LEGEND OF THE FIST: THE RETURN OF CHEN ZHEN (2011) **

You’d think a movie where Donnie Yen plays a piano player who moonlights as a superhero to take out Japanese soldiers in occupied China during The Roaring ‘20s would be a no-brainer.  In fact, the opening scene, set in WWI, promises awesomeness at every turn.  I mean once you see Yen running around the battlefield like The Road Runner and taking out enemy snipers using only a knife and some Circ de Soleil moves, you sort of expect that level of excellence throughout the rest of the picture.  Sadly, Legend of the Fist:  The Return of Chen Zhen quickly bogs down from there and becomes a sluggish snooze fest that only occasionally brushes with Kung Fu glory.

I freely admit Chinese history is not my strong suit.  I have no real frame of reference for all the historical back and forth between the Chinese and Japanese forces, so all the spying shit between them didn’t really play for me.  That said, director Andrew (Infernal Affairs) Lau didn’t do much to bring these sequences any life or urgency, and as a consequence, they fall flat.  His pacing is stagnant at times, and the action is much too infrequent to make it truly worthwhile.

How you can mess up a movie in which Donnie Yen dresses up like Kato and beats the crap out of bad guys is beyond me.  Despite the rousing opening, the fights elsewhere in the film just can’t measure up.  There are a few good action beats here, mostly having to do with Yen taking people out with his knees, Tony Jaa-style.  There’s not nearly enough of them to make a difference though.  The finale is especially lackluster.  Yen, who is amusing while wearing his little fake mustache during his secret identity scenes, gives it his best shot, but he deserves better. 

AKA:  Legend of the Fist.  AKA:  The Return of Chen Zhen.  AKA:  Chen Zhen:  The Turbulence of Jing Wu.  

THE LOST PLATOON (1990) **

Hollander (William Knight) is an American war journalist sent on assignment to Nicaragua.  Really, he’s just there to find a platoon of unkillable soldiers who have fought together in various wars throughout the centuries. Hancock (David Parry), the leader of the troops, just so happened to save Hollander’s life in WWII.  He offers him an opportunity to join the unit and take down an evil vampire dictator.

The Lost Platoon has an intriguing premise, but the follow-through from director David A. (Future Force) Prior is a bit lacking.  Mixing horror and action (although the film leans heavier into the realm of action) was a novel idea.  It’s just a shame that the low budget (not to mention Prior’s uninspired direction) can’t keep up with the film’s scope.

The fact that we’re dealing with a squadron of vampire soldiers sort of makes this a half-assed amalgam of Near Dark (or maybe The Lost Boys) and Platoon. Since it’s a cheap AIP production, whatever potential the premise had is squandered pretty quickly.  The bland performances don’t help matters and the action set pieces, while competent, lack any real sizzle.  (I did like the part where Hancock caught a grenade and casually tossed it back.)

The most frustrating aspect for me was that the horror elements were too much too low key.  The film only really veers into horror territory in the third act, but by then it’s honestly too little too late.  Some promising plot points, like the villain’s sexy vampire mistress, are sadly underutilized, and the finale is underwhelming. 

Many of the effects are lame too.  There’s a scene where the vampire “floats” that just looks like he’s riding a skateboard.  The staking scene is kind of fun, but these little moments are few and far between.  Oh, and the Evil Dead-inspired POV steady-cam camerawork quickly wears out its welcome. 

STRIKE ME DEADLY (1963) **

Jimmy (How to Make a Monster’s Gary Clarke) is a forest ranger who witnesses a hunter named Al (Steve Ihnat) murder a man in cold blood.  Al then starts a forest fire to cover his tracks and notices the ranger spying on him.  Jimmy heads for the hills with Al in hot pursuit.  He tells his wife Lori (Jeannine Riley from Petticoat Junction) to call the cops, but the desperate hunter shows up at their cabin and takes them hostage.

