Tag: byron mann

Film Face-Off: Deadly Target (1994) Vs. White Tiger (1996)

While
re-watching some of my movies in search of something to review, I
realized how strikingly similar 1994’s
Deadly Target and
1996’s White Tiger appear
to be. Both are pretty good
vehicles from Gary Daniels’ solo career, and seemingly
by coincidence, they
have
the same plot. This
realization and
the provisional quality of the films makes
me want to try
something new
and turn this
would-be review into
a competitive
comparison between the two.
Should be fun, right?

Know
now that this article’s
almost exclusively for the Gary Daniels fans out there. Few
casual viewers will have seen both features, but hey, we’re all
about niches here at B-Movie Dragons.

First,
some background. Deadly Target
is a PM Entertainment production,
and while not the first starring
picture for Gary Daniels,
it’s his first solo vehicle
that’s actually good. Indeed,
it wasn’t until PM gave him
this nudge that the
prettyboy kickboxer from London became Gary friggin’
Daniels. Just
a couple
years
afterwards,
he was working on a Hong Kong feature when the production went
broke and was bought out by
the Canada-based Keystone Pictures company.
Keystone scrapped the existing footage and did away with the
storyline, committing themselves to a completely different movie
called White Tiger,
which inexplicably
ended up being
very similar to Daniels’ aforementioned
feature. There’s no evidence that this was actually their
intention, but there’s no denying the parallels.

Now,
let’s look at which version of this adventure did it better.

The
Story

In
both features,
a law enforcement agent seeks to capture a rogue
member of the
Chinese-American mafia who’s killed the
hero’s partner en
route to distributing
an addictive narcotic on the
West Coast. In both cases,
the hero is
aided by a love interest and
the final showdown takes
place on a docked ship.

The
overriding
difference between the two is
how seriously the story takes itself. As tends to be the case with PM
productions, Deadly
Target is lighthearted with
a noticeable comedic streak. It’s a popcorn flick despite never
having seen the inside of a theater. Contrarily,
White Tiger is far too
serious
to have much fun with itself. It goes for drama over
laughs, and even when there is some humor, it’s dry or
ironic. Merely
considering this, I prefer the former. While I can see some viewers
being bored
by Deadly Target’s
90s-style cheesiness,
it’s the same cheese which
gives the story texture and an
organic quality that White
Tiger lacks.

That
said, White Tiger
invests you more in its
characters. While not the most skillfully-written action feature, it
knows what it’s going for
and does a good
job of directing viewers’
emotions. Deadly
Target’s
characters are established as
soon as they appear onscreen, but
White Tiger’s
tend to not show
their cards right away.
There’s development here, and it’s not just limited to the leads.
The movie wants you to think
about characters’ motivations,
and it’s ambitious enough to try and surprise the
audience at intervals with
out-of-nowhere twists.
Wisely,
it doesn’t overplay its hand: though
it liberally sprinkles the
thriller aspects,  it
never forgets that we’re
expecting an action movie and
makes sure to avoid pretentiousness.
To that end, it wins me over. Deadly Target may
be more fun, but White
Tiger gives
me more to write about. It’s
a pretty good movie with
which to introduce newcomers
to Gary Daniels, whereas Deadly Target
is mainly for
established B-movie audiences.

Point:
White Tiger

The
Hero

Gary
Daniels wasn’t the greatest actor at this point in his career and
his starring roles sort of blend together. Such is the case when you
compare these
movies: he’s Detective Charles Prince in Deadly
Target
and Agent Mike Ryan in White
Tiger,
and they
seem
like merely
different
takes on the same character. The
major
difference
between them
is that
Charles seems to have more fun with his life-or-death mission,
taking the
time
to crack
jokes and express
interest in other things while Mike pursues his target with uniform
intensity. You
can see practically
Charles
in an early scene of White
Tiger
while the
hero’s vacationing
with his partner’s family, and Mike seems to pop up in Deadly
Target
whenever he’s faced with the
lead villain.

When
it comes to their motivations, Mike is a little easier to empathize
with.
Charles mentions that the villain killed his (first)
partner,
but with Mike, you not only see this happen but also experience
his
investment in his partner’s family. This favors
White Tiger,
and it doesn’t help that Charles seems to have some sort of
unspoken homophobia going on…but despite that,
I give the point to Deadly
Target.
For
all his shallowness, Charles
is simply
more likable. Gary
Daniels turns in a better dramatic performance for Mike,
but he’s just not interesting enough to make his relentless
seriousness
worthwhile. Charles is an example of Daniels having fun with a role,
and in
this case,
it wins him the
category.

