In short: Seized (2020)

Our typical Man with a Violent Past who nobody calls by his old name of Nero anymore (Scott Adkins) works as a security expert somewhere in Mexico, trying not to be driven insane by his very teenage son Taylor (Matthew Garbacz) while trying to teach him better than he himself learned. There’s clearly a bit of guilt concerning the death of Taylor’s mother involved in the relationship, too, and we all can imagine what kind of thing must have gone done via obvious genre tropes.

As you’ll probably expect, Nero will have to fall back into some of his old bad habits when a mysterious guy in a cowboy hat (Mario Van Peebles, who is supposed to be Mexican, by the way, and seems to have a lot of fun) kidnaps Taylor to press our protagonist into his service. Nero just needs to massacre various Cartel heads and their men, and afterwards he’s going to get Taylor back, or so he is told.

I wish this reunion of director Isaac Florentine and low budget action king Scott Adkins could have involved a slightly more interesting script than the one Richard Lowry delivered. The pair really doesn’t need much more than a reason to set-up a series of fights – chases weren’t in the budget – but the series of clichés that makes up the film’s plot still could have used something to make them a bit more interesting, if only dialogue that’s either better at being cheesy or less cheesy. The only truly fun idea the script has is to have Van Peebles’s character stage a murder party where he and his partners and underlings watch live footage of Nero murdering his way through many a nameless thug, cheering every kill while getting drunk. That’s pretty fun and funny in a meta way, even though the film is not actually using this for anything else but as a diversion.

There’s nothing exactly wrong with the movie’s structure, though, so at least things flow well enough from action scene to action scene. The fights are all fine. They don’t exactly show the Florentine/Adkins combo at the height of their powers of creativity – there’s a sad lack of goofy martial arts movie humour here as well as a dearth of interesting places in which to beat guys up in – but middling Florentine/Adkins is still more energetic, more elegantly choreographed in its brutality than the best of what most other direct to home viewing filmmakers can deliver.

Past Misdeeds: Ninja (2009)

Through the transformation of the glorious WTF-Films into the even more glorious Exploder Button and the ensuing server changes, some of my old columns for the site have gone the way of all things internet. I’m going to repost them here in irregular intervals in addition to my usual ramblings.

Please keep in mind these are the old posts presented with only  basic re-writes and improvements. Furthermore, many of these pieces were written years ago, so if you feel offended or need to violently disagree with me in the comments, you can be pretty sure I won’t know why I wrote what I wrote anymore anyhow.

Not to be confused with Ninja, Ninja, Ninja, or Shinobi

Master Takeda's (Togo Igawa) dojo is the last true progenitor of the fighting style of the Kouga ninja, but one that has been adapted into a more honourable kind of philosophical teaching, because who'd want an evil ninja as their movie hero. Takeda also keeps the Yoroi Bitsu, a chest containing the nearly-sacred armour and weapons of the last true Kouga. The sensei is progressing in years, and it will soon be time to choose a successor for his position. Two men are in the final running  - the adopted American orphan Casey (Scott Adkins) and Masazuka (Tsuyoshi Ihara). As is tradition in this sort of film, Masazuka is a total jerk, but instead of going the equally traditional way of trying to put his rival into an undeservedly bad light, he just loses it completely one day and tries to murder Casey in front of the whole dojo, a clever move that sees him banished forever.

On the plus side (for him), Masazuka can now begin to adapt the ninja style to the modern world, using some technical gimmicks to reproduce age-old ninja tricks and/or stuff he liked in Splinter Cell, and starts a career as a professional assassin for a powerful secret criminal society in New York. Said society is the kind of society that is so secret, it brands its members with its sign right on their breastbones, and so powerful, it consists of one rich guy and a bunch of thugs wearing partner-look leather jackets. But hey, whatever gets you through the night.

Things could stay rather peaceful for everyone Masazuka isn't trying to kill, but once the day comes when Takeda finally is going to make Casey's status as his successor official, the evil ninja returns to Japan to make a scene. Takeda immediately sends Casey and his daughter Namiko (Mika Hijii) - yes, of course she and Casey are in a state of undeclared love - to the US, supposedly so they can keep the Yoroi Bitsu safe, but clearly also to keep them out of harm's way when Masazuka's obvious attack will come. Not unexpectedly, Masazuka kills Takeda and the rest of the dojo the following night.

Now, Casey and Namiko have to keep the Yoroi Bitsu safe, survive the onslaught of Masazuka's secret society buddies out to get them, escape the police who make them responsible for various murders because all the non-stupid cops must be on holiday, and finally cope with Masazuka himself once he arrives back in New York. Nobody ever said being a ninja is easy.

