Posts Tagged ‘Billy Drago’
Monday, April 8th, 2024
I’m going to continue with my THE CROW studies but there aren’t many actual THE CROW movies to review, so here’s a little bit of a side mission.
EL MUERTO (as it’s called on streaming, THE DEAD ONE on DVD) is a 2007 DTV movie I always assumed was a THE CROW wannabe. It stars Wilmer Valderrama (SUMMER CATCH) as Juan Diego, a guy who’s really into Day of the Dead and on the way to a Day of the Dead celebration (while wearing skull makeup and a mariachi suit decorated with little white bones) he crashes into a tree and is possessed by Aztec gods. Then when he gets to the celebration he sees a shrine to himself and realizes oh shit, I died and a year has passed and now I’ve come back with supernatural powers. Like THE CROW, except different. Adn on his favorite holiday. What the fuck. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alfonso Arau, Angie Cepeda, Billy Drago, Day of the Dead, Joel David Moore, Maria Conchita Alonso, Steve Yedlin, Tony Amendola, Tony Plana, Wilmer Valderrama
Posted in Reviews, Comic strips/Super heroes | 8 Comments »
Wednesday, April 5th, 2023
CHINA WHITE (1989) is the movie where Ronny Yu tackles the ’80s Hong Kong gangster genre that we all fell in love with when we found out about John Woo, Ringo Lam and those guys. Like A BETTER TOMORROW or BULLET IN THE HEAD it chronicles the tragic rise and fall melodrama of dashing young anti-heroes who run a criminal empire and care about family and loyalty and what not. Like CITY ON FIRE it deals with somebody undercover getting too close to a crook, but in this case it’s a female informant falling in love with a guy who she doesn’t know is bad (so, a little bit like THE KILLER). But along with these standard genre themes we have the strongest example so far of Yu’s international world view.
That’s because it takes place in Amsterdam, where the Chow brothers, Bobby (Russell Wong, ROMEO MUST DIE, THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR) and Danny (Steven Vincent Leigh, RING OF FIRE, SWORD OF HONOR) have made a home, but must make peace or war with gangs of other nationalities. They’re most threatened by the Italians, led by Scalia (Billy Drago shortly before DELTA FORCE 2). This is a cutthroat internationalism, but Yu sees opportunity for these immigrants, and seems to come out in favor of cross-cultural/interracial relationships. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alex Man, Andrew Lau, Billy Drago, Carina Lau, Hong Kong action, Lisa Schrage, Ronny Yu, Russell Wong, Steven Vincent Leigh
Posted in Reviews, Action, Crime | 5 Comments »
Thursday, July 14th, 2022
It was the fourth week of June, 1992. BATMAN RETURNS was ruling the roost. It wasn’t the unbridled Batmania of ’89, but it was the biggest movie of the year. On Tuesday the 23rd a couple notable-to-me albums came out. Eric B and Rakim released their fourth and final album, Don’t Sweat the Technique. It included a song about the Gulf War (“Casualties of War”) and the classic “Know the Ledge” (originally on the JUICE soundtrack).
At the time I was also into Deee-Lite, who released their less popular second album Infinity Within. I’ve never been an electronic dance music guy, but the presence of Bootsy lured me into the first album (in fact, seeing them live was the first time I saw Bootsy live), and then I stuck with them. I had not listened to this album in years, but I enjoyed putting it on to get into the 1992 spirit. It’s very of-its-time in that it blends genres and features guest appearances by Arrested Development, Jamal-ski and Michael Franti (then in Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, later Spearhead). I think it holds up as a good album and some of my favorites are the four shamelessly corny P.S.A. type songs: “Vote, Baby, Vote,” “I Had a Dream I Was Falling through a Hole in the Ozone Layer,” “Fuddy Duddy Judge” and “Rubber Lover.” (Why is there politics in my dance music what happened to just dancing without having to care about anything I’m calling the cops)
And then on Wednesday the 24th on the new release shelf of your local video store you may have found the DTV action movie DEATH RING. Its contribution to weirdness in the year of our lord 1992 is that it’s the movie that says “NORRIS, DRAGO, McQUEEN, SWAYZE” on the cover and yes, the Drago is Billy Drago, but the others are Mike Norris (son of Chuck), Chad McQueen (son of Steve) and Don Swayze (younger brother of Patrick). (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Billy Drago, Branscombe Richmond, Chad McQueen, Don Swayze, DTV, Elizabeth Fong Sung, George Kee Cheung, Henry Kingi, Isabel Glasser, Mike Norris, Most Dangerous Game plot, R.J. Kizer
Posted in Action, Reviews | 10 Comments »
Monday, June 29th, 2020
June 26, 1985
PALE RIDER is a solid, well made, mostly traditional western starring, produced and directed by Clint Eastwood, from a script by Michael Butler & Dennis Shryack (THE GAUNTLET, TURNER & HOOCH). Clint stars as a mysterious drifter only referred to as “Preacher,” because when he takes off his stylish trenchcoat he reveals a priestly collar. But this is only after we’ve seen him stick fight a gang of bullies to unconsciousness and comment, “There’s nothin like a nice piece of hickory.” So there are reasons to question whether that’s his true occupation.
