The '80's were not very kind to one-time major star Charles Bronson. Starting with 1982's "Death Wish II" and ending with this truly gruesome film from '89, Bronson's screenwriters seemed to be trying to top each other in progressive grossness. "D.W. II" left little to the imagination in its depiction of the rape and suicide of Bronson's character's daughter, (a rape and murder of his housekeeper was also shown in disgusting detail). "10 to Midnight" was the sort of loathsome film that made you want to take a bath afterwards. Nothing redeeming about it. Other films like "The Evil that Men Do" and the remaining "Death Wish" films from this period straddled the line between high camp and high barf with their earnest depictions of brutality and revenge. I'm not sure if the producers (usually Pancho Kohner) got a kick out of showing a weary looking, senior citizen-aged Bronson destroying punks young enough to be his grandchildren or what, but the shoddy craftsmanship (and terrible scripts) of these films usually destroyed what little energy they may have generated.

"Kinjite" -- the last of these films -- is fairly well-made but truly takes the cake in cinematic wretchedness. In this film Bronson: sodomizes a perverse john; forces a pimp to eat his Rolex watch; allows a male prisoner to get raped by another prisoner; makes incredibly xenophobic remarks among other things I've thankfully forgotten. Also depicted is the gang-rape of a young Japanese girl (fortunately, this was off-screen, though well-implied).

What were people thinking when they made this film? What was Bronson thinking when he decided to ruin his career with these horrible films? For anyone interested in his best movies, check out most of the films he made in the '60's and '70's like "The Mechanic", "Death Wish", "From Noon til 3", "Once Upon a Time in the West", "Red Sun", "The Great Escape", "The Magnificent Seven", "Rider on the Rain", etc., etc....
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