When it comes to contemporary (mostly) direct-to-video action directors in the USA, Isaac Florentine is a bit of a throw-back to the middle to late 80s with a preference for filming martial arts based fighting scenes in ways that actually let his audience see what's going on, and letting his movies hang together through more than semi-ironic winking.

Ninja, of course, takes many of its ideas and basic plot beats from the curiously beloved sub-genre of US low budget action that concerns the adventures of - white unless they're Sho Kosugi - ninjas doing what action movie ninjas are wont to do. It's not a sub-genre I'm personally very nostalgic for (witnessing middle-aged Franco Nero pretending to be a martial artist will do that to you) , but Florentine's film does its thing so well nostalgia isn't necessary to enjoy Ninja.

Obviously, I do highly approve of Florentine's project of not making action sequences boring and actually showing us what's going on in them without giving up on dynamic camera work (though I could go with a little less slow-mo/sped-up edits). There's a really beautiful flow to most of the action scenes, with the actors' bodies and the camera working together in what I often think is the more bloody (and therefore entertaining) version of the same thing a classic film musical does. Of course, you can do this sort of thing only well when you have actors you don't have to replace with stunt doubles for every shot; they at least need to be able to pose a little. Fortunately, that's where the talents of Adkins, Ihara and a horde of stuntmen playing henchmen come in, as well as Akahiro Noguchi's fight choreography. Mika Hijii does get a few convincing fight moments in, too, but unfortunately, the film does rather tend to make her "the girl", so she doesn't kick ass as well as the men and is of course in the end kidnapped by the main bad guy, something the poor actress knows well from her role in Garo. At least she is allowed to project some personality, has some chemistry with Adkins, and isn't helpless as much as out-matched.

Apart from that weakness, there's little I don't like about Ninja: it's a film that treats its silly ideas with utmost seriousness without ever feeling the need to make fun of them or apologize for them to the audience, has some outstanding action scenes (my favourite would probably be the fight in the subway), decent acting-acting and brilliant physical acting, and is excellently paced. Plus, despite having been shot in low budget mecca Bulgaria, it puts some much appreciated effort into making things feel authentic. It's not normal to find actual professional Japanese actors one might even know from film or TV in their own country in this sort of thing, nor is it typical to hear them speak actual Japanese among each other or accented English with their own voices, yet it is exactly the level of care and respect this demonstrates that makes Ninja so great.


Well, that and lots of scenes of Scott Adkins kicking people in the face.

Cold Harvest (1999)

Welcome to the double-apocalypse post-apocalypse. First, a comet collided with Earth hiding the sun away behind eternal clouds that just happen to make a film shot in the studio much more believable (in theory). Then, a mysterious virus with symptoms so mysterious the film never shows them or tells us about them rolled around to mop up the rest of humanity. In the end, it’s all darkness, people dressed in your typical post-apocalyptic rags (extra cheap edition) and something called “The Safe Zone”, whatever it may be.

Roland Chaney (Gary Daniels) roams decidedly not safe zones as a bounty hunter, for the world seems to have returned to some kind of frontier law. Being our action movie hero, Roland is of course haunted by a dark past. Things do not get lighter when hilariously sadist evildoer and Chaney childhood playmate Little Ray (Bryan Genesse) ambushes a government convoy in the hopes of picking up some goodies. Instead, he kills a bunch of civilians, as well as Roland’s twin Oliver (guess). Only Oliver’s wife Christine (Barbara Crampton) escapes.

Turns out Little Ray’s murder spree was an even worse idea than your typical murder spree, for the civilians in the convoy were the only surviving carriers of a gene that could make the virus a thing of the past. Thanks to a tracking device with extremely vague operational parameters, Ray follows Christine in the hopes of selling her on to the government; possibly after having had his way with her.

Too bad for him Christine and Roland meet and team up, and Roland’s the kind of bounty-hunting ass-kicker you really don’t want protecting your dedicated victim. Much violence, kidnappings, and a few explosions ensue.

I don’t think Cold Harvest is the biggest milestone in director Isaac Florentine’s decades-long crusade to make US direct-to-video action and martial arts films that are actually worth watching, carry a consciousness of genre history, and handle genre tropes knowingly yet lovingly. That doesn’t mean this isn’t a fun movie. In fact, it’s rather a lot of fun, but it does have a couple of problems.

