Tag: Charles Bronson

Kill and Kill Again, Firecracker, Circle of Iron

KILL AND KILL AGAIN, FIRECRACKER, CIRCLE OF IRON

In his 1981 TV review of the South African martial arts spectacular KILL AND KILL AGAIN, Roger Ebert predicted action movie stardom for James Ryan and invoked the names Eastwood, Bronson, and Bruce Lee.

Well, in this business and life in general for that matter, you win some, you lose some.

James Ryan, who? Yeah, not exactly a household name.

Describing the plot, I would like to just string together a bunch of random words: martial arts champion for hire undercover government agent top secret rescue mission kidnapped scientist recruit colleagues alternative energy source megalomaniac uniformed cult mind control world domination bar fight mushy romance mushy talk middle-of-nowhere fight storming fortress explosions fisticuffs flips plot revelations not particularly revelatory.

There you go. KILL AND KILL AGAIN, the sequel to KILL OR BE KILLED, in a nutshell.

KILL AND KILL AGAIN works predominantly because it has a good sense of humor and it finds just the right tone to pull off being a successful action comedy.

There’s one especially fun supporting character and supporting performance, the diabolical genius’ assistant and (significant other) Minerva played by Marloe Scott-Wilson. She looks like she drifted over from ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL or THE DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION, especially with that ridiculous Day-Glo hairdo. She’s a lot of fun in every scene, especially when she calls residential madman Marduk (Michael Mayer) by these absolutely ridiculous pet names. She comes up with a fresh one every single time. And it rankles Marduk, because good old Minerva says her little terms of endearment right in front of everybody. At one point, Marduk tells her, “I said don’t call me Popsicle.” This running gag even has an explosive payoff in the end.

Guess we should mention that South African beauty queen Anneline Kriel — Miss World 1974 — does her own stunts in the movie. She has to overcome playing a character named “Kandy Kane.” I almost wish they would have named her character “Susan Alexander Kane” or “Emily Kane,” for all us CITIZEN KANE fans in the audience. Now, that would have been an impressive stunt.

Impressive stunts are at the heart of FIRECRACKER, especially during the film’s last 30 minutes.

We’re talking about topless kickboxing and what must surely be one of the weirdest love scenes ever committed to celluloid.

Two sicko creeps pursue our heroine Susanne Carter, played by the luscious Jillian Kesner, and they eventually shed her of her top and bra. She then proceeds to kick their asses viciously. Meanwhile, in the background, we have “Rack Master” boxes. Perfect!

“Rack Master” should have been Carter’s martial arts name and it also should have been a title for FIRECRACKER.

That’s not too much of a stretch, especially since FIRECRACKER traveled as NAKED FIST in Australia.

FIRECRACKER director Cirio H. Santiago plagiarized this topless kickboxing scene from his earlier New World Pictures extravaganza TNT JACKSON.

Now, let us consider that weird love scene. Oh Susanna and her love interest Chuck Donner (Darby Hinton) consummate their relationship, but not before they remove each other’s clothes stitch-by-stitch with a knife. Kinky. Chuck Donner and his incredible mustache, especially his incredible mustache, just scream “Creepy seducer of the ladies who killed Susanna’s sister.” Of course, Susanna does not learn of this fact until after their lovemaking.

Susanna exacts her revenge against Chuck in the ring and we all can be sure that he will never look at another woman ever again.

Kesner passed away in 2007 and she and her late husband Gary Graver (1938-2006) became known for their efforts to preserve the work and legacy of legendary director Orson Welles. I do believe it is time for another reference to CITIZEN KANE.

CIRCLE OF IRON attempts to be something bigger, greater than KILL AND KILL AGAIN and FIRECRACKER. It wants to be a transcendent exploitation film.

We are given the only clue we need as soon as the following title card appears on screen: “Prior to the death of the legendary Bruce Lee he helped to create a movie story that might capture not only the spirit of martial arts but a part of the Zen philosophy he lived by. He was aware that a film with these dynamics would cause controversy, particularly among those unfamiliar with Zen beliefs. But it was this very uniqueness that he believed wound enthrall the moviegoer. Bruce set the story in a land that never was and always is. It is to Bruce Lee that this film is posthumously dedicated.”

I was definitely not enthralled by CIRCLE OF IRON. Not very often.

It certainly did not help that Captain Hairdo, er, Jeff Cooper plays the lead character Cord and this character and performance never quite resonated with me because I kept seeing Roger Daltrey instead and I pretended it was TOMMY.

I kept waiting for Cooper’s cord to break out into song, “Listening to you, I get the music / Gazing at you I get the heat / Following you I climb the mountain / I get excitement at your feet!” and “See me, feel me, touch me, heal me.”

It never happened and I felt extremely disappointed.

David Carradine plays about four roles too many in CIRCLE OF IRON. Okay, I’ll say three roles too many, because we get one of the film’s most entertaining scenes when Carradine assumes the guise of “Monkeyman.” At one point, Carradine’s wig came off and I thought shit like that only happened in SAMURAI COP.

Christopher Lee passed on THE LEGEND OF THE 7 GOLDEN VAMPIRES, a joint venture between Hammer Studios and the Shaw Brothers, because he did not want to play Dracula for the millionth time … but he plays what turns out to be a role that sucks even more in CIRCLE OF IRON, Zoltar, er, Zetan. This is one of those quest movies where you’ll become irritated after hearing a certain name — Zetan, maybe — many, many, many, many, many, many times.

