The Bouncer (2024)

This film was another screener request from producer Joe Williamson, who usually gets us something with Mel Novak, or something directed by Harley Wallen, both of which we really enjoy. This time though we got an actioner with names we recognized in supporting roles, and an up-and-comer in the lead. Let's see how it did.

The Bouncer has John Ozuna as a bouncer and martial arts expert whose mother is dying of cancer, and needs money for her operation, and was being accused of killing a patron at the club he was a bouncer for. This means he needs to leave town and head to Bucharest, where he's squatting at someone's apartment and making a living as a bouncer at a fancy club. This seems like it'll work, until he sees crime boss Kane (Costas Manylor), hit his girlfriend Sylvia (Rosemary Yaneva), and decides to step in. It doesn't end well, so he and Sylvia hit the road, and now they're on the run while Mandylor, all his cronies, and all the baddies in the city are after him. Will he and Sylvia make it out alive?

This is pretty paint-by-numbers. Damsel in distress, being held by an evil "king," down on his luck vagrant hero steps in, saves the day, and gets the girl. What works about that for me is it's a quick watch, and simple plot, so it gets you to the church on time. I also liked Ozuna as the hero, but this was his first lead role as far as I could tell, so he's still getting the hang of it. What doesn't work is the extra stuff. The mom kind of disappears, especially at the end. It felt like she was a plot device that felt necessary at the beginning of the script-writing process, that wasn't so much by the end. I think the wrongly accused and being on the run would've been enough, but even that isn't exactly a plot point either. Like what if the police were helping Mandylor find Ozuna? Or instead of the wrongly accused element, what if you went with the mom dying and needing an operation, and that's his dilemma: do I keep this bouncer job that pays really well when I need the money, or do I risk it all to do the right thing? But again, with its flaws, at its heart it's a low-budget actioner that isn't trying to reinvent the wheel, and sometimes that's all you need.

The first name that came to mind when I saw Ozuna was Jalal Mehri, and we know he had a pretty solid career in the 90s, so if that's where Ozuna ends up, that's not too bad. On his IMDb trivia, it says he holds two Guinness World Records in martial arts: most punches in one minute (713); and the fastest martial arts punch (43.3 mph). And the talent is definitely there, but as we know with other great martial artists, the practitioner element is only part of it. The "It" factor is also important, and that's the area where Ozuna will grow as he does more pictures. Going back to the Mehri comp, one thing he did was surround himself with other talent. He worked with Cynthia Rothrock, Bolo Yeung, Billy Blanks, David Bradley, Loren Avedon, Olivier Gruner, etc. While this had some names too, getting some established martial arts talent to work with him, and maybe even someone like an Art Camacho to direct and help out on fight choreography, could be that next step to get him into that next level of stardom. I think Camacho does stuff with R. Ellis Frazier, who makes a lot of films in Mexico with names like Gary Daniels, I'd love to see Ozuna in a project like that. Either way, it'll be fun to see what we get next from him.

Out of everyone in the film, the name with the most tags on our site was Gerald Okamura. He has a very small role as Ozuna's master in a flashback sequence, but any time we get to see him is a great time. Joe mentioned that this was his first film in nine years, that one being Samurai Cop 2, but he liked the script and decided to go for it. I feel bad as well, because his 84th birthday was on November 23rd, and I missed it. I also realized I was missing five films he was in that we'd reviewed but hadn't tagged him for yet, so he's now at 19 films on the site, and when I look at his bio, I see a bunch of films he did that we could do on here, which means the 30 Club is a possibility, and due to the Asylum rule, 30 Club is automatic entry into the Hall of Fame. Gerald Okamura, DTVC Hall of Famer, has a nice ring to it. Here's to you Mr. Okamura, you're one of the greats.

While the plot point about the mother needing money for an operation didn't play a huge part in the rest of the film, it is very relevant considering current events in America, with the killing of the United Healthcare CEO, and the social media jokes that followed, like "Sorry, the bullet was out of network, so the extraction isn't covered." It's a reality that that CEO, and many other health insurance CEOs, are responsible for many more deaths than the guy who will probably get life in prison for killing him, but in America some murders are okay, and some are punished--and some are punished by punishing the wrong person. All that said, it's a great plot device for an action movie, right? And we've seen it for years. Guy's daughter's in the hospital, we need hundreds of thousands of dollars for an operation? Time for that one last heist--which goes horribly wrong. This one mixed it up a bit because it was the mom, but the plot device is the same. What if someone made an action film where the hero went on a revenge spree to take down a health insurance CEO? We need to get to that level where health insurance executives in America are seen on the same level as human traffickers and animal poachers, what I call "baddie in a can." Maybe current events will get us closer to that. The other thing the current events bring up that this film ignored, is the idea of needing money, but is how you make it worth compromising your principles? Because Ozuna needed the money, I wish we had more of that dilemma, where he likes the job, but he risks it to do the right thing. As a health insurance CEO, can you sleep at night if you're making millions of dollars off people's suffering? Or as Ozuna the bouncer, can you sleep at night saving money for your mother's operation knowing you're looking the other way at Mandylor's evil doings? It's a question this movie didn't address enough, but I wish it would have.

