Product: Showdown in Little Tokyo [VHS] (1991)
Rating: 5.0
"You have the right to be dead"
Showdown in Little Tokyo is one of those rare early-90's screen gems that is so terribly scripted that, today, it makes for one of the funniest movie going experiences you can have.Essentially it's a revenge story where Dolph Lundgren plays a cop out for revenge against the yakuza mob boss who murdered his family when he was just a wee little gaijin living in Japan.And of course, since he was raised in Japan, he knows martial arts, how to weild a sword and even build japanese style houses by hand (I'll get to that later in the review). Seeing as how he posesses all of these great combat skills, it's no wonder that Lundgren's character ended up becoming a cop in Los Angeles.Soon Lundgren meets up with his new partner, played by Brandon Lee in one of his first major movie roles, the son of a dentist who grew up in "the valley" who also happens to know karate so naturally he became a cop as well.Together this dynamic duo takes on the yakuza, who all wear great stereotypical early-90's attire that makes them look like they just stepped off the set of a Phil Collins video or the Arsenio Hall Show. Some of them even wear the exact same suits in the same scenes which makes them look like updated versions of the henchmen from the old 60's Batman TV show.Some of the most fantastically ridiculous action scenes take place from there including Lundgren lifting a car onto its side with his bare hands, a hilarious bathhouse fight scene with a fat japanese guy complete with a Wilhelm scream and of course a scene in which the two heroes fight off 50 bad guys trying to invade Lundgren's japanese style home. That's right, he built it his self, we learn that when Tia Carrere's character says "Nice house," and Lundgren says "I built it," and Tia says "Somehow I knew that."And that brings me to my next point, the awesomely horrible and incredibly funny dialog that the stars of Showdown in Little Tokyo have to belt out is so head-scratchingly awful that you have to ask yourself questions like "what was the writer thinking? are they for real? are they TRYING to be hilarious?"I could spout off any of the hundreds of hilarious lines from this movie, but it's so much fun watching it yourself and laughing at them that I won't. Ok, maybe just one. Brandon Lee's character actually says to Lundgren "In case we die, I want you to know that you have the biggest d*** I've ever seen on a man," to which Lundgren says: "I don't know what to say." Well neither do I guys, neither do I.Showdown in Little Tokyo, whether it was intentional or not, stands as a comedic masterpiece in early-90's cinema. I'm not exaggerating either, it really is freaking hilarous, see for yourself.