1. Over-Reliance
on Financiers
Though economic realities require filmmakers at
all levels to balance their artistic visions with the demands of
financiers, DTV flicks have historically felt these demands
particularly hard. Producers and studio representatives frequently
have vetoing power over all creative aspects of a feature, and the
result has been an often baffling amount of narrative dis-fluency.
Newcomers to the video market in the early-to-mid-2000s like Sony
were particularly bad about this, and the resulting poor quality of
the movies was all too often incorrectly regarded by fans as the
fault of incompetent writers, directors, and talent.
This isn’t to say
that things were super before the new millennium, thanks to the
impact of international distributors. You see, U.S. productions were
(are?) surprisingly reliant on foreign sales to recoup on their
budgets, and as a result filmmakers often planned their productions
to meet an all-important goal: impress agents at film festivals.
Distributors who purchased the rights to these pictures often
wouldn’t even watch the whole movie – just the first few minutes.
Consequently, many films were thematically unbalanced due to the
makers pouring an overabundance of resources into the opening 10
minutes. As such, the stereotype that these movies are all very
similar is truer than I’d like to admit, but for a different reason
than many critics suspect.
2. Skewed Studio Ambitions
Smaller,
action-oriented studios like PM, Imperial, and Shapiro-Glickenhaus
developed a reputation for above-average content during video’s
heyday. However, the crash of the video market around the turn of the
century resulted in such
studios
going out of business, being bought up, or otherwise dropping
out of the marketplace.
In their place came the likes of Sony and 20th
Century Fox: giants of film
production/distribution but newcomers to DTV flicks. The transition
wasn’t particularly smooth, with the studios largely churning out
pictures that were clunkier and less memorable than the schlockiest
indie production. This was something of a surprise, since these same
conglomerates were simultaneously producing
award-winning theatrical fare.
The
reason for this
low quality output
is
surprisingly base. As indicated by Nicholas Chartier –
co-founder of Voltage Studios, the production house that released the
Academy Award-winning film The
Hurt Locker
– in
a 2009 Variety
interview, the strategy of larger studios
is to produce and market DTV fare based solely
on name recognition,
ignoring
quality
and
using
the proceeds to finance larger
and
more ambitious productions. While
this may have changed a little over time with
DTV productions eliciting a little more respect from studios,
you can still see this
meat & potatoes
approach in many films.
3.
A Messed Up Hierarchy
Before
the time of the aforementioned video crash, the DTV action circuit
was regarded as a potential stepping stone to greater fame and
fortune. Don Wilson, Jeff Wincott, Billy Blanks, Cynthia Rothrock,
Loren Avedon, Michael Worth, Jerry Trimble, and Mimi Lesseos are
just some of the names that fans discussed during
the subgenre’s zenith,
with the question being who
would eventually ascend to Hollywood stardom.
However, the market’s fall saw most of these figures flushed out of
the market
and replaced by previously-established
names:
Steven Seagal, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, and Wesley
Snipes. The message was clear: there was only limited room for stars
and studios
favored
aging
ex-
A-listers over more talented alternatives. Worse
yet, their movies tended to be pretty darn bad.
In
a short amount of time, fan conversations turned from who was going
to be the next major action hero
to how little Seagal & Co. must care about their fans to deliver
such poor results. To
be sure, the problem wasn’t that these stars were now making
non-theatrical fare, but that doing so came at the expense of
everybody we’d been hoping
to make it big for years. While the ex-superstars
suddenly
dominated the rental shelves with well-funded but poorly-made
vehicles, the heroes of yesteryear were either relegated to even
cheaper
flicks or dropped out altogether. It
was a
disappointing end to
many aspirations.
4.
It’s Left a Disappointing Legacy
As stars age and aren’t in the spotlight anymore, we can often
rest
assured that they’ll continue to share their influence behind the
camera as directors
and producers.
Eastwood and Stallone are doing it. Hong Kong fans are particularly
lucky, as Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung and Stephen Chow are known just
as well as filmmakers
as they
are action
stars. The
B-movie action genre, on the other hand, doesn’t have this to
look forward to.
The
best we’ve got is Dolph Lundgren directing the odd low-budgeteer
that the guy himself criticizes. Seagal
and Van Damme have nursed directorial hopes in the low budget realm,
but these have yet to bear fruit. [NOTE:
I just found out that Van Damme’s self-directed Full
Love
is scheduled to come out later this year, after having been in and
out of production for almost
a decade.] And though a few less-recognized names are finding notable
behind-the-scenes work in major motion pictures, the fact is that
most of what made the subgenre enjoyable during its heyday looks like
it’s being forgotten. No other faction of martial arts filmmaking –
from the earliest Chinese productions to the sloppy
Bourne
style of
fight
scenes – has been so disregarded by its successors, and
it’s happening for no reason. Time will tell whether this changes,
but for now,
it’s not looking promising.
B-Movie Dragons 