Point:
Deadly Target

The
Villain

A
hero is only as impressive
as their
adversary, and in both cases, Gary Daniels draws a good card for a
bad guy: Byron Mann as Chang in Deadly
Target
and Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa as
Victor Wong in
White Tiger.
Mann and Tagawa are both acclaimed performers
who, despite having predominantly acted in other genres, are
generally known for playing martial artists – Mann in Street
Fighter: The Movie
and Tagawa in Mortal
Kombat.
Both
are versatile actors who swing between low-budget and Hollywood-grade
productions with
ease,
bringing class to both while
keeping
their dignity intact. For
both movies,
they elevate the production
and help
legitimize Gary Daniels with their presence.

That
said, I’m more impressed by Cary in this instance. Part of it’s
just that his character’s
written
with greater nuance, but he also
just
has the stronger
presence. It helps that this role goes against type for him,
so
that he’s not depicting
an
upright sentinel
for
a change.
He starts off like
that,
but within minutes you get the impression that Victor Wong would be
more at home in The
Silence of the Lambs
than Showdown in
Little Tokyo.
By
the time the movie reaches its climax, Victor has
become a self-destructive freak,
single-handedly justifying the film’s drug & fire motif.
Comparatively,
Mann doesn’t have much going for him other than that he’s
obviously
having
fun. Byron
manifests
the tone of the screenplay perfectly,
but his character sometimes
goes absent long enough for me to almost forget he’s the bad guy.
Given
his youth, Mann may seem like the more obvious choice for
an underworld renegade who’s
upsetting the established order,
but Tagawa stands
out thanks to Victor’s greater depth.
(Also, he has
a fight scene with Gary Daniels, which Mann doesn’t.)

Point:
White Tiger

The
Love Interest

Please
forgive the condescension this
label implies, but in both movies, the most prominent
female character
is largely defined by her relationship with
the hero. Nevertheless, Susan Byun’s Diana Tang and Julia Nickson’s
Jade are uniquely
different
characters that
lend differing
tones to their features. Diana is
a warm-hearted person who, despite working
in
a casino owned by a mob boss, leads
a pretty sheltered
life.
Jade spends much of her
movie being an enigma, clearly knowing
more than she’s letting on.
Diana wants to get intimate with Charles
because she feels genuinely attracted to him,
whereas Jade is a femme fatale who
nudges Mike along and has sex with him only
to
further a
personal
agenda. Also,
Jade
is
infinitely more in touch with her Hong Kong heritage while Diana is
utterly Americanized and initially repulsed when Charles prepares her
a “Chinese delicacy” with squid.

As
for
who
earns the point,
it comes down to
how they fare
in the face of danger,
and
there’s
really no question.
Diana introduces
herself
by clubbing
an attacker in the head to
rescue Charles and
later
goes on to have two unexpected
fight scenes. Susan Byun becomes a temporary action hero despite
her character’s conventions,
but
Julia Nickson ironically
fares
worse. White Tiger
spends much time building Jade up as an experienced
assassin, but when the need
for her to make a move arises,
she’s instantly
overwhelmed and becomes a damsel
without
really
having
accomplished
anything.
For
both of these characters, they end up doing the exact opposite of
what you’d expect, but only Diana benefits from it. It’s
a cheap
move on the part of White
Tiger’s
writers to ultimately demean their character this way, and in this
instance, it costs them.

Point:
Deadly Target

The
Supporting Cast

Which
set of supporting characters you end up preferring is largely
dependent on
what tone you favor,
as all the performers do a good job reflecting the mood of
their picture. Again, there
are many parallel roles that
are merely played differently.
Portraying
the hero’s partner is Ken McLeod in Deadly
Target and Matt Craven
in White Tiger:
martial arts-practicing straight man and
tragic best buddy. Both
police captains
are
played by award-winning TV actors:
colic-y Max Gail (Barney
Miller) and the reserved
Philip Granger (Neon
Rider). The most visible
mafia lord is played by the expressive Aki Aleong in
the first film and
the graceful Dana Lee in the other. Both feature henchman
extraordinaire Ron Yuan as the villain’s lieutenant, but he’s
only a
fully-fledged character in Deadly
Target. Last
but not least are
the roles good ol’ George
Cheung plays:
he’s a
mafia figure with no lines in the first picture,
and
one of the more interesting co-stars in the second.