Strike Me Deadly is a Ted V. (The Astro-Zombies) Mikels movie, so it at least looks great.  The first act works up to a point, even if the pursuit is interspersed with stock footage of firefighters trying to put out a forest fire while library music blares on the soundtrack.  Mikels certainly wastes no time with the set-up either as he starts the movie off with a bang.

Once Ihnat holds the lovebirds hostage, Strike Me Deadly begins to lose steam and lose it fast.  It’s here where Mikels subjects us to a longwinded flashback detailing how the couple arrived at the cabin, which grinds things to a dead halt.  Clarke’s fight for survival is a heck of a lot more entertaining than Mikels’ chronicling of the couple’s various marital ups and downs.  Their cutesy moments together (like when Clarke clumsily uses chopsticks) are equally worthy of eye-rolling.  There’s also a long scene where they hang out in a nightclub where a (not bad) R & B combo plays that eats up a lot of narrative space and helps pad out the running time.

After the turgid second act, Mikels is unable to get the picture back on its feet. The finale is rather weak, and not up to the standard set by the crackling opening sequence.  All in all, this is far from Mikels’ worst, but it’s obvious he thrives when he has some sort of exploitative hook to work with.  

TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT (2017) * ½

I somehow skipped this when it came to video.  Seeing how the four previous Transformers movies ranged from terrible to forgettable, it really wasn’t on my to-do list.  That changed after I saw the heartfelt and enormously entertaining Transformers spin-off, Bumblebee.  Venom, a longtime fan of the site sent me the DVD of The Last Knight, which helped get my butt in gear to finally check it out.

It begins in Merry Old England during the Dark Ages with none other than King Arthur waging war with his Knights of the Round Table at his side.  Let’s face it, no matter how bad a movie is (and The Last Knight gets awfully crappy), it can’t be all bad if you have Stanley Tucci playing Merlin.  He’s pretty funny too, playing the character as a drunken fraud who uses Transformers under the guise of “magic”.

Back in the present day, there’s a race between the Autobots and Decepticons to find a magic staff.  There’s also some jazz about a magic Transformer talisman.  Meanwhile, Optimus Prime is off in outer space turning evil so when he comes home, he can destroy Earth once and for all. 

For the first part of The Last Knight, Bay is able to keep his worst tendencies (schizophrenic editing, obnoxious characters, etc.) at… ahem… bay.  There’s an early scene that sort of foretells the plot of Bumblebee with a survivor girl losing her Transformer protector.  It doesn’t have nearly the same amount of heart as Bumblebee, but hey, at least Bay was trying.  I’m not saying it’s good or anything, but it’s watchable, and certainly more memorable than the first three entries.  (There is at least one admittedly cool moment when Bumblebee falls to pieces and then comes back together again during a fight scene.)

For the most part though, it’s the case of same shit, different sequel.  I know criticizing the plots to these things is the equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel, but the subplot that involves the Army turning to Megatron to help find the staff is bafflingly stupid.  Anyone with an IQ over 5 could’ve told you this is a very bad idea.  

I also could’ve done without the scenes of the Transformers calling each other “little bitches” and “mofos”.  It’s about as annoying as hearing Anthony Hopkins saying “dude” and “bitchin’”.  Oh, yeah, Anthony Hopkins is in this.  He plays the leader of some sort of secret Transformer-loving society.  The less said about that, the better.

The bottom line is there’s no reason this had to be two and a half hours long.  There was a moment I was sure it was almost over, only to check the DISPLAY button on the DVD remote to discover there was an hour and twenty minutes left.  It’s a long slog and a rather numbing one at that.  It also suffers from having Optimus Prime offscreen for much of the film.  When he does show up, we have to wade through a lot of dumb “This isn’t you Optimus!  You’re our friend!” bullshit that eats up a lot of screen time.  