The Preacher wanders into a small California mountain town called LaHood, destination unknown. When asked if he’s just passing through he says he hadn’t really thought about it. The man he saved from a beatdown, Hull Barret (Michael Moriarty, Q), invites him to stay for a while. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: actually he's a ghost, Billy Drago, Carrie Snodgress, Chris Penn, Clint Eastwood, John Russell, Michael Moriarty, Richard Dysart, Richard Kiel, Summer of 1985
Posted in Reviews, Western | 41 Comments »
Thursday, September 3rd, 2015
“You know the rules. No fraternizing with cyborgs.”
CYBORG 2 has a totally different feel from CYBORG. Apparently it didn’t even start out as a sequel to CYBORG, it was supposed to be something called GLASS SHADOW until they realized the only way I was gonna rent it 20+ years later would be if it was connected to an existing Jean-Claude Van Damme series. It looks more expensive than Albert Pyun’s original (though still in the low budget realm) and plays much more traditional, not an art film at all.
The disease that had ravaged the world in part 1 must’ve been cured. The ROAD WARRIOR type wasteland has become a poor man’s BLADE RUNNER dystopolis with Max Headroom type boardroom villainy. There’s way more talking and stunt doubles and things that happen. And while I took part 1’s robo-lady as a traditional cyborg – human with machine add-ons – now they’re using the C3PO definition: just a robot. We see how it works in a cool opening credits sequence of liquid flesh injected into a female casing over a robo-skeleton.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Angelina Jolie, Billy Drago, DTV, DTV sequels, Elias Koteas, Jack Palance
Posted in Action, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 16 Comments »
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2015
In LADY DRAGON 2, Cynthia Rothrock de-prises her role as Kathy Galagher, ex-CIA underground fighter out to avenge the death of her also-a-CIA-agent husband. This time she plays Susan “The Golden Angel” Morgan, who in the opening scene defends her professional (i.e. not underground) competitive karate title in the presence of her very much not dead yet husband and famous soccer player Sonny (George Rudy). But then later her husband gets murdered and she has to avenge it.
Meanwhile, criminal maniac Diego (Billy Drago, DELTA FORCE 2, MARTIAL LAW II) and his two flunkies (Sam FLASH GORDON Jones and Greg Stuart [QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER]) are stealing diamonds from the mafia, and then staying in the same hotel as Susan and Sonny. Somehow sensing that Sonny’s fame as an international soccer star will get him brushed through customs without much more than a glance, they stash the stolen loot in his luggage and follow him to Jakarta. But when they go to reclaim the diamonds they’re gone.
Before we move on, let me just say that they call it soccer throughout the movie, they don’t say football, so I don’t have to say it either. Those are the rules. I also say shit instead of shite. It’s how I was raised. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Billy Drago, Cynthia Rothrock, David Worth, DTV, DTV sequels, Indonesia, Sam Jones, sequel in name only
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 4 Comments »
Monday, August 31st, 2015
The first DELTA FORCE movie, directed by Menahem Golan, seemed like it was trying to be a prestige Chuck Norris movie. You got Lee Marvin, Bo Svenson, Robert Forster and Steve James in the cast, but also Martin Balsam, Joey Bishop, George Kennedy, Susan Strasberg and Shelley Winters. There’s a long section in the middle that has no Chuck Norris at all and is based on a real life hijacking incident.
But DELTA FORCE 2 (arguably subtitled THE COLOMBIAN CONNECTION) is directed by Chuck’s brother Aaron and it’s pretty straightforward about just being about Chuck’s character Colonel Scott McCoy going around being more awesome than everybody else. He’s introduced having dinner with his friend Major Bobby Chavez (Paul Perri, MANHUNTER) when three punk rockers cause a scene elsewhere in the restaurant, so he excuses himself to go beat them up. He says he likes the food and slams a guy’s face into a plate of rice in a possible homage to a way better part 2, A BETTER TOMORROW 2.
The villain is the straight up blatantly evil South American drug lord Ramon Cota (Billy Drago). We know he doesn’t have a human soul because he goes to visit the coca fields where poor villagers are forced to work and he immediately gets angry that one of them (Begonya Plaza, HEAT, ‘R XMAS) is tending to her baby instead of the plants. He has his men take away the baby and stabs the father right in front of her.
(So don’t go talking shit about unions. We need unions.) (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aaron Norris, Billy Drago, Cannon Films, Chuck Norris, John P. Ryan, Paul Perri, Richard Jaeckel, skydiving
Posted in Action, Reviews | 44 Comments »
Saturday, April 17th, 2010
In honor of the historic first ever ACTIONFEST going on right now in Asheville, North Carolina, I thought I should watch a Chuck Norris picture. Mr. Norris is the recipient of the Actionfest Lifetime Achievement Award (and coincidentally brother of Actionfest co-founder Aaron Norris). For their retrospective they’re showing CODE OF SILENCE (Seagalogy p. 13-14) and BRADDOCK: MISSING IN ACTION III. Since I’d already seen CODE and didn’t have time to catch up with MIA 1-2 yet I followed your recommendations and went with INVASION U.S.A. I think the deciding factor was that Drew Barnhardt told me it was “Norris’s DEATH WISH III.” And Drew loves DEATH WISH III, I don’t think he’d throw that comparison out there lightly. He would be completely aware of all its consequences and implications. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Billy Drago, Cannon Films, Chuck Norris, Cold War, James Bruner, Joseph Zito, Richard Lynch
Posted in Action, Reviews | 69 Comments »
