the tires are burnin', the engines are roarin' and the chase is on!
Headed up by the villainous Scourge (Joe Mari Avellana of CAGED FURY [1983] and BLOODFIST [1989], doing his best James Earl Jones impersonation), black cars tear up the roads, motorcycles jump off of dunes, and cars blow up for no reason after they fly off cliffs, and this is all in the first 15 minutes! At one point Trace plays possum and Scourge’s aviator-wearing, cigar-chewing henchman, Skag, yells at the rest of the gang “we got him where we want him, let’s go assholes!” only to find themselves running straight into Trace’s vehicle-mounted flamethrower! Meanwhile, Arlie and Bo decide this is the perfect time to start making out like a couple of high-schooler's on a prom date and are promptly captured by Scourge’s men. Bo shows that big brother was right about sis' crappy taste in men and without missing a beat yelps that Skag should take the girl and the car and let him join the gang. Skag agrees, but on the condition that he "survives the initiation". Suddenly, Bo’s pants are down and he’s being chased through the desert, dragged behind a jeep and finally left for dead. Damn man, what happened to the pledge paddle?
Arlie isn’t treated much better as the bikers rip-off her top and tie her to the hood of their car, in a scene surprisingly similar to the infamous sequence in the Australian film FAIR GAME (1986). Scourge is pleased with his catch and remarks that she is a “good looking piece” to which Arlie retorts “too good for you, greasball! I'm not dogfood!” Trace, like his name implies, spends an extraordinary amount of time finding people. At this point he finds Bo, still tied to the jeep, in time for Bo to tell them where the thugs took his sister before a very displeased Trace puts several bullets in him. Whether it's because he was putting him out of his misery or just because he was a duchebag is unclear. From here you’d think this would be a simple fetch and retrieve mission, right? Wrong amigo! Trace runs into a girl who has a hawk for a pet, a girl who hears what people think, subteranian, albino cannibals, a commune of “True Believers” who are way too cheerful to live, the cheapest rocket-ship ever, a corporate army, the dwarf from STRYKER, and more explosions!
Probably my favorite unintentionally amusing moment occurs when, after much bickering (“sexual tension” ala The Lockhorns) between Trace and hawk-girl Stinger (Laura Banks), they trip and fall on a sand dune and are supposed to fall over and roll down the hill together in storybook romance style. Unfortunately they fall, but fail to catapult themselves over the lip of the dune and Watkins has to stand up and pull Banks over the edge at which point they still don’t tumble, so they have to throw themselves down the dune where they finally come to a stop and Trace rips open her top cueing the romantic transparency shot complete with strings in the background! Nobody, I mean, nobody does post-apocalyptic romance like Cirio H. Santiago.
While the US Vestron version of the film seems to be complete, it does seem to be missing some graphic violence. The credits list "prosthetics", "make up" and "special effects" crew-members, but there are less than a handful of appliances used in the film. While STRYKER featured an array of cheap, grizzly demises, here all of the violence cuts away rather quickly, some of it is heard on the soundtrack while a cut-away is seen on screen. This is the usual MO of a censor at work. It's not damning evidence, but it does seem odd that Santiago ramped up the level of action and nudity exponentially, but cut back on the blood. That's just not adding up, but until I can find something with extra footage, it's going to have to do.
There are a couple of things that stand out in WHEELS OF FIRE, two of them belong to Lynda Wiesmeier who spends roughly 99.5% of her screen time topless and screaming, topless and struggling, or topless and spewing more trash talk than a possessed Linda Blair. When grabbed by Scourge’s goons she yells “Get your hands off of me you miserable faggots!” (considering what happened to her loser boyfriend, that, I guess, is not really much of a slur) and when they bring her to Scourge she screams “don’t touch me you miserable jerk-offs!” Combined with her rampant, jiggling nekkidity, Wiesmeier pretty much steals the show. Of course there are some people who have gotten astride their high-horses and condemned the film as “misogynist”. Presumably because Arlie is given nothing to do other than be manhandled, show off her mesmerizing set of… uh… “genetics” and cuss like a sailor. Pretentious, but that hasn't stopped some half-assed critics who, I'm guessing, expect everyone in genre films to be respectful of one another. It's interesting that Jack Hill and Johnathan Demme's trend-setting women's prison films such as THE BIG BIRD CAGE (1972) and CHAINED HEAT (1983) are given not only a pass, but a pat on the back for making movies about “strong women”, however, if a foreigner makes a film where an attractive western woman gets roughed up, the same cracker-barrel psychologists start screaming “misogyny” in a crowded room. Here Wiesmeier is simply an icon used to demonstrate the evilness of Scourge and his gang, in the exact same way the bad guys in DEATH WISH (1974) were shown to be deserving of their ultimate fate by raping and killing Paul Kersey's wife and daughter. In fact, I'd say if you were one of those people really looking for misogyny, there are much easier targets than this one. Not only is the rape implied and not shown, but both men and women are raped. Even more importantly, out of the five lead actors, three of them are female. Two of the three female leads are shown to be strong, capable and intelligent and all of them perform straight-up heroic acts. So much for being a misogynistic film!
