Back in the magical 1980s the Filipino Silver Star Company had one big dream: making authentic American action flicks in their own neighbourhood. I mean, who's going to know? Just fly in some token American actors who peaked at least two decades ago, have them say any old action cliché that you can come up with in an afternoon and give it a violent title, it'll work. Unfortunately, the dirt cheap production values and clearly Asian surroundings can occasionally hurt the illusion. Silver Star's favorite token American was without a doubt Richard Harrison, this was the fifth movie he did for the company. By now unfortunately he has tremendous trouble hiding the boredom and disgust he feels for projects like these, which is sad because "Blood Debts" is by far the best Filipino movie he did (whatever that means).
What I love most about "Blood Debts" is that it doesn't take time explaining anything, because there's nothing to explain. You know from the first minute on that it's going to be a "Death Wish" rip-off, you know it will just be Harrison randomly blowing away scum for ninety minutes. Who cares where he went to high school or whether he likes long walks on the beach, it would just eat up murder time. His wife doesn't even have a name and she's in like six scenes. That's basically the main (only?) value these movies have. The makers know they don't have much skill in writing, directing or virtually any aspect of filmmaking, so they go for broke and give the audience exactly what it wants. I can respect that kind of attitude, it makes "Blood Debts" highly enjoyable. Bonus points for the "huh?" of an ending, it's less dumb than the ending to "Fireback" (another Silver Star production with Harrison in the lead) but definitely not by much.
