But it starts out on a Bruce Lee note. The opening credits have Brandon Lee in a white tank top like his dad sometimes wore, doing martial arts in front of a black void. His character is raised in Hong Kong, and sometimes speaks Chinese, and is living in the shadow of a father everyone admires. In an interview included on the DVD Lee mentions that the movie was written specifically for him, which isn’t surprising.

Lee’s character Jake Lo is introduced on a motorcycle, wearing a leather jacket, which means he’s an individualist and an American despite growing up in China. He was there when his father was run over by a tank in a pro-democracy demonstration. Now he’s an American college student and the Chinese political activists on campus try to drag him into their cause because of who his father was, but he’s not interested. You never really appreciate your father in the first half of your movie, do you?

Jake happens to witness a crime boss murdering somebody, and is witnessed witnessing it. So now a cop (Powers Boothe) wants him to be their star witness, some crooked cops and gangsters want him to be dead. The way the two leads meet is great. Lee gets stuck in a gigantic alley shootout, unloads multiple guns, dodges many different calibers of ammunition, jumps through garbage, does a bunch of somersaults. Suddenly Boothe drives up in a car and yells at him until he gets in. They’re being chased by another car so Boothe stops his, gets out and unloads a rifle into the enemy car. It catches on fire, then crashes, then flips and explodes, lands, burns some more, blows up some more. Boothe gets back in his car, peels out, and turns to Lee and says, “Hiya.”

The movie follows my theory of badass juxtaposition, because Jake is an artist. Okay, they don’t keep coming back to it to show his sensitive side, it’s not that big of a deal. But it allows him to flirt with the nude model from his class and also to make a sketch of the suspect for the police.

If you just know Lee from THE CROW you might not know how serious he was about action. This is a full-on martial arts movie, at least in the American sense of Seagal and Van Damme. Lee has lots of great moves flipping tables, doing somersaults, jumping over ledges, shooting, running away just before a bullet hits, ducking as he’s showered with debris from bullet hits, kicking doors into people’s faces, hitting people with freezer doors, kicking through walls, kicking out metal bars, stabbing a guy with a fork, breaking a stick in half to use as two clubs, knocking a column down with his shoulder so a balcony will collapse on a guy. In a tribute to shoeless John McClane he gets into trouble while not wearing a shirt, but in a testament to boy scout preparation he happens to be wearing the shirt tied around his waist so he can put it on later. (Remember in the ’90s how those dweebs would wear their flannel shirts tied around their waist? There was a guy on MTV who always did that and I thought Jesus, you can’t just put it down somewhere in the studio? What kind of security do they have in the MTV studio, a guy has to walk around clinging desperately to his shirt so nobody rips it off?) He drives a motorcycle the longest possible way through a glass cabinet. He does a move where a guy grabs one of his feet so he jumps up and kicks him in the head with the other foot, which I believe was one of his trademarks.

Best of all this is a more badass model of Brandon Lee. In THE CROW he’s the gothy weirdo ghost, in SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO he’s the straightlaced nerd, but in this one he’s the tough guy. I mean I already mentioned the motorcycle and it’s not a Kawasaki ninja or nothing. He gets to play brooding and cocky, and has a couple of badass lines. I like after witnessing the shooting, he’s being interrogated by the cops and not being very cooperative. One of the cops says “You know what I think? Maybe this is the guy that did it.”

Lee looks at him in disgust and says, “The guy that did it needed a gun.”

You get it? Because Brandon Lee is a lethal weapon. A rapid fire lethal weapon. He’s like a laser on a mission.

Another good one is at the end, he explains the fate of one of the bad guys by quipping, “He’s at one with his ancestors.” That could be a Seagal line come to think of it.

I remember this as being a pretty good movie when I saw it years ago, but to be honest there was exactly one thing I remembered about it: when the cops who are supposedly defending him try to kill him, he pulls out a drawer and tosses all the silverware into a crooked cop’s face. That is a great move that I recommend everybody remember just in case. The movie itself could never live up to the move, but it’s still pretty good.

It’s got some pretty standard action movie tropes. There’s a female cop who shows him her father’s file, teaches him what a great man his father was, and then they immediately have sex. It’s got Al Leong in it too. He’s the first bad guy you see, he’s by the villain’s side the whole time and never fights Lee until the last ten minutes. And he puts up a hell of a fight, he almost seems like he could beat him. In some cultures it’s considered a sign of good luck if Al Leong’s character survives even halfway through a movie.