Just because a film has misogynistic characters in it, doesn't make it a misogynistic film. If that were a legitimate train of logic then Walt Disney would be a misogynist (though I'm not saying he wasn't). How so? In SLEEPING BEAUTY (1959) the sorceress Maleficent hates the princess Aurora and tries to kill her, therefore she is a misogynistic character. As we now know, misogynistic character equals misogynistic film. The film was made by Walt Disney and this leads us, ipso facto, to the unmistakable conclusion that Walt Disney was a misogynist. Seriously, if you can’t find amusement from Alrie’s foul-mouthed hollering every time one of the bad guys so much as looks at her with lines like “hand’s off me, filthy pig! Stinkin’ fuckin’ goon!” and find her rather tame torment abhorrently misogynistic then obviously you need to stop watching genre films and go settle down with A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT or FIELD OF DREAMS. Though I might warn you, there is a little of bit of testy verbal conflict in FIELD OF DREAMS, so make sure there are no children in the room.
For those of you who are still reading... there are so many kids thinking up elaborate drinking games for lame TV shows with intricate rules and posting them on the net, I figured we should have an old school drinking game posted here.
THE WHEELS OF FIRE DRINKING GAME
- Take 2 Shots: Anytime Scorge’s henchman Skag yells “come on!”
- Take 1 Shot: Every time Lynda Wiesmeier is shown topless.
- Take 1 Shot: Every time there is an explosion.
What do you mean, “is that it?”! Damn man, this is an old school drinking game! Follow this and you’ll be hammered long before the end credits roll.
Looking to expand beyond their UK borders, Hammer Film Productions signed a co-production deal in the early 1970s with Asian powerhouse studio Shaw Brothers. While the deal was for three pictures, only two resulted from this merger. The first was THE LEGEND OF THE 7 GOLDEN VAMPIRES (1974), an attempt to merge Hammer’s popular Dracula saga with some Far East mysticism. A co-production in every sense of the word, the film saw Roy Ward Baker directing side-by-side with Shaw legend Chang Cheh (only Baker receives credit) and Hammer veteran Peter Cushing taking blows right next to Shaw superstar David Chiang. The second cinematic team up resulted in CALL HIM MR. SHATTER, an action-adventure attempt that abandons horror to move into James Bond espionage territory and exploit the Hong Kong locales.
SHATTER opens with scenes of riots in an unnamed African country (someone got a hold of some stock footage). Gen. Ansabi M’Goya (Yemi Ajibade), the country’s ruler, is shown arriving at a fancy hotel to get it on with his token white lady. While preparing for the lovin’, they are interrupted by a masked man who kills M’Goya with a fancy camera-gun hybrid. The masked man is Shatter (Stuart Whitman), an international hitman who quickly bolts to Hong Kong to collect his pay. Unfortunately, his contact Hans Leber (Anton Diffring), a powerful mafia connected bank head, refuses to pay up, even after given the photographic proof of the assassination.
SHATTER has all the elements required for an international espionage flick. You have assassination; double crosses; exotic locales; wanted documents; public negotiations; murder; chases; the “a stiff drink will solve my problems” ethic; and hot lovin’! The production obviously benefits from the location filming in Hong Kong and they aren’t afraid to get deep into those claustrophobic alleyways. Also, since it is a co-production with the Shaw Brothers, you get a bit more bang for your buck (or more dropkick for your Hong Kong dollar, if you willlll). They just do things differently there. For example, when someone tries to kill Shatter by launching an RPG into his hotel room, the filmmakers make sure to have a naked Chinese man in the room next door blasted out of his door. Why? Because they can do it, that’s why! And you have to love the two dummies that get thrown off a skyscraper during the film’s climax (see pic).
