Year: 1991
Director: Mark L. Lee
Stars: Brandon Lee, Dolph Lundgren
“One’s a warrior. One’s a wise guy. They’re two L.A. cops going after a gang of drug lords. Feet first.”
Our tale begins in the Little Tokyo section of LA, there’s some sort of underground fight-club going on, and Dolph, who’s known as Sgt. Chris Kenner, is looking to break this little box-social up. So, he sneaks around a whole bunch, before seeing fit to just rope-swing into the middle of the ring.
He kicks the crap out of the two fighters, then proceeds to get his shooting on, because it’d been almost 5 minutes without any death, and he was getting pissed. He’s unable to get the man he came for, but people died, and he spat cool one-liners; so all was well. Oh, and once he left the club and got out into the street, some fools tried to run him over. Now, a sissy might jump to the left or right, but Kenner just leaps that bad-bitch.
After this event he’s having some breakfast in a little Japanese restaurant that he frequents often. As luck would have it, some of the same guys from the club the night before come busting in, to hustle the old lady who owns the joint. Kenner, having just picked his teeth with a rail-road spike, walks up, and let’s them know the score.
He also warns them that he hasn’t had breakfast, and that can make him grumpy. He proceeds to kick the holy hell outta everyone, WITHOUT spilling his tea. Of course, it was probably moonshine. Welp, Brandon Lee, known as Johnny, walks up in the scene, and we have a little fight. They find out they’re on the same side, and now the ball is rolling.
They arrest one of the thugs, and head back to the station. Little do they know, this guy is an uber-bad-ass. Because once he finds out that his one call from jail can’t be to a phone-sex line, he breaks his own neck..
The gang-leader is Shang Tsung from the Mortal Kombat movie, but here he’s known as Yoshida. This guy is one bad son of a bitch. He’s all having sex with methed out strippers before cutting their heads off [which is awesome, saves giving them a ride home. Or worse, cab fare]. Getting pissed at bikers and cutting their hands off. Selling a ton of drugs and killing his own hench-men because they’re cutting their OWN fingers off before he gets a chance. He rocks.
So, on the search for Yoshida, Kenner and Johnny hit all the hot spots. Including clubs, where dudes eat sushi off of hot naked chicks. Bath-houses. Where Asian dudes sit in towels that look like thongs and have hot naked chicks bathing them. Little Tokyo sounds great. We’re soon introduced to Minako, a singer whom Yoshida wants to both own & rape. Minako is played by Tia Carerra, one of the more popular women of the early 90’s.
Before shes in their possession, she’s kidnapped and held at Yoshida’s place. Kenner breaks in, rescues her, and thankfully kills a few people while he’s at it. But if you think that’s good enough, then you’re obviously vegan and found this book by accident. Before it’s all through, Kenner flips a car over with HIS BARE HANDS! They must have had a deleted scene where Yoshida had a silverback gorilla bodyguard and Kenner beats him in an arm-wrestling contest.
OK, so now that they got her, they need a place to hide out. Kenner has a nice little place that he built himself that he says nobody knows about. That’s action-movie talk for “In the next 10-minutes this place will be blown up or set on fire”. But before all that, Kenner not only nails the chick they’re suppose to be protecting, but he also gets told by Johnny that “just in case we get killed, I wanted to tell you that you have the biggest dick I’ve ever seen on a man”. They then proceed to kill a ton of fuckers with bad-ass guns, and ninja weaponry, before they allow themselves to get caught.
So, here we are. At the head-quarters of the bad guys. They try to torture these burly fucks but as we all know, torture scenes are nothing more than fodder for the heroes to try out some one-liners.
Yoshida and Kenner have a bad-assed sword fight in the middle of a Japanese parade, and, needless to say, it’s boss.
Man Movie Encyclopedia Tally:
1-Liners: 7
Guys Beat Up: 28
Guys Killed: 46
Swear Words: 33
Boobies: 25
Explosions: 9
Slow Motion Scenes: 11
Car Chases: 0
Chases on Foot: 1
Broken Bones: 2
Fight/Shoot-Out At A Motel?: No
Guy Get The Girl?: Yeap
Lead Hero Smoke?: Nope
1-Liners:
[After Kenner rope-swings into the middle of the underground
fight-club ring, a guy yells “$5,000 on the new guy!”. To which Kenner
replies;]
Kenner: Good bet
[a guy is just crushed while sitting inside a car while it’s sitting inside a car-press]
Yoshida: I hate to see him die that way, it crushes me.
[Kenner and Johnny are being tortured via electrocution]
Johnny: In between cooking cycles, you’re suppose to baste us
[After throwing a dude into a boiling pool of something]
Johnny: You have the right to be dead
[Some baddies are about to bust up a restaurant, to which Kenner walks up and disarms one of them after they try and stab him]
Kenner: Alright, c’mon guys, don’t do this. I don’t get breakfast I get real grumpy. I don’t think you’d like me grumpy.
[After escaping their torturing capture, they dash outside as
Johnny states “let’s find that asshole” Once in the car, they are put in
quite a predicament involving a fork-lift, car-crusher, and a Yakuza]
Kenner: Uh-Oh. The assholes found us first.
[Kenner is leaving Minako at his place with a pistol-grip shotgun.
He tells her to shoot anything that moves. She asks “what if it’s you?”
he states “you won’t hear me coming”. So, this is right after they get
done doing it]
Minako: [laughing]
Kenner: What?
Minako: That time I heard you coming.
Box-Office Business:
The budget was estimated at around $8 million dollars. Released on August 23rd, 1991, in 140 theaters. It didn’t place in the Top 20 for the weekend, bringing in $455,192. Warner Brothers didn’t like the film, thus it was re-cut and given a limited release, which is total BS. Dolph Lundgren was a star, and Brandon Lee was one of Hollywood’s biggest prospects.
Because of the limited release it only brought in $2,275,577, but did really well in home video sales.
C’mon, Bennet, Let’s Party:
Easily one of the most under-rated action films of all time. It was directed by the same guy who did Commando, thus the similar style of one-liners, and over the top violence. Brandon Lee & Dolph Lundgren had great chemistry together, and it was cool to see the roles reversed, with Dolph being the guy steeped in Asian culture, and Brandon being the California valley type. It’s an awesome film, and one you need to see immediately.
5 Head-Butts Out Of 5