Director Dwight Little is the guy who did HALLOWEEN 4 and FREE WILLY 2. So I’m not gonna build a statue of him yet. But I do think he’s a pretty good action director. Of course I could (and did) write a whole chapter about his MARKED FOR DEATH, a great golden age Seagal picture that many of my fellow Seagalogists consider the big man’s best. If I had to find a common motif between the movies it would be the delight in destruction of rich people’s elegant crap. I believe it’s a Tiffany’s that gets torn to shreds in MARKED FOR DEATH, here it’s somebody’s mansion or something, but in both cases it’s enjoyable to watch. RAPID FIRE  also shares with MARKED FOR DEATH a performance by Basil Wallace (he played the villain Screwface in MARKED, a cop in this one) and a healthy respect for setting up and paying off. For example when Lee goes into a restaraunt as part of an undercover operation the first thing he does is glance around, checking out the layout of the place, where the stairs are, the balcony. And he uses all of these things when the shit goes down. There’s a shot of the bartender using a library-style wheeled ladder to get to his vast collection of alcohol, and later on this same ladder hits Lee in the face (possibly cinema history’s first ladder POV shot).

I’m gonna have to re-watch a couple other Lee movies but so far I’m thinking this is his best.

[ratings]

With Brandon Lee it’s even sadder because he was more like on the verge of on the verge. After LASER MISSION, RAPID FIRE and SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO it was clear he wasn’t just getting a pass for being the son of the biggest martial arts star ever. He was a fighter in his own right, training in his father’s style, but differentiating himself by being more of an actor than his father. THE CROW was his breakthrough to a bigger audience – and might’ve still been if he hadn’t died. He did some action like usual (fighting, stunts, guns, swords) but a more challenging character than he’d had before. He played a crazed, sad ghost out for revenge, terrorizing his victims with snippets of poetry. He’s got this intense look in his eyes like he’s so proud of what he’s telling you and doesn’t realize you got no clue what the hell he’s blabbering about. It would’ve been great to see what kind of roles Lee could’ve gotten after that, but of course an accident with a prop gun killed him while shooting his character’s death scene. So now his legend is based on morbid irony and conjecture instead of a body of work. Not fair.

I was thinking of this movie because of the director, Alex Proyas. I thought this was pretty good when I first saw it, and DARK CITY really good. Since then Proyas has made due with “hey, not as bad as I was expecting!” movies like I, ROBOT and KNOWING. So we’ll see where he goes from here. But first I wanted to go back to the beginning to see if he was really any good in the first place.

THE CROW is a movie of its time, the 1994 version of DEATH WISH. You get the same kind of overacting rapist creeps as in a DEATH WISH movie, but with some bonus arson and witchcraft. Instead of inhabiting a decaying city it’s an exaggerated goth model (this was the post Tim Burton’s BATMAN era, when production design was king). Instead of being based on a trasy novel it’s an “underground” comic book. Instead of an atmospheric, jazzy score by Herbie Hancock it’s a collection of songs by The Cure and various goth and/or industrial (or something) style rock n rollers. Instead of an architect he’s a guitarist in an up and coming rock band. (Surprised they didn’t say “grunge.”) Instead of quoting westerns he quotes Edgar Alan Poe. Instead of becoming a vigilante to stop crime from ruining other people’s lives he becomes a ghost who kills the people who killed him and his fiance “to set things right.”

Holy shit, I just realized THE CROW is why kids today wear eyeliner and skinny pants instead of trying to be Charles Bronson. They were just given the wrong version of DEATH WISH, that’s all it was. The next generation will probaly be more like Kevin Bacon in DEATH SENTENCE.

Anyway, as bad as the bad guys are, as much as they deserve it, it still comes off as a pretty sadistic fantasy. He has magic powers. They shoot him and nothing happens, he just makes fun of them for trying. They’re fish in a barrel. He torments them like a kid picking on animals. It’s not until the end that the movie introduces the idea that he could lose his invincibility, so there’s not much tension about him pulling it off or not, it’s just “ha ha, take that, bad guy.”

In DEATH WISH he’s got cops after him, so there’s suspense. And it forces you to be uncomfortable with his morality (in part 1 at least) because he’s sneaking out and making up alibis, it’s like he’s a serial killer. He is a serial killer.

