User reviews

My review was written in June 1990 after watching the movie on Westport Entertainment video cassette.

A rites of passage story takes an amoral turn in "Emperor of the Bronx", a direct-to-video feature. Some good acting makes this one watchable.

Filmmakers Joseph Merhi and Richard Pepin expanded from their West Coast base to do some Gotham shooting on this pic. Alex D'Andrea toplines as an aimless Bronx youth who strays with his buddy Charlie Ganis into petty crimes until a rival gang cuts his finger off.

The self-styled emperor D'Andrea flees the city, to live in L. A. working as a bartender for his uncle. He falls in love with an older singer (Leisha Sukary), gets lessons on living from crusty William Smith and improbably shoots all the bad guys in a misguided coming of age climax.

D'Andrea's thesping is good but his central character is so unsympathetic it makes the usual Eric Roberts role (e.g., in "Star 80" or "King of the Gypsies") look like a pussycat. Audienced sympathy during this overlong opus wil probably stray to Sukary, who belts five songs (several she co-wrote) well or to Smith, a bad good guy this time instead of his usual good bad guy.

Tech credits, especially Judy Yonemoto's makeup effects, are above average.

Excellent crime film.. This is no ordinary movie. Emperor of the Bronx is a true classic of the 80's , granted some of the acting is a bit dry at times but this doesn't alter the film. The story is original its not about a gangster who climbs his way to the top its so much more than that. Personally i think it's a gem , they don't make films like this anymore. Smith is great as usual and its wall to wall violence. I love the vibe here so moving in places. The visiting room prison scene is a corker. I recommend this to crime film fans. I tried to find a copy of this movie for 8 years because the title grabbed me, when i finally bought and watched it i felt it was worth the wait.

I own a UK copy of this title on VHS, so I've seen it several times many moons ago. A cheaply made small - time gangster/hustler movie which charts the rise of a young street kid into the underworld. This movie is actually quite easy on the eye and some scenes in New York and L.A. are well filmed showing a different aspect of both cities. The plot is pretty thin and the dialogue is corny. But it just about moves along at a satisfying pace. I'd give it 4 out of 10 (which s good for me!)

This is a modern Gangstermovie made in the tradition of classics like Scarface (1932) and Little Cesar(1931) and mixed with modern Gang-movies. It is cheap and trashy but has some really great and memorable scenes, for example, when young Tony loses one of his fingers. The whole movie starts getting interesting after the second part when William Smith appears as Fitz, who helps Tony out of some tricky situations. This is one of the best and most memorable parts this great B-movie-actor ever played. Another thing in this movie I will never forget is that the bad guy is named after an austrian popsinger: Falco.