If
there was nothing else to
consider, I’d happily
decree this category a draw, but the
deciding
factor ends
up being the amplitude of
supporting fighters in
Deadly Target.
It’s a cool
lineup: Leo Lee, Al Leong, James Lew, Randall Shiro Ideishi, and
Koichi Sakamoto all have at least one highlighted altercation, and
the late Master Bill Ryusaki plays
one of the more
active henchmen. Lieutenant
Lydia Look – along
with her stunt double, Olympian taekwondoka Dana Hee – has a couple
of surprisingly good fights against
Susan Byun. By comparison,
White Tiger
doesn’t bother highlighting many of
its supporting kickers, and that seals it for me.

Point:
Deadly Target

The
Production

In
addition to the filmmakers’
talent, the quality of a
movie’s production is a
matter of time and budget, and it’s easy to tell which of
these films had more. As
I’ve mentioned, Deadly
Target is a PM
Entertainment film, and while PM was
great at maximizing its
resources and cranking out exciting
B-movies, it’s obvious
that these are,
in fact, B-movies. Deadly
Target’s no exception:
the locations are
unremarkably urban,
the cinematography is staid, the camerawork isn’t dynamic, and
even the film quality is a little grainy. Director Charla Driver –
one of the few women to direct a PM production and one of the few
women to direct a U.S. martial arts feature, period
– is every bit as good as her cohorts at
putting together a compact and entertaining action package, but
there’s no opportunity for it to rise above that status.

White
Tiger,
on the other hand, may easily be mistaken for a Hollywood production.
Keystone
Pictures would actually produce a couple of those shortly after this
one, which in retrospect seems like a warm-up exercise for director
Richard Martin. The movie showcases some exotic
locations, has
a lot of good-looking sets,
and actually has
the time to do fun stuff with its camera. The musical stings are
almost comically overdone at times, but the soundtrack still stands
out where its adversary’s is forgettable.
The
movie
generates
mixed results when
trying to be artsy
but still has
the finesse to
qualify
as a neo-noir. Whereas both features
are by-the-numbers in their own way, White
Tiger is
simply more lavish and
thereby
pulls
ahead.

Point:
White Tiger

The
Action

In a way, this is the most
important category. Action pieces and fight scenes are the backbone
of any martial arts feature, and with a star as capable as Gary
“Danger Man” Daniels in the lead, both productions knew they had
the potential to make a minor action classic. To help get them there,
both selected fantastic coordinators to get the job done: Deadly
Target had Jeff Pruitt and White Tiger had the late, great
Marc Akerstream.

Pruitt was an exotic regular of
the TV and DTV realms from 1991 to 2003. As the first American member
of the Japan-based Alpha Stunts team, his cohorts and he brought a
dynamic, stunt-heavy style of action to the small screen. Though best
known for working on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Jeff
regularly got career-defining performances out of the performers he
directed, particularly DTV golden boy Jeff Wincott. Deadly Target
was the first (and thus far only) time Pruitt collaborated with Gary
Daniels, and the Hong Kong veteran works well with the style of his
handler. No slouch either is Akerstream, whose career highlight may
have been working with Jackie Chan by coordinating the vehicle that
gained JC fame in America: Rumble in the Bronx. Though he
tended to work in low-budget fare, he coordinated several times in
Hollywood blockbusters and did a ton of work for TV. Tragically, an
accident on the set of The Crow: Stairway to Heaven ended his
life in 1998.

White Tiger may actually
be Marc’s magnum opus as an action filmmaker, as he delivers some
strong pieces without being relegated by a higher-placed coordinator.
Though this is primarily a martial arts movie, it mixes things up
with some vehicle scenes and shootouts. Deadly Target does
this as well, but White Tiger has a flair in that regard that
the former can’t top, especially when it comes to the
well-choreographed scenes with the biker assassins. Still, Gary
Daniels’ fight scenes are the highlights of the picture, and what
highlights they are! The brawls dig deep into Daniels’ real-life
abilities, featuring not only a plethora of spinning kicks but also
aikido throws and intricate kung fu exchanges. A showdown with Ron
Yuan is pretty cool, and the final match with Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa is
a very decent brawl.

However, the increased production
standards ultimately work against White Tiger via
over-editing. While not horrible, the fight scenes are filled with
cuts and slow motion that tries to fool you into thinking that the
brawls are even better than they already are. Gary Daniels isn’t
some inexperienced Ken doll with shortcomings that need disguising,
so the editing tricks are facetious. Deadly Target’s fights
have no such problems, with their long takes and limited slow motion.
Though Jeff Pruitt’s heavy usage of throws and flips may seem
excessive to some, the fact is that his film’s simply less
restrained in showcasing physicality. While I understand that White
Tiger’s action may simply be a matter of stylistic consistency,
Deadly Target’s greater willingness to show a fight junkie
like me everything its performers have to offer puts it over its
competition.

