Without a doubt, this is the best Roddy Piper/Sonny Chiba movie EVER. Not many people know this, but these two great action stars made over 200 films together, although this was the only one released stateside.
That's probably not true. At all. It would be funny if it was, though. Roddy Piper, a wrestler that knew his own acting limits and stayed within them (no "suburban commando" for him. just dumb and violent stuff, thank you very much), stars in this film that is kind of about immortal bad guys. I say "kind of" because this movie manages to veer away from the dumb-but-enjoyable premise of fighting the unkillable for almost two hours and needlessly complicate the matter by involving power-hungry white-collar bad guys. Who cares about the mortal baddies when the immortal have to be killed? Certainly not this movie's target audience: drunk college kids and boys under the age of ten.
My problem is this: former American Gladiator Malibu (Derron McBee) is the immortal bad guy. He has all the acting chops one would expect of someone who has been paid to joust with large Q-Tips on TV. Still, he's a ridiculously cartoony bad guy who makes the beginning scenes fun to watch. Then he's gone for about an hour, until the very end. Huh? Who plotted that? Does the audience care about Roddy Piper's sort-of romantic interest that doesn't get naked? No! Do they care about the non-immortal non-combatant bad guys? No!! Do they want to hear Roddy Piper fake a Southern accent? Well, maybe. It's pretty funny bad.
Sonny Chiba is in this movie, too. He's credited as Sonny "J.J." Chiba an his character's name is "J.J." too. Presumably, J.J. is his real nickname and he plays himself in the movie because the movie is based on events from his life. Sonny has a Caucasian daughter in this movie. There is some sort of drama involving her being surprised that he's not her real dad or something. It's hard to pay attention to all of this movie. I'm lucky to be able to recall even that much. This plot just sucks the interest right out of your body.
Oh, remember the wrestler Zeus? He's in this movie, too. He makes friends with Roddy Piper after he watches Rodddy break a guy's nose for pestering a woman. That isn't integral to the plot, mind you. It is, however, exactly the sort of thing that I imagine Zeus likes in his acquaintances.
