While we lost Leo Fong in early 2022, the martial artist/actor was still working in 2021 and his final gig, Pact of Vengeance (2022), showed up on Tubi yesterday. Damn you, Tubi! Zian (Fong) is a retired special forces colonel who seeks revenge after his granddaughter is attacked at her automobile repair shop by the local gang called The Black Roses (looking straight out of a Troma or 80s Hong Kong film). He recruits old underling Jan Nowalski (Len Kabasinski) and they soon unleash the titular pact.
WOW! Before it gets twisted, let me say Leo Fong is a legend and his indie action flicks from the '70s and '80s rule. And while this tries to emulate those, it does not rule. Writer-producer-director Kabasinski is apparently a big fan of leading man Kabasinski and he is the main character, making one think this is Fong's Henry Fonda/Tentacles (1977) moment as he is initially shot apart from everyone else. However, Fong later joins the leads and seeing the 92-year-old literally still kicking as he whoops punks ¼ his age is...something. Imagine bullet time without using slow motion. Kabasinski is obviously trying to ape exploitation films from yesteryear and you just knoooooow in a production meeting he said he wanted it in the "grindhouse style" at some point. I will give credit to cinematographer and editor Stephen Steinbacher for trying to give the film some style including some stylish lighting, a day-glo drug lab (filled with every stripper Kabasinski could corral), and creative editing. However, Kabasinski squanders any positives by staging terrible fights and showing a plodding day-glo drug lab montage three separate times. As my folks would say, you can only see neon naked ladies so much. Tonally, it is a total mess. It is the kind of film where the gang viciously kills people, but decorates their day-glo drug lab with innocuous grafitti saying "F. U." and "Eat me!" on the walls. The kind of film where the set dressing at a nurse's station is a blood pressure cuff and a tiny First Aid kit. Supporting players in Zian's special forces unit dubbed "The Obliterators" include professional wrestlers Priscilla Zuniga and Peter Hernandez, who get to show off some of the moves I'm sure their fans came to see. And as if having Fong didn't fill the '80s cult actor cred quota, we also heavy metal singer Jon Mikel Thor, who is having a Henry Ford/Tentacles (1977) moment as his three scenes are filmed solo in front of a computer. And, probably per his contract, his band provides three songs on the soundtrack. Amazingly, this is Kabasinski's seventeenth feature, so I guess that means I have one down and sixteen to avoid.