Finally, the character of Sylvia was played by Rosemary Yaneva, who looks a lot like Lisa Marie Presley. In the Pulp Fiction binary of "Beatles" or "Elvis," I am an Elvis Man, but I also like a lot of Beatles songs too. I think my favorite from Elvis is "One Night" from The '68 Comeback Special, but with Christmas around the corner, you also have to love "Blue Christmas." He would've been 90 in January, but even crazier for me, as someone who's now 45, Elvis was only 42 when he passed. I was debating on whether or not to bring back the DTVC Extra in 2025, but maybe a look at some Elvis films could be a fun project, especially in honor of what would've been his 90th birthday.

But that's for another time, so let's wrap this one up. Currently you can rent this on Amazon here in the States for $3.99. If you want to support indie creatives near the holiday, that's a great way to do it, but if money's tight and you want to wait for it to come out on a free streamer, I understand. This is a fun low-budget actioner, especially for when you're in the mood for a fun, low-budget actioner.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16758460

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Kiss of the Vampire aka Immortally Yours (2009)

How could this not be intriguing? Gary Daniels in a vampire flick, as a vampire? Not only that, but we have Dar from the syndicated TV version of Beastmaster, which was one of my favorite guilty pleasures ever. Then you throw in Matthias Hues, Martin Kove, and Costas Mandylor? How can this go wrong?

Kiss of the Vampire is about a vampire (Dar) who is really powerful, but would rather be mortal. This upsets his gang, led by Gary Daniels, who love the raves and blood sucking. Dar finds a woman whose dad is working for this horrible criminal cartel to help them find immortality. Dar falls in love with her, her father helps him gain mortality, and he stops the cartel.



This was an unmitigated disaster. The story had too much going on that wasn't exactly going anywhere, the dialogue wasn't properly proofread and very wordy and overly dramatic, and there was this sappy love story aspect that screamed bad Twilight fantasy. Half the time I wasn't sure the movie was even serious, especially when Dar and the girl's father are carrying a midget off as they dash to save the girl. It was pretty hilarious, as was the midget headbutting some dude unconscious. Then you had the strange growling noises the vampires made. Are they vampires or mountain lions? I liked Matthias Hues as the vampire hunter-- he ironically makes a better good guy than a baddie I've noticed-- but that part was highly underused, as were the two investigating police officers that were also pretty solid. Even more underused was Martin Kove, because for some reason he was the crime cartel leader's main hatchetman, as opposed to the leader. Really? All the other guy had on Kove was bad hair. Top to bottom, sautéed in wrong sauce.

I will give this a plus for the fun factor of having Daniels as a vampire. I won't let this off the hook though for skimping on the Hues/Daniels fight. They should've let the two choreograph their own deal and had them get after it. I know, I'm the action guy, and this wasn't necessarily an action movie, but there wasn't a lot of other stuff going on, so why not get some good action in there, right? Anyway, fun novelty, Gary Daniels as a vampire, but nothing else beyond that.



Yes, we finally got a Dar movie in here. I know, 700+ posts in, it was a lot sooner for some other syndicated TV guys I love, including Adrian Paul and Kevin Sorbo-- plus Lorenzo Lamas, one of the few who would make both a DTV and syndicated TV Hall of Fame. Seeing him here reminded me of the great times I had when syndicated TV ruled. Before the days of limited syndication for new TV shows and syndication of cable TV shows, some of the best stuff was in straight to syndication. Highlander: The Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Renegade, Hercules, I could go on. Then there were the ones that weren't so great, but still tons of fun, like Nightman, She Spies, and syndication's last gasp, Legend of the Seeker. When that was cancelled recently, an era officially ended. I don't know what to make of Dar in this movie, because I was just so happy it was Dar, it didn't matter. It would've been better though if he had a staff and listened to animals talk. Oh, and if his buddy replaced the midget.

This one totally dropped the ball in its casting of Martin Kove. The main baddie's hatchetman? The main baddie was played by Eric Etebari, who directed Bare Knuckles, a women's fighting flick that featured Kove too. Anyway, switching Kove and Etebari would've done a lot to enhance the movie and made both actors work better. If Kove is going to be the hatchetman, you need an extremely powerful head baddie, like a Malcolm McDowell. If not it doesn't work. Speaking of great hatchetmen, we also have Matthias Hues. I don't get it, but he makes an exceptional good guy, which is crazy, because he almost always plays a bad guy. I loved the way the wordy, poorly proofread dialog mixed with his German accent, because it made everything that much more awkward.