In addition, you get Peter Cushing as a stuffy UK government type who has to give the mother of all exposition speeches. I bet he got the script and was like, “Damn, I have to make all that sound good?” Naturally, it is a credit to his abilities that he does it and doesn’t have a heart attack in the process. There was a bit of behind-the-scenes drama as well as director Monte Hellman was replaced at some point during the production. Hammer exec Michael Carreras took over and receives sole on screen credit. Original helmer Hellman and Whitman both supplied an audio commentary on the film’s Roan laserdisc. According to reports on that commentary, Hellman says that 80% of the finished film is his work and Whitman admits to be a little more than shattered after hard nights out drinking in Hong Kong. Hey, he is just a method actor! I guess that explains why Ti Lung does all of the heavy hitting, eh?
And Ti Lung is definitely one of the reasons to see the film. Discovered by Shaw mega-star Jimmy Wang Yu, Ti Lung made his film debut in Chang Cheh’s Wang Yu sequel RETURN OF THE ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN (1968). Lung quickly became one of Cheh’s favorites and starred in a mind-boggling 20+ films in the 6 years between his introduction and SHATTER. Obviously the Shaws were hoping to bring their two stars (Lung and 7 GOLDEN VAMPIRES’ David Chiang were their biggest stars following Jimmy Wang Yu’s ugly departure from the company) to the international market. Unfortunately, they do Lung a bit of a disservice as the filmmakers get him to mimic Bruce Lee’s fighting style. Having trained in Wing Chun, Lung has no problem physically imitating Lee’s style but it doesn’t help him stand apart. For example, Lung doesn’t get a single scene to show off his fancy sword skills that made him popular in Shaw Brothers productions in the first place. His highlight in this film is a random martial arts tournament in a nightclub where he fights several foes (including Lo Wei) of different styles. This is also one of the few scenes where Whitman gets to throw down and, uh, lets just say he is better holding a gun to people’s necks.
Regardless of Whitman's lack of martial arts prowess, CALL HIM MR. SHATTER is a good time. If you are looking for some Bondian action with some martial arts mayhem, you can't go wrong here.
Like most kids growing up in the 70s and 80s, I was obsessed with martial arts movies. Kung fu, karate, tae kwon do, Chris Mitchum Fu…if you threw a kick, I was probably there watching it on video. This is why the fact that I bypassed BLOODFIGHT (aka FINAL FIGHT) on video all the time is truly bizarre. I remember seeing the Imperial VHS release with Bolo Yeung on the cover in stores. Perhaps I was just feeling elitist and didn’t want to support a BLOODSPORT knock off? Or maybe I was still reeling from the effects of Albert Pyun’s BLOODMATCH? In any case, I never watched the film until recently, thanks to the recommendation of my friend Dave aka “Bolo, Jr.”
Masahiro Kai (Yasuaki Kurata) won the World Championship of Free Fighting back in the late 1970s and can’t seem to get past his glory days, so much so that his drunken wife leaves him and he doesn’t notice. Always on the lookout for new students, he spots local gweilo tough guy John (Stuart Smith) and invites him to his gym. “Wow, I want to master that!” screams John when he watches Kai’s old footage (see pic). But John can’t break that rebel streak and he and his gang (the kind only HK movies can deliver) attack a young girl at a noodle shop and Ryu Tenmei (Simon Yam) comes to the rescue.
Masahiro is so impressed with Ryu, who was taught martial arts by his deceased father, that he asks him to join his school. Maybe this is why your school is failing, Masahiro? Because you only scout talent in back alley brawls? Anyway, Ryu refuses because he is on a basketball scholarship (bwhahahahaha!) at the local university, so Masahiro resorts to stalking Ryu. Really! Cut to a “cute” montage of Masahiro showing up everywhere Ryu goes, including public bathrooms. Creepy! Eventually John’s gang beats Ryu to a pulp so he literally crawls to Sensi Masahiro and begs him to take him on as a pupil. So what does Masahiro do? He refuses! Why you little tease! Cut to “cute” montage of Ryu showing up everywhere Masahiro goes, including public bathrooms.