Point: Deadly Target

The
Winner: Deadly Target

Deadly Target
(1994)
Directed by
Charla Driver (assistant director for Ice Cream Man)
Written
by
James Adelstein, Michael January (To
Be the Best)
Starring
Gary Daniels, Susan Byun (Sgt.
Kabukiman N.Y.P.D.),
Ken McLeod (College
Kickboxers),
Byron Mann
Cool
costars:
Ron Yuan, Aki Aleong (Farewell
to the King),
Lydia Look (Battle
of the Damned),
Philip Tan (Martial
Law),
Master Bill Ryusaki (Ulterior
Motives),
George Cheung (First
Blood II),
Al Leong (Rapid
Fire),
Leo Lee (The
Perfect Weapon),
James Lew (Balance
of Power),
Randall Shiro Ideishi (Black
Scorpion),
Koichi Sakamoto (Bounty
Tracker),
Butch Togisala (Firepower)
Content
warning:
Violence against women, kidnapping, police brutality
Copyright
PM Entertainment Group / Echo Bridge Home Entertainment

White
Tiger
(1996)
Directed
by
Richard Martin (Air
Bud: Golden Receiver)
Written
by
Bey Logan (original story), Gordon Melbourne (Bulletproof
Heart),
Roy Sallows, Don Woodman, Raul Inglis (uncredited)
Starring
Gary Daniels, Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa, Julia Nickson (Noble
House),
Matt Craven (Crimson
Tide)
Cool
costars:
Ron
Yuan, George Cheung, Dana Lee (Dr.
Ken)
Content
warning:
Violence against women, torture, sexual assault
Copyright
Keystone Pictures / Crown Media

Reviewnalysis: Belly of the Beast (2003)

*SPOILERS
AHEAD*

Steven Seagal’s residence in direct-to-video
fare is something of an economic coincidence. Seagal’s bankability was
always tied to what his movies earned on video, but eventually,
three events over a short period of time facilitated his slide into relative obscurity. These were: (1) the crash of the home video
market and his subsequent reduced profitability, (2) the Hong Kong revolution
in Hollywood which outdated his personal style of action, and (3) the events of
9/11 which temporarily made Hollywood sensitive to violence in the media and lowered the demand for action features. By
late 2002, Seagal was no longer a top-tier actor, but having been one of the
two biggest martial arts stars of the western hemisphere allowed him to settle comfortably
into the B-movie realm. Many fans lament Seagal’s state as DTV lord, but I’m pleased
with it. Working outside the mainstream has allowed him to interact with more
interesting and eclectic filmmakers than ever before, and of all his films,
none is more interesting, eclectic, or weirder than Belly of the Beast.

image

The movie opens in “Thailand, 1994,” where CIA agent Jake Hopper (Seagal) and
his partner Sunti (Byron Mann) are discussing business with two underworld
figures. Things aren’t going well: the gangsters’ armed thugs are closing
in on the meeting, and when Jake sees one of the villains go for a weapon, Sunti
and he have to shoot their way to freedom. They get separated, and in the heat of
things, Sunti mistakenly shoots a woman holding a child. A horrified Sunti is then
hit by one of the gunmen, but before the shooter can finish him off, Jake comes
to his rescue. As the opening credits leave Sunti lying on the ground, little does the audience realize that his journey will end up being more relevant than Jake’s.

Ten years later, Jake’s retired from the CIA and makes his living as a
professional thief. We’re treated to a pretty unique heist wherein he breaks
into a wealthy residence, cracks a safe’s security code, casually steals a bottle
of water from the fridge, and partakes in some gratuitous sliding across
the floor. The sliding is our first glance of the film’s stylistic flair,
courtesy of Hong Kong director Siu-Tung Ching (AKA Tony Ching) making his debut
in American features. Later, when Jake gives the stolen data disc to his old
Agency friend and buyer (Martin McDougall), he’s told that his daughter Jessica
(Sara Malakul Lane) has been kidnapped while vacationing in Thailand.
She and her friend Sarah (Elidh MacQueen) – the daughter of a U.S. senator – are
apparently being held by the Abu Karaf militant group, who demand the release
of prisoners in U.S. custody. Not trusting the government to save his daughter,
Hopper heads to Thailand himself.

