Product: Showdown in Little Tokyo [VHS] (1991)
Rating: 5.0
Let's not gild the lily, here
This movie is AWFUL. The eighties t-shirts. Dolph Lundgren, who couldn't possibly look more Germanic if he tried, speaking Japanese and wearing the worst gi I have ever seen. Brandon Lee (son of Bruce Lee) knowing karate and somehow absolutely nothing else about Japan.The fight scenes were terribly choreographed. One involved a pressure hose that somehow knocked the muscle-bound Lundgren over (and yes, he does a slow-motion fall/yell when it hits him). There was no cohesion between scenes--meaning you were never quite sure why they were going anywhere, but it was probably for another fight.The "Druglord," who makes that cut simply because drugs involved, rather than for any criminal acumen, intelligence, or convincing scariness, makes deals with the local gangs (and apparently the Hispanics boycotted this movie, because that was DEFINITELY a white guy pretending to be Hispanic) to distribute his beer/drugs. Between the "local gangs" and the shirts the Yakuza henchmen were wearing, the scenes with the bad guys was some of the most unintentionally funny I've ever seen. The evil second-in-command was uncannily like Oddjob from the Bond movies, minus the deadly hat.This movie SUCKS, but it sucks so badly and by 2005 is so dated, it's hysterically funny. For the women, Dolph Lundgren spends a good part of the movie without his shirt, wearing a tank-top, or stripped down to (short, tight) boxers. Which is honestly why I spent a Saturday afternoon watching a one-star movie: eye candy, and my God, was it stupidly funny.