It seems to be a popular thing right now to have human women in unrequited romances with vampire men, which is cool, but it got me wondering: why don't they do the reverse? I saw some pretty hot vampire chicks in this, why not have her date a guy and show us all the problems that come with that. On the one hand, the leather and hot outfits would be amazing; on the other, at 32, the whole rave thing would be a bit much. Also, I love to hike, and it's hard to do that at night; not to mention, it consumes a lot of calories, so even if we did go on a night hike, she'd need to fill up a Camelbak with blood. And there's the whole meeting the parents thing. Does she have any outfits that don't involve skintight black leather and/or fishnets? Yes, 90% of the time that stuff's awesome, but meeting my parents, I'd prefer something a little more understated.

This is ten kinds of miss. Not even close. As sautéed in wrong sauce as you can get. Only the cast makes this worth a look, and even then it's pretty painful. You'll find yourself like me, at the 75 minute mark going "just end it already! Find me one of those WRAP IT UP signs!"

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0758755/

Fist of the North Star (1995)

I saw this a long time ago, not long after it came out in the mid-90s. I didn't know it was based on Anime, or what I called at the time Japanimation. It may have given me a better understanding of its silliness, but I don't know. What I do know is I needed to revisit it considering this is the summer of Gary Daniels and Olivier Gruner.

Fist of the North Star is a post-apocalyptic film about a dictator, played by Costas Mandylor, who's trying to rebuild society through the use of an iron fist. He's also an accomplished martial artist, and he killed the leader of his rival school, Malcolm McDowell. Now it's up to his son, Gary Daniels, to take him down, and he has the added incentive of saving his woman, who Mandylor took from Daniels to be his wife.



I've been holding off on this one because I just don't know exactly how to play it. On the one hand, it's not my kind of movie, because a lot of people have gross faces, and I'm not always a fan of that ridiculous style of martial arts where people's heads explode and whatnot. On the other, the martial arts isn't bad, and it has a very high silliness quotient. It was like it didn't do it for me, but it did, if that makes any sense. It's not like Hard Justice, where I was like, BAM!!, that's what I'm talking about. But it's not like some of the movies I hated, where I wanted to burn the disc. It's like Pizza Hut, where it's good, but is it better than that local pizza joint that just kills it, or the downtown gourmet place? No; but it's better than that scary stuff you sometimes see in a Chinese food buffet.

Daniels really gets to flex his martial arts muscles here, which is good. This was no Bloodmoon, but what is, really? I'm not sure how much I dig the dark colored mullet though. I guess the thing is he's kind of out of his element. I just see him as a cop with sick martial arts skills smoking myriad fools while making the ultimate drug bust. Stoic martial arts master with a grudge and a dark colored mullet just doesn't quite fit. According to imdb, he's playing Bryan Fury in the new Tekken movie. Though that sounds hot, I'd rather see him as Armor King, and, looking through the credits, they don't even have a King and/or Armor King. It must be because they were so dominant in Tekken Tag Team, the film makers felt like they'd have no film with them in it.



I was going through all the tags I have, trying to pare down some of the ones that seemed a tad on the superfluous side. I found I had one for Costas Mandylor, even though he has only one film reviewed, Gangland with Sasha Mitchell. I think, at the time, I intended to review more of his catalog, and it just never happened. Now here we are, with film number 2. Again, like Daniels, I like him better as a modern cop with martial arts skills over a post-apocalyptic despot. What makes him worse as a despot is his character actually grows out his mullet. He talks about recreating civilization, and then he spawns this ape drape out of his head. The future will be business in the front and party in the back. Mandylor is busy now making Saw movies, and I believe, according to imdb, Saw 57 is in post production.

Club MTV's Downtown Julie Brown is in this as an engineer or something in a small village outside of Mandylor's city. I used to watch that show, along with everything else on MTV back then. Later it would become The Grind with Eric Nies from the first season of The Real World. Do they still have dance shows today? I never really got them. Usually my friends and I just picked out the silliest people and made fun of them for however long. The best was Ian from The Grind, who was their Alternative guy. He wore shaggy hair and US Postal Service jackets, and his raison d'etre was the one quasi Alternative dance track they'd play each show, usually "Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys.



I was trying to decide whether to devote this last paragraph to Malcolm McDowell, Chris Penn, or Clint Howard, all of whom are in this film. I went another route. Did you know John Cho, the guy from Harold and Kumar that wasn't Kumar, is 37 years old? Young Sulu ain't so young Sulu, if you know what I mean. Man, I hope I look that young when I'm 37. Seriously, 37.