After a reasonably solid first 45 minutes or so, the film lapses into the usual Transformers nonsense.  Sure, there are more memorably quirky bits to go around this time, but overall, it’s not as consistently mediocre as Age of Extinction.  (The climax, which cuts back and forth between Josh Duhamel’s army and the Transformers pounding on each other, is pretty shitty.)  Still, it’s hard to completely hate any movie in which giant robots hunt Nazis (albeit briefly), fight in Braveheart-style battles, and perform ancient rites at Stonehenge.  It just didn’t need to be 155 minutes long.

One note:  The aspect ratio of the movie changes several times on the DVD, sometimes within the same scene.  I don’t know why, but it’s certainly annoying.  

DEATH KISS (2018) ***

Remember in the ‘70s after Bruce Lee died there were all those imitators like Bruce Li, Bruce Le, and Dragon Lee who helped keep the Kung Fu torch lit in his absence?  Those films were affectionately known by fans as Bruceploitation.  Death Kiss belatedly attempts to do the same thing for Charles Bronson movies.  If this is what we can expect from the genre, I for one welcome a wave of Bronsonploitation pictures.  

It stars a lookalike named Robert Kovacs (who is sometimes billed as “Robert Bronzi”) who is a spitting image of the man himself.  Sure, sometimes the light will hit him the wrong way and the illusion will be shattered, but for all intents and purposes, this guy is the second coming of Bronson.  He has the same sad, saggy eyes, a similar quiet intensity, and most of all, the mustache.  The only thing Kovacs doesn’t possess is the Bronson voice.  Instead, he’s been dubbed by a guy who just sounds like… a guy.  That doesn’t ruin the illusion too much.  In fact, the bad dubbing sort of adds to the bizarreness of it all; almost as if you’re watching a Spaghetti Western… or a Bruceploitation flick.

Going in, I wasn’t sure how all this would pay off.  Would it be like a Machete-style grindhouse bonanza, or would it be an out-and-out parody?  What’s surprising is that writer/director Rene Perez has made an honest to goodness late-era Bronson movie.  It’s over the top, mean-spirited, and gloriously violent.  In short, it feels like a lost late-eighties gem rescued from the Golan-Globus vaults.  

What I liked about Death Kiss was that it was just a sliver classier than it needed to be.  I liked how Perez allowed the plot to unfold slowly.  He keeps Kovacs’ motivations and relationships to the other characters deliberately vague and when it finally comes together in the end, it’s surprisingly more effective than you’d expect.

The plot has Kovacs going around and blowing away scumbag drug dealers.  When he isn’t gunning down bad guys, he’s leaving wads of cash in the mailbox of a single mother (Eva Hamilton).  Meanwhile, a right-wing radio show host (Daniel Baldwin) spouts out a lot of pro-vigilante rhetoric advocating the open execution of sex traffickers and drug dealers.  If that sounds a little disjointed, don’t worry because it all comes together at the end.

Were the Baldwin scenes really necessary?  Probably not, especially when it veers into some red state territory.  Still, it has an okay payoff that leads to the set-up for a sequel.  

One distracting thing is that Perez color-corrected the hell out of this thing, almost to the point of making some of the characters seem blue-skinned.  The good news is he doesn’t hold back on the red stuff.  Nearly every gunshot contains an exaggerated amount of blood (CGI and otherwise), which makes the kills wholly satisfying.  You also have to give credit to him for setting the finale in cold temperatures, which gives Kovacs an excuse to wear a black beanie just like the one Bronson wore in Death Wish 2.

Kovacs does a fine job in the lead.  By that, I mean he looks just like Charles Bronson.  Bronson didn’t do much other than look like Charles Bronson either, so he comes by it honestly.  

I was surprised how much I liked Richard (Three O’Clock High) Tyson as the villain.  At first glance, he just looks like a Metallica roadie, with his long hair and backwards baseball cap.  However, he has an odd presence and some of his offbeat line readings might remind you of Michael Parks in Death Wish 5, and if you know my love for Michael Parks’ performance in Death Wish 5, you know I mean that with the highest respect.

