Product: Showdown in Little Tokyo [VHS] (1991)
Rating: 5.0
Cult classic starring Dolph Lungren and Brandon Lee
Macho B-movie madness at its sublime best, this crazy action quickie is about as brain dead as you can get: wooden acting, a terrible story and a script that truly sucks. But with all the mindless violence who really cares. Gun battles, martial arts, Samurai sword slashing and gory deaths are the order of the day, not to mention plenty of beautiful ladies treated like playthings and shedding clothes at every opportunity. Despite the women and guns, there is some kind of story: Kenner (Lundgren) is on a mission of vengeance. His parents were killed when he was little by crazy Yakuza thug Yoshida (Tagawa), an ice-cool super-villain now specializing in drug dealing and generally looking mean. Kenner, adept in the Samurai ways, grows to be a law-abiding copper who's now right on his tail. Male bonding ensues when policeman Johnny Murata (Lee, in his US debut), a hip-talking dude with street credentials, is assigned as Kenner's partner in crime, and all hell simply breaks loose. You could say that there's an artistic angle to all this fighting, shooting and banging, but then that would be a lie - Showdown in Little Tokyo is a classic in a completely different sense of the word.