*SPOILERS
AHEAD*
When you begin to appreciate how talented of a performer T.J. Storm is,
it’s surprising that it took so long for him to get a solo vehicle. Even though
Storm (born Juan Ojeda) entered the direct-to-video martial arts field at its
zenith, it wasn’t until the genre had gone through an
economic slump and been revived that he briefly became a leading man. The movie
that makes this possible looks like a shoestring operation, but despite being
plagued by some typical low-budget problems, it’s this scanty amount of
resources that – in true B-movie fashion – brings out the best in the
people involved. Black Cobra isn’t a
showstopper and it’s unlikely to become your new favorite, but if your
appreciation of martial arts cinema includes pure effort and heart,
this one’s worth looking at.
Black Cobra is based on a novel by Sebati E. Mafate, When the Cobra
Strikes. I can’t say whether the movie’s a faithful
adaptation, but its opening ten minutes show the filmmakers trying to
establish a lot of backstory in as little time as possible. The basis of the plot
is that Sizwe Biko (Storm) – a South African martial artist of mixed race – must find a way to release his father from jail. His dad (Michael
Chinyamurindi) is a political prisoner from the time of apartheid, and he’s
being targeted for murder by racist prison guards. He gives Sizwe
the location of the family’s treasured diamonds, which Sizwe intends
to sell so he can pay off a corrupt judge. He’d probably
prefer to do this in South Africa, but after one of the aforementioned guards
(Robert Pike Daniel) follows him to the hiding place with a couple of men
(one of them’s his son) and they’re all killed in the resulting fight, Sizwe contacts a friend in Los
Angeles (Jeff Wolfe) who agrees to help him hock the diamonds. Leaving behind
his angry fiancée (Ursula Taherian) and the martial arts master who trained him
in snake kung fu (Damion Poitier), he heads to California.
All of the above happens before the main title screen. It’s an ungraceful narrative, but nevertheless, this pseudo-montage has introduced
us to the overarching theme of the feature: the relationship between fathers
and sons. In Black Cobra, this relationship is directly connected to mortality; we’ve
already seen the racist prison guard die alongside his son, while Sizwe undertakes a life-threatening mission to save his father.
In Los Angeles, Sizwe is received by his old schoolmate Mpho – played by the
author of the book – and his roommates Gerald (J.T. Jackson) and
Gilroy (Floyd Gilmor). What they lack in indispensability they
tend to make up in likability…although Mpho’s idea to throw a party and hook
Sizwe up with a woman clearly isn’t well-advised. The evening features poor Sizwe
all but fleeing the advances of one of the ladies (Ogy Durham) and
later knocking a drunken guest into the pool after being challenged to defend
himself.
The following night, Sizwe is finally picked up by Nicholas, the guy who’s
to help him sell the diamonds. Nicholas is quite high and makes a suspicious impression, but Sizwe goes with him anyway. They pay a
visit to Goro Tanaka (Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa), a Yakuza lord looking to get into the
jewelry business. Tanaka’s son Satoshi (Richard Dorton), Nicholas’ contact, is desperate to impress his apathetic father – so desperate that following
the exchange, Satoshi and his goons attack Sizwe and steal back the money. During the attack, Nicholas stands by and
snorts some heroin. Satoshi’s intentions are clear – he wants his father to
notice him – but as Nicholas leaves his friend for dead, it’s
not clear why he’s done this. While his betrayal is never adequately explained,
it’s mentioned that he’s trying to produce a movie and needs the money Satoshi pays him for the double-cross. It’s possible that his drug habits have leveled any previous finances, and now he’s trying to simultaneously pay for both a film and his heroin use.
Sizwe is brought back home by a sympathetic passer-by called Vicky (C. Traci
Murase). Unable to locate Nicholas and not knowing what else to do, he
turns to a former martial arts instructor of
his – Shihan Kris (Stephanie Cheeva). Shihan’s first act is to test Sizwe with a fight scene
the moment he enters her home (“A simple hello would have sufficed!” Sizwe
complains afterwards). Despite
this violent reception, his teacher is pretty helpful, first giving him a potion to speed up his healing and then helping him locate Nicholas through his
father – another martial arts instructor.
