Product: Showdown in Little Tokyo [VHS] (1991)
Rating: 5.0
LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE!!
Tia Carrere [bare], A blonde stoner decapitated by a samurai sword, strippers covered in sushi. Sure sounds like a [skin] film, don't it? Well it's not. This is proof positive that the standard Lethal Weapon formula (To polar opposite cops trailing drug lords) can be made into more with the drug lords being Japanese, and more kug fu fighting is inserted. SHOWDOWN is very well made, very funny, and very action-packed (although it would only have helped if it were 10 or 15 minutes longer.)All the action scenes are well done, ranging from a brawl in a bathhouse, to a duel in a colorful street fair. At there's twice as much comedy here as antone could expect, mostly curtosy of Brandon Lee ("In between cooking cycles, your'e supposed to baste us."), who if he had not become an action star, would easily have had a future in comedy. Dolph Lundgren is also alotta fun as a vengence-driven samurai detective, and at times, rather inadvertendly cotributes to the abundant humor ("Point this in the direction that things are, pull the trigger, and they'll fall down.") On the level of blending action, comedy, kung fu, and gratuitous nudity, SHOWDOWN works like a charm. And just for grins, one more hilarious quote from the legendary Brandon Lee ("Kenner, just in case we get get killed, I wanted to tell you, you have the biggest ---- I've ever seen on a man.")