Man, I don't know where to go with this. I don't think I've ever been so on the fence in the final analysis of a film ever. What I can say is, no matter what, this is silly as all hell. Good martial arts, some grossness, but not in a cool, Cyborg kind of way, and surprisingly nice set designs. It's just a matter of whether you embrace the silliness, or disdain it. And I'll take it a step further, if you embrace the silliness, you may want to go all the way and watch Riki-Oh.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113074/

Gangland (2000)

I first saw this film on Encore Action. On my program guide it listed Sasha Mitchell and Costas Mandylor as its featured actors, which was enough for me. Upon watching it, I saw that it also has Coolio and Ice-T for about ten minutes at the very beginning, and the chick who plays Painkiller Jane for a few seconds somewhere in the middle. Now, seeing it again on DVD, I find out that it's selling itself, not on Sasha Mitchell and Costas Mandylor, the film's stars along with the chick from Renegade; but it's listing the three people who're in it for a total fifteen minutes of screen time. If I didn't like the idea of a Sasha Mitchell Costas Mandylor feature so much, I'd take the people who market this to small claims court for false advertising.

Gangland takes place three years from now in a post-apocalyptic future where a US dealing with nuclear fallout is also dealing with a flesh eating plague. Vincent Klyn (Warchild from Point Break) has a huge gang of dudes in leather jackets and pants that are threatening to take over what's left of the country. Tim Thomerson has developed a cure for the plague and plans to take it to the only safe zone in the country, Phoenix. Klyn catches him in an attempt to control the cure. While all this is happening, Costsas Mandylor meets Sasha Mitchell in jail (Klyn's reappropriated a local prison for his own ends.) They escape, bump into the chick from Renegade, and take down Klyn-doggy. All in a day's work.



This movie would be sweet bad action accept for one thing that really irks me: constant fade-outs. I hate constant fade-outs. It's like they're always going to commercial or something. I know these aren't the best film makers in the world, but do they have to make it so obvious? I've seen better film making on YouTube. Doesn't it seem annoying to them too when they're editing? Maybe it's just me...

Sasha Mitchell's the bomb in this. His martial arts technique is almost identical to Guile from Street Fighter II. It was so cool watching him go to work on bad guys, I almost forgot he couldn't act. It's too bad he doesn't do more work, because, at least to me, it's evident in a movie like this that he can hold his own. Of course, it was hilarious when he was yelling in anger about his brother's killing. I think someone should make a movie where he plays Cody from Step By Step and kicks people's asses. Now that's a hit.

Kathleen Kinmont's in this as well. I have a bad habit of calling her the chick from Renegade, and considering this is the second, and probably not the last film I've reviewed that has her in it, I should probably start using her name. I didn't like her in this, because she was trying too hard to do dark and brooding. I know her sister, played by Painkiller Jane, was killed off, but as an actor she didn't do the part well. She's better doing the off-beat kind of stuff she did on Renegade. Leave the brooding to Costas Mandylor.



I'm a huge Vincent Klyn guy. It's not like Man Crush level, but pretty close. No one else could pull off playing a character named Warchild in a movie like Point Break, and make it work. I think that's something pretty cool to hang your hat on. He's also a mainstay in newly inducted DTVC Hall of Famer Albert Pyun's films-- you may remember him especially in Cyborg. In this film, as in those other two, he does a great job playing an awesome baddie that we still don't want to root for. That's all we want in a bad guy, right?

Beyond the overuse of the fade-out technique, my other major issue was Klyn's second in command. He was some geeky ponytail guy who also was the film's writer and stuff. He didn't look like a kick ass bad guy, he looked like some creepy guy who might hit me with his sack of 8-sided dice to keep me and my friends from giving him a wedgie. He annoyed the piss out of me, and I was kind of disappointed that Costas Mandylor finally dispatched him by setting him on fire. He should've beat him to death with a keyboard in the middle of a LAN party or something. Who thought this guy worked on camera?



The two best parts about this were the bad one-liners and the fact that everyone from Costas Mandylor down to Tim Thomerson the scientist could fight. Best one-liner: Klyn asks Mandylor if he thought it would be that easy to kill him, and Mandylor says "We had to give it the ol' college try." Yes! Best fight came when Tim Thomerson, with no prior mention of him having any fighting skills, takes out some baddies in hand-to-hand combat. It wasn't just like hit someone over the head with a vase when he's not looking, he was blocking punches and delivering expert blows to the gut. It was like just by virtue of being in the movie anyone could fight. I loved it.

Before I recommend this film, I must warn everyone that I'm not kidding about how little Coolio, Ice-T, and Painkiller Jane are in this film. The box may make it sound like they're the main characters, but it's the old fashioned Direct to Video bait and switch. On the other hand, for myself, being the Direct to Video Connoisseur, Sasha Mitchell, Vincent Klyn, and Costas Mandylor are plenty good to make the film worth while. If that sounds like a good time to you too, pick this bad boy up. Just don't pay too much for it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0265198/