Death Kiss is exactly the movie you think it is.  Nothing more, nothing less.  While I wish Perez shot some of the action more efficiently (although I dug the scene where Kovacs used a car door as a shield), he delivered what he set out to do.  He did such a fine job that I hope he has more Bronson-themed pictures in the works with Kovacs.  

Naturally, Kovacs gets the best line of the movie.  When he approaches a couple of drug dealers, they ask him how much he’s got.  He replies, “Six”.

“Hundred?”

“Bullets!”

GIMME DANGER (2016) ****

Jim Jarmusch and Iggy Pop just seem like a match made in Hell.  The Stooges are exactly the kind of outcasts that Jarmusch would gravitate towards.  That of course, makes him the perfect man to tell their story. 

This enormously entertaining documentary starts with the band’s implosion in ‘73 before working backwards to cover their early days.  Their wild antics get them noticed by the MC5 who take them under their wing.  The Stooges soon eclipse their mentors in both popularity and substance before taking off on their own self-destructive (but highly influential) path. 

Jarmusch’s die-hard devotion to the band is infectious.  I loved how he doesn’t go into Iggy’s solo career at all.  Nor does he cover his descent into drug addiction.  Jarmusch is making a movie about The Stooges.  It’s a solid call on his part, and you have to admire that level of dedication.  A lesser director would’ve padded the film with that sort of stuff.  Jarmusch has enough confidence in his subject to let those kinds of side jaunts go by the wayside.

There are plenty of great moments throughout.  I especially liked the animated bits of the band hearing “Kick Out the Jams” for the first time or crashing a tour bus.  My favorite scene though details how they got permission from Moe Howard to let them use the Stooges name.  I also loved the montage of various punk bands covering Stooges songs, which is a great way to show their far-reaching and long-lasting influence. 

Gimme Danger is a terrific documentary and one of Jarmusch’s all-time best films.  If there is a fault, it’s that I’m not sure how the uninitiated will take to it.  Jarmusch mostly made it for the fans.  That’s fitting though I guess since The Stooges never cared if you liked them or not. 

NOBODY’S PERFEKT (1981) *

Gabe Kaplan, Alex Karras, and Robert Klein are three friends who suffer from various psychological disorders.  Kaplan has “constant amnesia”, Karras talks to his (dead) invisible mother, and Klein is a split personality.  When Kaplan’s car is damaged by a pothole, he goes to city hall to demand reparations.  The mayor blows him off and Gabe steals a cannon and threatens the mayor to get the cash.  

This set-up is unlikely, but if it wasn’t handled in such a sub-sitcom way, it could’ve worked.  I’ve enjoyed seeing Kaplan, Karras, and Klein in various things over years.  Each of their characters by themselves might’ve made for a decent leading man.  Having all three together crowds the narrative.  (It takes about a half-hour before anything approaching a plot starts to take place.)  It also doesn’t help than they have zero chemistry together.  Only Susan (Webster) Clark seems to have brought her charisma to the set as Kaplan’s long-suffering girlfriend.

Kaplan was likeable on Welcome Back, Kotter, but he’s saddled with some lame gags and shoddy writing.  The running joke where Kaplan starts to do something and then forgets what he was doing gets tired and played out almost immediately.  The only real scene that had any potential was when his amnesia hinders his job as a spot-remover salesman, but even then, the punchline is telegraphed from a mile away.  

Directed by Peter Bonerz (who also has a small role as a crane operator), Nobody’s Perfekt is more or less a bust.  It gets a good laugh during the opening frame of the movie where the title doesn’t fit on the screen, but it’s all downhill from there.  Things get especially turgid in the third act when some bank robbers (led by Moe Greene himself, Alex Rocco) plot their armored car heist around the trio’s shenanigans with their cannon.  This leads to an overlong, dumb, and uninspired car chase that wraps the film up in a dismal manner.

Karras and Clark (who were married in real life) also appeared in Porky’s the same year.