THE CROW has a little of that because Lee plays him pretty psychotic. You definitely see echoes of his performance in Ledger’s Joker. Think of the scene where Lee confronts Jon Polito as a sleazy pawn shop owner who bought the dead fiancee’s engagement ring. Lee tosses away wedding ring after wedding ring from a box, saying each one is a life that this guy helped destroy. He loads them into a shotgun and fires it, igniting a trail of gasoline. That’s pretty cool. And that’s kind of what’s weird here. I’m not sure this character is supposed to be so questionable. I can’t shake the feeling that he’s supposed to be awesome to the people who think evil clown makeup is cool. (To be fair, this is evil mime makeup.)

Don’t take this the wrong way, I’m not trying to connect any dots here, but watching it now made me think of Columbine. I mean, I bet those kids dug this movie – emotional rock ‘n roll guy takes sadistic glee in plowing through people he believes wronged him, are not as good as him, are lower life forms. I don’t know man, I usually like a good revenge story, but I guess you gotta get the mechanics right. I didn’t think this one was very good anymore.

But there’s plenty to admire about it. Michael Wincott and Tony Todd are the top bad guys, and they’re always enjoyable to watch. The dark, foggy city has a very strong look (more BLADE RUNNER than anything else). Lee does get some really good scenes, like the one where he comes right into the criminal meeting (later echoed in THE DARK KNIGHT and PUNISHER WAR ZONE, which uses sadism more humorously) or when he saves an addict by causing the morphine to drip out of her trackmarks. And I like the minimalistic explanation of the supernatural parts, which basically comes down to “people used to believe” a crow could transfer a soul or whatever.

Also you gotta hand it to THE CROW for being influential, for good or bad. Kids watching it now probaly don’t know that at the time there weren’t really movies like that. It has  a consistent tone too. Maybe it’s a corny tone, but at least they got the balls to stick with it, no joking around. Hell, I even liked Ernie Hudson in this movie. I don’t like this too much anymore, but it’s miles ahead of that later ’90s comic book movie I just reviewed, SPAWN. Although I must point out that it also has a streetwise kid sidekick (this one a tomboy on a skateboard).

Sorry, Brandon Lee. You gave it your all on this one. Wish you had more chances. I promise I’ll watch RAPID FIRE again.

As I continue to learn about the works of Dolph Lundgren (no, sorry, I’m not writing LUNDGRENICS, I’m just trying to become a more well-rounded individual) it’s refreshing to find that he has many movies where he is a charismatic action hero and not just some grunting oaf. SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO is one people have been recommending to me for years because it has him teamed with Brandon Lee, which is a pretty big deal for somebody whose most notable co-stars are often talk show hosts like Jerry Springer or Montel Williams.

Basically this one is a cop buddy picture with Dolph as the line-crossing, bushido practicing white cop on the Little Tokyo beat who by the way is out to avenge the deaths of his parents by a samurai, but that’s neither here nor there. We know Dolph is a bad motherfucker right away because he single-handedly busts up an illegal underground fighting circuit by rappelling in from the ceiling in the middle of a match and then taking on those who disagree with his decision. Later he’s in a cafe when he happens to see some of the same Yakuzas bullying the old lady owner for protection money. In the middle of the brawl that ensues he’s introduced to his new partner, Brandon Lee.

I feel like an asshole saying it but I kind of have mixed feelings about Brandon Lee, the O.G. Mark Dacascos. He was a good martial artist, a decent actor, obviously it was such a tragedy what happened to him, and it was cool that Bruce Lee had a legacy in him. But he was maybe too good at playing an uptight nerd like this character. It’s a funny idea that Dolph knows more about Asian culture than he does, so I’m not complaining. I’m just saying for all the hype Brandon Lee gets I’m not sure he had the presence of a superstar. He was more of a foil or a sidekick. You definitely like Dolph better than him in this one. I don’t know, maybe that’s blasphemous to say. I’ll watch some of his other movies and hopefully I’ll be wrong and I’ll repent.

The head Yakuza turns out to be Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, who played lots of bad guys in the ’90s, including in KICKBOXER 2, THE PERFECT WEAPON, NEMESIS, MORTAL KOMBAT and THE PHANTOM. He’s pushing a powerful new drug (another constant of the era) which is secretly manufactured in his brewery. I wonder if that’s what’s up with all these microbrews around here, I should check for Yakuza symbols in their logos. The movie also has Tia Carrera as a singer/love interest, yet another trademark of ’90s movies. I never was into her but she had a good run there I guess. Hopefully she saved some money from WAYNE’S WORLD and TRUE LIES.