Eventually Ryu is able to convince Masahiro to take him on and his training is good enough that he enters the World Championship of Free Fighting and breezes through to the finals where he faces the intimidating Chong Lee (Bolo Yeung). Chong Lee is a bit of a rebel as well since he is shown getting drunk backstage before his fight and eventually kills Ryu during the match. Whoops! This sends Masahiro on a bender that lasts two years (!) before WCFF rep John O’Brien (John Ladalski) shows up to offer the sloshed sensei a chance at revenge in a Killer vs. Victim’s Teacher showdown. Damn, is this the first time a master is avenging the death of his pupil? Anyway, Masahiro trains his ass off with John to get ready for the big fight. I wonder who wins and if there will be an amazing comeback?
Well, my 15-year-old Spidey video senses were correct at the time in that this is a BLOODSPORT knock off of the highest order. Hell, it is also set in Hong Kong and features the same tournament format and villain! You’ve heard of Bruceploitation? Well, this is Bolosploitation. BLOODSPORT was a surprise international hit and you can bet Kurata, whose production company produced this, had charismatic BLOODSPORT villain Bolo on the phone within minutes. This was made the very next year and the filmmakers make no bones about wanting to draw a comparison as they name the villain Chong Lee (he is named Chong Li in the Van Damme movie). But see Chong Lee has a cobra tattooed on his forehead here, so it is totally different.
If the knock off factor isn’t enough to amuse you, then you have the rest of the film. Shot on location in Hong Kong, the Japanese production suffers the same fate as most low budget productions of the HK era. I knew I was in for a good time during the opening training montage that shows the four fighters getting ready for their fights. Cut to a wide shot of the dressing room and they are all about two feet from each other (see pic). Also, where do they find these white folks? Seriously, it must be a requirement that if you are a white dude looking to act in an Asian production that you must have all the acting subtlety of Mantan Moreland. Stuart Smith, who is amusingly billed incorrectly as Stuart Smita, is a sight to behold. His acting is so over-the-top that it is highly amusing. To be fair, veteran white dude Ladalski is pretty good in his supporting role.
You also get a street gang that only Asian films can deliver. Tooling around the city in a Jeep with skulls and “Fuck You!” spray-painted on it, this gang is a riot. You know you are in trouble when the guy with the multi-colored pompadour is the least funny. One guy dresses in all red with a red Mohawk and carries around a chicken foot. The big gag is he gets knocked into a rooster, looks at it and goes, “Huh?” The bald guy (see pic) looks like Don Rickles with cancer and makes Smith look like Sir Laurence Olivier. Did I mention he has a back pocket torn off his jeans to reveal his bare ass with the words “Hands off” written on his skin? No joke, these guys make the gangs in Jackie Chan’s RUMBLE IN THE BRONX seem utterly realistic. Finally, you have everyone in the cast speaking English, or at least trying to. I commend Kurata for aiming high, yet it scores so low with lines pronounced like, “I have the scales to protact ewe” and “Ewe only wanta wee veng.” I also got a big kick out of a sign in the dressing room reading “Not Smoking” on it. It is funny because 1) it is not correct and 2) that a group holding an underground death tournament would take the time to make a sign like this. And how would you open a underground fighting tournament? Why with some chick body builder, two dude body builders and some girls doing aerobics on stage, of course!
So learn your lessons from me. Don't be a fool and stay in school. And when you see BLOODFIGHT, you know it is alright! Check it out. Tell them Chong Lee sent ya.
As a series, I can’t think of a trilogy with a more bent trajectory. Walter Hill’s UNDISPUTED (2002) is another one of Hill’s staple “tough men in even tougher situations” and contains some of the same genes as his directorial debut, the bare-knuckle fighting Charles Bronson vehicle HARD TIMES (1975). Using the real life incarceration of boxing phenom Mike Tyson as a launching pad, Hill and frequent co-collaborator David Giler crafted a script about pro boxer George “Iceman” Chambers (Ving Rhames) being sent to prison for a rape and being challenged by resident prison boxing champ Monroe Hutchen (Wesley Snipes). The film performed so-so at the box office in August 2002, but proved to be very popular on home video.