Vicky – suddenly a part of Sizwe’s group –
helps them gain entry to Nicholas’ home by posing as a deliveryperson. Embarrassingly,
Nicholas is caught in the presence of escorts and planning trips to Las Vegas. Sizwe and his friends kidnap him, along
with the women (I’m not sure why). Sizwe & Co. interrogate them, but Nicholas
proves to be resourceful and surprises the friends while Sizwe is out of
the room – beating up Gilroy and Mpho while still tied to a chair. This leads
to a showdown between Sizwe and Nicholas, and while it’s the best
fight in the movie, I must admit dissatisfaction. Both performers are
talented, but the editing is overactive – constantly flipping between shots
and providing no smooth, start-to-finish
exchanges.
After Nicholas is defeated and successfully interrogated, you’d think
it’s time for Sizwe to get his diamonds back, but the movie has him contend
with some relationship drama first. Vicky has inexplicably fallen for Sizwe,
and while he politely rebuffs her, his fiancée turns up in L.A. and assumes that the
two are having an affair. This leads to a gratuitous catfight. They don’t rip
off each other’s clothes or anything, but there’s a really sheepish instance of
male pandering where they’re scrapping and cussing each other out while an oblivious
Sizwe showers. It’s an unnecessary confrontation that’s never mentioned again, and the reason that Sizwe’s fiancée – Kiki – came was to reveal that she’s pregnant. This doesn’t effect the story
much, but I suppose it raises the stakes a little.
When Sizwe finally heads to Tanaka’s base of operations, he walks into a
highpoint of family drama. Frustrated that his father refuses to give him
responsibility, Satoshi attempts a foolhardy takeover with the help of a rival
underworld faction, but his efforts are stomped on by the
better-prepared Tanaka. Tanaka favors a young protégé called Kogi (Jamison
Wang), and after Satoshi is subsequently disowned, the disgraced son takes
advantage of the chaos Sizwe causes to kill Koji with a tanto.
Finding his disciple slain, Tanaka blames Sizwe and unleashes all his minions on him.
There’s a pretty decent fight wherein Sizwe engages two knife-wielding bodyguards
(Jade Quon and Kiralee Hayashi). One of them was among Satoshi’s goons who
attacked Sizwe earlier, and it’s treated as a reveal when we see that
there are two of them. They wear masks
half of the time, so I’m not sure whether they’re supposed to be twins, but I
get the impression that there’s some untold story behind these two. Whatever
the case, Sizwe kills them by redirecting their blades at each other – similar to
the technique he used to slay the racist guard’s son. Afterwards, he engages the remainder of Tanaka’s thugs and eventually takes the fight to the aggrieved boss himself, who attacks him
with a sword.
Sizwe gets the upper hand on Tanaka, his kung fu beating out the old man’s
kenjutsu, but Satoshi appears and halts
the fight by pointing a gun at Sizwe’s head. Satoshi makes one final bid
for his father’s approval, but Tanaka notices the bloody knife still in his
hand. Realizing that his rage was misdirected, Tanaka
charges and kills Satoshi. As Sizwe looks on in shock, an exhausted Tanaka throws
him a suitcase filled with the money from their deal and tells him to go. The
Yakuza boss is left kneeling over his son’s body, his empire devastated and his
lineage lost.
After so much violence, it’s a feat that the movie manages a happy ending, with
Sizwe emotionally receiving his father as he exits the prison. As they walk offscreen, we see that by some unexplained means, Sizwe has
regained his diamonds (perhaps they were in the suitcase) and used them to repay his allies with. We also see an epilogue of Nicholas,
who tears a photo of him and Sizwe in half and lights the image of his former
friend on fire. You don’t get the impression that he’s plotting revenge or anything,
but he’s got to be reflecting on how his willingness to double-cross a pal has
led to his financial detriment. I don’t think he’s ever going to get that movie
made.
Having watched Black Cobra a few
times, I can summarize it as decent movie that could have been better.
The story shows a lot of promise, the martial cast is great, and T.J. Storm
makes a great lead, but problems with the pacing keep this one down. There’s
simply too much story to tell and the screenplay falls over itself in trying.
There are at least a couple out-of-the-blue flashbacks where the movie seems to
be saying “Oh shoot, I forgot to mention this!” There’s also some needless
timeline-hopping, not to mention a whole subsection regarding a private
investigator (director Scott Donovan) that I didn’t bother mentioning
because it’s facetious to the plot. Problems like these remind you that this otherwise
good-looking movie is an indie production, prone to amateur mistakes, and makes
me wish that Lionsgate sent the film back to the editing bay before releasing it.