Tagawa is one of those guys that gets typecast as villains because he just seems so convincingly cruel. In this one the “just how evil is this guy?” scene goes to new levels of depravity. When a junkie comes to him begging for leniency he convinces her she has to have sex with him to pay off her debt. In front of his friends. But when she’s stripped down to her lingerie instead of having sex with her he has somebody hand him a sword and cuts off her head. And he videotapes the whole thing. Kind of a pervert, in my opinion. Worse than R. Kelly.

The director is Mark L. Lester, who did COMMANDO, so it’s nice to see Dolph pickup a car and put it on its side to use as a shield. He never carries a log on his shoulder, though. But there’s lots of good craziness here. Dolph jumps over a car that comes after him, much like Mario jumping over a barrel. He fights some guys while holding a cup of tea, much like Dirty Harry foiling a bank robbery while eating a hot dog, but more classy. A Yakuza commits suicide by breaking his own neck while in police custody. At the end he sword fights Tagawa to the death in public, then Brandon Lee jokes about it. I knew Dolph could take the starch out of that guy’s collar.

Lester also did the movies CLASS OF 1984 and CLASS OF 1999 that I reviewed recently. So that’s four pretty distinctive movies by this guy. That can’t be a coincidence. I have looked over his filmography and I doubt he has any others as good but it’s worth investigating I think.

This is a fun movie and as an added bonus it’s only 79 minutes long. I mean I like a good long movie but you gotta respect a good short one too. It just gets in there, does what needs to be done, and then gets out. Like a ninja. No time for fucking around. No time to stop and get a bottle of water out of the refrigerator like Steven Seagal in BELLY OF THE BEAST. It is not a guest that overstays its welcome. It’s a guest that comes over and makes everybody laugh and then says something funny just as it jumps out the window and everybody’s still in a good mood afterwards and wants to invite it over again.

BRIDGE OF DRAGONS isn’t too bad either. It’s more proof that Isaac Florentine may be the most dependable and promising director to come out of DTV action. This is an earlier film by the director of UNDISPUTED II and THE SHEPHERD: BORDER PATROL and like those movies it has some dynamic camera angles, good martial arts scenes and some weird touches to the story that make it less generic than your, uh, generic DTV. It’s also another charismatic performance by Dolph.

Although there are no dragons or even bridges this is kind of a fantasy film. It takes place “somewhere between the future and the past” (wouldn’t that be the present? I’m confused) so Dolph uses modern military gear and there are helicopters but most people dress medeival and use swords and horses and there are princesses and shit. There are lots of Europeans but the general and princess are Asian, the soldiers wear Nazi-esque uniforms and the helicopters say “666″ on the side of them. Which sounds evil but I’m sure it’s just a district number or some innocent squiggles or something.

This time Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa plays a brutal general about to marry a princess. She doesn’t want to marry him, especially after her nurse or nanny type lady tells her that this guy actually murdered her dad, the rightful king. Like in SHOWDOWN he is a good swordsman in this one. But not good enough for Dolph, I bet.

Dolph is “Warchyld,” the most elite and feared soldier who was plucked out of a camp by the general and trained to be the ultimate badass. He’s loyal to the general and when Princess Halo tries to run away on her wedding night he tracks her down and brings her back. But then when he sees the general slap her he quickly changes his mind, starts kicking everybody’s asses and takes off with her to join the rebellion. Also by the way these two fought each other in an underground pole fighting contest but they were wearing masks so they didn’t recognize each other at the time.

This is not really one of the better action movies, but I enjoyed it. Like anything the most interesting action is the hand-to-hand. The gun battles do give you a nostalgic feeling though because it’s the kind where they just keep showing explosions that cause stuntmen to fly through the air in slow motion. I don’t think there are any digital effects at all. Reminds me of all those post-RAMBO jungle war movies. But a little more watchable.
The story is all cliches but I was surprised how effective it was anyway when it got to the scene where Dolph basically stages a coup during the wedding. All the soldiers have to search their hearts to decide on the spot whether to team with the asshole general or the traitorous soldier. It reminded me of THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED when the soldiers who you assume are with the coup give a fist in the air salute to the crowd of protesters.

Although this is not entirely a martial arts movie Florentine betrays his past as a Power Rangers director by doing lots of WHOOSH sound effects when people turn their heads or remove their hats, or even when the camera is a POV shot and represents the turning of a head. So it’s pretty cartoony or old school kung fu theater. I don’t like those whooshy camera moves but when it just means somebody’s whipping their head around it’s goofy enough to win me over.

[ratings]