Knife Fight City, Restabbed (1989)

## Plot

**Knife Fight City, Restabbed** was a remake of the original Action movie classic Knife Fight City. The plot follows the same premise as the original. After the United Nations seized all guns in 2008 a competition was made by The International Knifing Society to decide the next leader of Neo New York, colloquially titled Knife Fight City. Dirk Steele remains the main character but instead of remaining with his hunting knife he switches to a switch blade, his weapon choice made him an underdog in the Tournament of Blades, the competition that would deem him King of Knife Fight City.

The US army gets involved later in the film after the Chain Sirs, a gang of gentlemen who use chainsaws, start a war with Dirk that causes the explosion of Fort Blademart. The infamous Tank Blade stunt occurs during this act of the film involving a heavily weaponized Tiger tank bought by the Swiss Blade Association.

## Production

The Tank Blade stunt was originally going to be removed and replaced with a stunt similar to the Zeppelin Heist stunt involving a bladed helicopter. It was not to be as the director was scared of continuous rhythmic loud noises.

The actor for Dirk Steele was switched twice during production: the first time due to a fire that marred the actors face, the second because of an on set accident that caused the lost of both of the actors feet during the Tank Blade stunt (that stunt also that lost the original Dirk Steele's left foot in the 1984 version), and the actor that remained during the end of shooting suffered from memory loss which explains his lack of lines during the latter half of the film.

## Development

Unlike Knife Fight City (1984), the development of Knife Fight City, Restabbed has a small but serviceable amount of information regarding its conceptualization and early development. The idea for a remake of the original film had apparently been up in the air in Beeple Studios for multiple years, an exact date for the origin of the remake is not known, but it has been roughly estimated to have been first conceptualized in 1986, a mere two years after the release of the first film.

It was supposedly very early in development when an unnamed cinematographer was quoted as saying, "Why the hell are we remaking Knife Fight City? The old lead actor is literally dead, we might as well have killed him even if it was an accident. Not to mention everybody else who died." This is one of the reasons the Tank Blade stunt was planned to not be included in the remake, in a rare moment of good decision making on Beeple Studio's part that unfortunately failed to come to fruition. Aside from this, the film's development and planning went along as smoothly as it could have minus one particular incident in the development phase where a studio crew member was demonstrating how they envisioned a particular fight scene playing out when they mistook a prop knife for one of the many real knives on set and stabbed themselves in the stomach and was nearly disemboweled. The cast member thankfully lived but was hospitalized for the entirety of the movie's production.

## Post-Production

Two weeks after the film was finished, the fire that burned down Beeple Studios occured. Rumors of the fire being caused by the ghost of the original Dirk Steele are commonly spread. The official reason for the fire is still yet to be released, although one of the arson investigators told the *Weekly World News* that the words "**praise z0rg**" were found carved into the concrete floor of the studio's basement. The night following the interview, the investigator underwent spontaneous human combustion.