For one, the post-apocalyptic world the NuImage budget provides is the usual mix of abandoned industrial buildings, and grotty sets, just with no lights in the sky (yet still an abundance of working light sources) and as such not exactly a delight to look at – it’s more than just a bit drab, and there’s very little to actually gawk at. Secondly – and I’m sorry, Gary Daniels fans – dear Gary Daniels only barely manages to get through the moments when the film actually needs him to act (and the script does take care not to put that much of a strain on him), even in scenes where saintly Barbara Crampton puts in rather a lot of effort to make him look good.

Which of course already leads us to some of Cold Harvest’s strong points, namely, Barbara Crampton who’d lighten up a shitty film and surely doesn’t do less to a really fun one like this, Gary Daniels when he’s not acting but hitting, kicking, shooting and pitchfork-ening people, and Isaac Florentine, esquire.

I’m not even sure it’s still necessary for me to praise Florentine’s action direction, but I’ll do it just to be sure: as usual, Florentine’s action scenes are incredibly energetic – it’s difficult not to use the old cliché of them exploding off the screen – yet never feel the need to go for the “cool” cop out shot that makes it more difficult to see what stunt actors and actors are actually doing. The basis of Florentine’s approach to action is based on the idea that the stuff his performers actually do is as cool as things can get, and it is his job to emphasise what they can do instead of hiding what they can’t. This time around, the style feels particularly Hong Kong to me, with 80s and 90s martial arts scenes and gun fu with a Western genre influence being the centre of Florentine’s attention. There’s a lot of action going around too, of course, but, as always, Florentine’s putting creativity and thought into the bits where nobody dies too.

Sure, the emotional parts are consciously cheesy (just look at the hilarious bit where Crampton washes her back while Daniels polishes his gun and watches her in a mirror and oh so many ever so slightly sexually loaded gestures are made) but then, that’s the only emotional content that fits a film like this.

Other joys are Genesse’s awesome and strange performance as Little Ray, a main henchman who is into noses (don’t ask him why), and a whole lot of overdubbed whoosh and swish noises. Turns out Gary Daniels can’t turn his head without the air around him going “woosh” in sheer excitement. And who could blame it?

In short: Bridge of Dragons (1999)

In some sort of geographically and temporally unsound place and time that enables the good people of NuImage to wildly throw various costumes and props they found squirreled away somewhere together without any care for coherence or unity of mood and theme. Evil warlord General Ruechang (the inevitable Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) has been reigning over an unnamed kingdom for years now, just waiting for Princess Halo (Valerie “Rachel Shane” Chow) to get old enough for him to marry her.

Of course, Ruechang is responsible for the “accident” that killed Halo’s parents, and of course, she only learns about this shortly before her marriage. Not that she wanted to marry the crazy military dictator before, but now she’s so pissed she rides off on her wedding day. Ruechang sends Warchild (Dolph Lundgren), his best man, after Halo. Yet, while retrieving Halo and rescuing the kidnapping-prone woman from rapists and kidnappers, Warchild finds himself soon with divided loyalties, for he and the princess fall in love.

For a film directed by the saintly champion of awesome low budget action Isaac Florentine, and starring the paragon of Dolphness, Dolph Lundgren, Bridge of Dragons (I have, by the way, not the faintest idea why the film’s called this, nor is the film telling) is a rather mild pleasure.

It’s neither the fault of Florentine’s handling of the action, which is impressive as always, nor of Dolph, who had a rather good month when shooting this and has seldom looked more mobile in his fight scenes. The problem lies with a script that really doesn’t seem to know what it’s doing nor what it wants to do, slowly shuffling Warchild and Halo (and seriously, what’s with the names?) to one place only to take them back to a different place one or two scenes later, with little that’s a proper or useful set-up for the action sequences. For most of the film’s running time, the script is dithering, introducing a lame rebel army only to slaughter it in a minor assault five minutes later, introducing Halo as a secret stick fighting badass only to find her kidnapped four to six – depending on your count – times, and always making one step forward and one step back, presenting itself as utterly unable to give Florentine a frame on which to hang the things he does best.

I would like to blame Dolph and Chow for the tepid and anti-septic air of their Great Romantic Love but again, the script doesn’t provide much – if anything – for them to work with; but what do I expect of a movie that doesn’t even properly use Tagawa’s well-known scenery-chewing abilities as it should?