Orson Welles asked me not to reference a certain movie during this review of CIRCLE OF IRON. I must respect his wishes.

 

KILL AND KILL AGAIN ***; FIRECRACKER ***; CIRCLE OF IRON **

Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films (2014)

ELECTRIC BOOGALOO, THE WILD UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS

ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS (2014) Three-and-a-half stars
There’s bad movies and then there’s movies released by Cannon Films.
Cannon became one of the most productive motion picture studios in the 1980s, known for producing schlock on an epic scale.
You might remember Cannon from their productions SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE, THE DELTA FORCE, MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, BLOODSPORT, OVER THE TOP, KING SOLOMON’S MINES, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2, THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN, and, of course, BREAKIN’ 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO.
Once upon a time, I believe I wrote that cousins and Cannon heads Menahem Golan (1929-2014) and Yoram Globus were never responsible for a “good” film.
It sure does seem that way at times with their Cannon canon, but I might have been guilty of practicing a little bit of hyperbole. Never. And it’s not like Cannon was never guilty of the same.
I watched many of these films growing up and thus, I watched ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS with a certain nostalgia.
I’ll take a bad film produced by Cannon over many, many good films. They’re never ever boring, unlike so many prestigious prize winners over the years.
For example, I’ve never considered OVER THE TOP a good movie in any traditional sense, but it’s always been great fun watching this incredible cinematic train wreck that combines “arm wrestling, child custody, and truck driving” into a macho soap opera for the ages. See, your regular bad movie would not take on all three of those subjects and play them full tilt. Child actor David Mendenhall mugs so heavily that I check my wallet every single time I watch OVER THE TOP and his emotional moments with Stallone are so cringe worthy.
Anyhoo, ELECTRIC BOOGALOO is filled with many, many nuggets of juicy information.
— Golan honestly believed that Brooke Shields would win an Academy Award for her performance in SAHARA. Come on, are we talking about the same Brooke Shields, one of the worst actresses ever to disgrace the screen? SAHARA marked the last Cannon picture that MGM distributed; MGM called it “Dry as the Sahara desert … it was awful.” During his review of the 1985 Chevy Chase and Dan Akyroyd comedy SPIES LIKE US, Gene Siskel mentioned that he watched the film while he was on vacation in Hawaii and that Hollywood studios should show him a movie every time he’s on vacation in Hawaii because he’d like anything … then he remembered that a year-and-a-half before, he saw SAHARA in Hawaii and it nuked his see-a-movie-in-Hawaii-and-like-it theory.
Rather than winning an Oscar, Shields instead became the first and so far only actress to win both Worst Actress and Worst Supporting Actor (“Brooke Shields (with a mustache)”) at the 1984 Razzies.
— Cannon wanted “that Stone woman” for their RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and ROMANCING THE STONE rip-off KING SOLOMON’S MINES.
Golan meant Kathleen Turner, star of both ROMANCING THE STONE and JEWEL OF THE NILE, but instead “that Stone woman” was interpreted to mean Sharon Stone, who had a limited filmography at that point in her career.
Seemingly everybody hated Stone during the production.
Legend has it that crew members pissed on Stone’s bathtub in her trailer.
Stone said that her contribution to both KING SOLOMON’S MINES and the sequel ALLAN QUATERMAIN AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD was her bad hairdo running through the jungle. She took work on POLICE ACADEMY 4: CITIZENS ON PATROL next to have some fun after the stress of both King Solomon films and her divorce.
Here I thought it was a chance to work with both Brian Backer and Billie Bird (1908-2002).
— SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE is one of the worst super hero movies of all-time and rates with JAWS THE REVENGE as the worst third sequel released in 1987.
This is a film where the IMDb trivia is infinitely more interesting than the final product.
For example, the SUPERMAN IV entry begins promisingly, “Christopher Reeve publicly regretted his involvement in the film. He stated, ‘SUPERMAN IV was a catastrophe from start to finish. That failure was a huge blow to my career.’”
The special effects on the picture are shoddier than probably anything you’ve ever seen, as Cannon slashed the budget by $20 million during the film’s production.
Another juicy bit from the IMDb, “Christopher Reeve’s flying harness was concealed under a larger version of the red shorts he wore for the costume, making his waist look bigger. In previous SUPERMAN movies, the bigger waist was hidden by the cape, quick cuts, or creative camera angles. In this movie, the bigger waist is clearly visible, leading some reviewers to speculate that the thicker waist was Reeve’s actual waistline.”
You could say SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE rates a 10 on IMDb, if you add 6.3 points from the trivia section to the 3.7 score the film earned after 39,268 votes.
You could also say that Cannon had no business making pictures like SUPERMAN IV, would-be blockbusters that proved to be dead in the water.
— ELECTRIC BOOGALOO reminds (or informs) one that Cannon took chances on John Cassavetes’ LOVE STREAMS, Andrei Konchalovsky’s RUNAWAY TRAIN, and Jean-Luc Godard’s KING LEAR, for example, respectable films coming from a studio not known for respectability.
— Overall, taking in the wide (and wild) variety of films produced by Cannon, everything from break dancing to ninjas and Michael Dudikoff to Chuck Norris and Bronson to Indiana Jones rip-offs, you might be tempted to conclude — like I do — that yesterday’s bad movies are sometimes better than today’s good movies.
— ELECTRIC BOOGALOO itself surpasses all of the Cannon “classics” in entertainment value.