(Then again, DTV action flicks are often victims of studio meddling, so
perhaps I should blame these shortcomings on
Lionsgate itself.) It’s far from unwatchable, but also far from perfect.
Nevertheless, I do recommend the movie, in part to promote diversity
within the subgenre. DTV martial arts flicks aren’t ethnically exclusive,
but aside from the fact that you’re unlikely to find a dark-skinned protagonist
unless it’s in a Wesley Snipes or Michael Jai White vehicle, it’s particularly
rare to come across a film wherein neither the protagonist nor the lead villain
are white. The use of animal kung fu in a modern fight flick is likewise pretty
unique, and while my complaints about the action content still stand, I appreciate
the little touches that choreographer Ken Ohara put in to distinguish Sizwe’s
fighting style. And despite already having been in the movie business for over two
decades when the film was released, T.J. Storm approaches his role with all the
enthusiasm of Jean-Claude Van Damme in Bloodsport –
imbuing it with the energy of a true breakout vehicle. I really hope he gets top billing again.
Someone who also elevates the
movie is Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa. Tagawa’s one of a few performers who are able to crisscross
between B-movies and mainstream cinema without damage to his career. Like Lance Henriksen and John Rhys-Davies, the guy can go from filming big-budget
work to a movie like
this, bringing some flair to it without losing his dignity. He goes the extra mile here by partaking in that
swordfight: even though Tagawa will always be known as a martial artist
for his role in Mortal Kombat, look
up his filmography and take note of how rarely he’ll actually do fight scenes. His return to actual action is perfectly
respectable, and I hope he’s not done mixing it up like this.
The film’s theme of fathers and sons is interesting. The most obvious comparison it wants you to consider is between the Bikos and the Tanakas;
at first, it seems like a simple contrast between a good father-son
relationship and a bad one, but the two sets are actually pretty similar in that both feature the son risking death for his
father’s sake. Again, mortality is key: the life of Sizwe’s father
is dependent on his son surviving his adventure, and Tanaka’s absence from the
epilogue seems to indicate with his son dead, he has no
future left. Then there’s the relationship between Nicholas
and his dad, who isn’t even credited. The decision not actually credit the latter may illustrate how the (presumably) distant
relationship between Nicholas and his father has caused both of them to fade from
prominence: Nicholas can’t get his movie made, and his pop can’t even get
credited! The fate of the father affects the fate of the son, and vice-versa.
I think Liongate’s marketing department made a questionable decision with this
one’s Region 1 DVD cover. It looks like it’s modeled after the artwork of a 50
Cent album, and in no way conveys that this is a movie about an African kung fu
practitioner who takes on an American Yakuza faction. For reasons like
this, the movie seems to have gone under most peoples’ radar, but while I can’t
justify urging viewers to see it like I might some other hidden gem, I still
hope that its audience will grow over time. Black
Cobra isn’t a movie to change our lives, but because we all love a genre that’s often criticized for unoriginality, we should celebrate instances of
uniqueness. Give it a try, maybe?
Black
Cobra (2012)
Directed by Scott Donovan, Lilly
Melgar (co-director)
Written by Scott Donovan, Sebati E.
Mafate
Starring T.J. Storm (Conan the Adventurer), Cary Hiroyuki- Tagawa, Jeff
Wolfe (Once Upon a Time in China and
America), Ursula Taherian (Carver)
Cool costars: Damion Poitier (Hunter Prey), Stephanie Cheeva (The Ultimate Game), Jade Quon (Raze), Kiralee Hayashi. Tanaka’s
henchmen include Anthony Nanakornpanom (Broken
Path), Tsuyoshi Abe (Sword of Honor),
Sam Looc (Falcon Rising), and
Tadahiro Nakamura (various Power Ranger
incarnations). Harrison Snider, who plays the drunken guest who challenges
Sizwe, is actually a competitive tae kwon do practitioner who operates the Helix
Martial Arts studio in Colorado.
Title refers to: Sizwe mentions that his nickname is “the cobra.” And he happens to be black.
Potential triggers: Racist dialogue, racially-motivated violence, group violence, homophobic dialogue, torture
Copyright Sizwe Productions, LLC.
B-Movie Dragons 