Usually, I’d argue that an action movie doesn’t need that deep a script, particularly not when the action is in the right hands. Bridge of Dragons, however, truly suffers from the failings of its writing, with hardly a scene going by where something potentially awesome isn’t wasted through an improper set-up or through feet-dragging of a kind I’ve seen in no other Florentine film. I don’t care much that the film is dumb, but I care a lot about the fact it seems to sabotage everything that could be fun in it, never deciding on a tone or a theme it isn’t going to ignore at least two scenes later completely.

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,in short,isaac florentine,dolph lundgren,action,cary-hiroyuki tagawa,valerie chow,gary hudson

Ninja: Shadow of a Tear (2013)

After the events of Ninja Casey (Scott “Best Western Martial Arts Actor” Adkins) and Namiko (Mika Hijii) have gotten married and are continuing Namiko’s father’s ninjitsu dojo. Now, Namiko is pregnant, and we all know what that spells for women in martial arts movies: death. Consequently, one night while Casey is out indulging Namiko’s pregnant wishes for chocolate and seaweed, someone murders her.

Casey assumes it was an act of vengeance for a little lesson he taught a couple of robbers, and does some murdering of his own. Vengeance leaves Casey with anger management problems and no proper direction to his life, so he takes the invitation of his senpai Nakabara (Kane Kosugi, not as horrible as usual) to visit his dojo in Thailand to get a grip on himself again.

However, it soon turns out that Namiko’s murder had rather more complicated reasons, and that Goro (Shun Sugata), the son of a former enemy of her father, is the man truly responsible, and still rather vengeful too. Casey decides perhaps a little more vengeance will make him feel better about himself, so he travels to Myanmar, where Goro has built quite a career as a jungle-based drug lord, to finish matters between them.

With Shadow of a Tear, director Isaac Florentine and actor/martial artist Scott Adkins continue their mission to make martial arts and action movies in a more classical style, which turn out to be as good as anything you will find in the genre. Unlike the first Ninja, this isn’t quite as much a love letter to even the cheesiest and silliest of Western made ninja films (though it shares the first film’s basic respect for Japanese culture as well as the highly excellent concept of casting actors from the correct parts of Asia to play the role of characters from said regions), but more interested in being a classic martial arts revenge movie. Which only is a bad thing to the degree the film can’t do anything better than kill Mika Hijii’s character – the only woman with an actual role in the film – off early on to motivate its male protagonist. Not exactly a plot device I love, though it would on the other hand have been quite difficult to find any other reason to get Casey back into the killing habit.

At least, and this is something Florentine always does well beside his obvious virtues as an action director, the handful of scenes between Adkins and Hijii do sell them very well as a loving couple, and Hijii as a person, which is a good way to keep Adkins sympathetic once he gets down to violent business. Florentine is one of the handful of directors in contemporary action cinema who actually seems to understand that the moments when people aren’t fighting are important too, and who is able to use these moments to build a modicum of emotional momentum. A modicum of emotional momentum of course being all a film needs that expresses most of its emotional content through violent action.

By now, it seems hardly necessary to talk about Florentine’s – damn correct – idea of how to film a martial arts fight in a way that shows off the performers and keeps an audience excited as well as oriented about what is going on, nor to praise his ability to go back to this older, non-shaky, style of action filmmaking without eschewing what modern technology can provide, namely giving the camera a physical presence during the fights which makes them all the more dynamic. Unlike some other Florentine admirers I’m not using the word “realistic” to describe the fight scenes, because of course, these fights are as beautifully (and brutally) choreographed as only screen fights can be. Realism, on the other hand, would be rather less attractive (and would probably not contain performers on the level of Adkins or Tim Man), and would look nothing at all like the glorious one-take fight in a dojo relatively early on in the movie, or like the explody ninja action in the film’s pre-finale.

All of Ninja: Shadow of a Tear’s beautiful carnage is presented with great flair for good location work (most of the film being shot in Thailand), actually intelligent use of colour filters (which is to say, a use that knows where and when not to use them too), and the enthusiasm of true believers in the martial arts film as an art form that can and does express a lot of things through its violence. I, for one, am certainly much too distracted by excitement to disagree with this enthusiasm.

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,thai movies,reviews,martial arts,action,isaac florentine,scott adkins,mika hijii,tim man,kane kosugi

On Exploder Button: Ninja (2009)

Do you like ninjas, kids? Of course you do, everybody does. As luck will have it, this week's column on Exploder Button does include ninjas, and it's a rather great bit of American ninjasploitation as I'd not have expected to see it in a movie not made during the 80s.

So focus your chi on this link and ninja-hop on over.

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,reviews,action,martial arts,isaac florentine,scott adkins,mika hijii,tsuyoshi ihara,togo igawa