It was successful enough that producers Millenium and Nu Image films felt a direct-to-video sequel – the new rage in the home video market – would be worth the effort. Placed in the hands of DTV action staple Isaac Florentine, UNDISPUTED II: LAST MAN STANDING (2006) re-cast Chambers with Michael Jai White and, needing to justify their Bulgarian locations, has the Iceman framed while overseas and sentenced to do time in a hard-ass penitentiary. Naturally, the corrupt officials sense money to be made off their famous charge and pit him against resident Russian prison champ Boyka (Scott Adkins). The filmmakers have Chambers lose horribly so that – playing to White’s strengths – he must learn to incorporate martial arts into his repertoire in order to crush Boyka. All of this brings us to UNDISPUTED III: REDEMPTION (2010).
When the first sequel ended, Chambers was free from prison fighting and his soulless Russian opponent Boyka was nursing a crushed knee. Here, Boyka (Adkins again) returns as the lead in this film and is first shown disheveled, hobbled and living a solitary existence mopping floors. Secretly training to rehab his injured knee, Boyka demands a shot against current prison champ Psycho (original!) and, after dispatching of him very quickly, is invited alongside his “handler” Gaga (Mark Ivanir) to an 8-man prison fighting tournament in the Republic of Georgia with the grand prize being freedom for the winner. These top fighters have been culled from various countries by mob factions. Of course, this is again one of these prison fighting tournaments that is ridiculously being advertised with posters and aired live in betting houses throughout Europe. Naturally, the crooked warden has his favorite in Colombian Quinones (Marko Zaror), who gets preferential treatment as he reads Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca while the other entrants do hard manual labor. And, as all good MMA movies recognize, Quinones is receiving illegal supplemental help. Why you cheatin' bastard! The deck is definitely stacked against the other seven combatants, so much so that their handlers bet against them. But Boyka, who has bonded with US prisoner Turbo (Mykel Jenkins), has other plans because, as he so eloquently puts it, “I am most complete fighter.”
“He's totally behind me, isn't he?”
That is pretty much it for the plot and this actually makes mixed martial arts tournament classics like ENTER THE DRAGON (1973) or BLOODSPORT (1988) look completely profound by comparison. But director Isaac Florentine realizes that the only thing better than a MMA tournament is a MMA tournament movie set in prison! This has all the required elements for a prison flick and a marital arts tournament flick. You get male bonding; the hole; crooked officials; sadistic “screws”; the sage old prisoner; steroids; improvisational work outs; a training montage; the “honor in fighting” routine; gambling; mutual respect; fickle inmate spectators; leg breaking; blood splattering; incredible comebacks against the odds; and tons of adrenaline-pumping fights. The only thing missing is a scene where a hot young woman spectator sitting with a rich old (preferably Asian) man is splashing by the blood of the participants…and loves it! Given the prison setting, it might be kind of hard but I’m sure Florentine spent nights anguishing on how to somehow work it in.
Florentine took a step back technically as a director with NINJA (2009) where he foolishly tried to emulate big Hollywood films with flashy camera moves and, worst of all, computer-generated blood. Thankfully, he returns to form here and remembers what makes his films so enjoyable (well choreographed fights). Florentine is still in love with his crash zooms but wisely keeps them out of the fights for the most part. And the fights are the real reason to see this. Florentine assembles a group of diverse talents from all over the globe including Lateef Crowder (who is known for the amazing Capoeira fight with Tony Jaa in THE PROTECTOR [aka TOM YUM GOONG]) and Marko Zaror (emerging martial arts star from Brazil with the features KILTRO and MANDRILL). A real stand out acting wise is Mykel Jenkins as the American in the tournament who bonds with Boyka. And, of course, you have to talk about lead Scott Adkins. Adkins might be one of the best marital artists in films today and gets to stretch his acting chops again, something NINJA denied him. As the title implies, the UNDISPUTED II villain does a 180 here and it is handled better than you would expect. He doesn’t become a softie by any means as he maintains his over-the-top gruffness, but they do allow the character enough moments to successfully transfer to commendable protagonist.
So if you are looking for some great martial arts action to kill 90 minutes, you can't go wrong with UNDISPUTED III. It is a throwback to the 80s and 90s Van Damme era where plots were simple and the fights were tough. No CGI enhanced bullshit or editing that is so haywire you can't even tell who is throwing a punch. It just might be the best prison movie featuring a Russian badass with a knee problem you see all year!
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