He isn’t in Thailand for but a few minutes before an attempt is made on his
life. We don’t know how the villains anticipated his arrival, but we see that
they’re no match for him, as he demolishes his attackers in the middle of a
market. We also don’t know the identity of the creepy old man who
watches Hopper from a distance, but the sight of him terrifies the one
remaining assailant so much that he flees and accidentally fillets himself on a
meat cleaver. As the stranger disappears, Jake probably realizes how vulnerable
he is on his own, and will soon move to change that.

The market brawl is another demonstration of director Ching’s influence. Simply, it’s a grand departure from Seagal’s typical fight scenes.
Whereas Seagal’s characters usually dispatch opponents with throws and
bone-breaking maneuvers, Jake Hopper employs kung fu of the showiest variety,
complete with pose-striking and spin kicks. However, it’s clearly not
actually Seagal performing the more athletic moves, but a double (Dian Hristov). Seagal’s
reliance on a stunt double in this and many other DTV movies has led to
criticism from viewers who call his ability and commitment into question.
While the doubling can be jarring, I’m personally impressed by the presentation and how it spices up Seagal’s repertoire. Hong Kong choreographers
have worked on his movies before, but Belly
of the Beast is the only one of his films to feature full-blown Hong
Kong-style fight scenes.

image

TRIVA: Siu-Tung Ching opted to shoot as
much of the action as possible without Seagal’s involvement, bringing his star
onto the set only to film specific shots. Trouble arose when Seagal wanted to
shoot his performance in ways that wouldn’t correspond with the existing
footage, and eventually Ching and his stunt crew left the set until
producers assured them that Seagal would cooperate.

After checking into a hotel, Jake visits a go-go club to meet up with his
friend Fitch McQuoid (Vincent Riotta), who he hopes will be able to give him
information. In the process, he rescues one of the club’s
employees – Lulu (Monica Lo) – from a group of men out to rape
her. Jake doesn’t acquire any useful information, but he gains Lulu as a
shadow. Their relationship ends up being…interesting at best and disconcerting
at worst. I’ll get into it later, but for now, Jake is too preoccupied to accept
the woman’s offer for dinner. After a sleepless night, he takes a boat ride to
a Buddhist monastery where he finds his old partner Sunti living the life of a
monk. Jake’s there to receive the blessing of the abbot, but tells Sunti why
he’s in Thailand. He says that he wants Sunti to stay where he is
and continue tending to his psychological wounds, but doesn’t seem particularly
surprised when Sunti shows up at his hotel soon after, back in civilian clothes
and pledging to help him rescue Jessica.

In the book Seagalogy: A Study of the
Ass-Kicking Films of Steven Seagal, the film critic Vern notes Jake’s
manipulative behavior: regardless what he says, it’s unlikely that Jake didn’t
foresee his faithful ex-partner dropping everything to come to his aide. This
is one of a few actions on the character’s behalf that unintentionally make him
unlikable. In a world where mysticism and spirituality are more than concepts, Sunti risks both physical and spiritual well-being for a partner
who’s not even upfront about recruiting him. Make no mistake, Sunti is an
extremely useful partner – finding Jake important information and holding his
own in fights – but the level of devotion between the characters is rather
one-sided.

Following some intrigue wherein Fitch is revealed to have been giving Jake
false information, Jake and Sunti follow a lead to an abandoned train yard
where a shady deal is taking place between the Abu Karaf and some unknown forces
represented by a mysterious woman. When Jake spots a sniper preparing to take
out Mongkol (Pongpat Wachirabunjong) – the Abu Karaf leader, who he needs alive
for information – he initiates an enormous shootout, but not before a quick
exchange with Sunti. This is probably Jake’s best character moment: he warns
Sunti of the maelstrom they’re about to unleash, but also indicates that
this is his last chance to back out. Sunti doesn’t, but it’s a rare acknowledgement
by Jake of the sacrifice that Sunti is making.

image

The police arrive and Jake is arrested, but even though he’s sprung from jail, his
time away allows a mysterious figure to enter his hotel room and steal one of
his shirts. What’s more, Lulu returns to her home to find her roommate murdered
– presumably by the same mysterious forces at the train yard, which Jake is
growing more convinced are the actual kidnappers. Lulu
takes refuge with Jake, and they have sex. It’s an awkward scene, with Jake coming across as cold and distant. The relationship between
these two seems fairly unhealthy, with Lulu repeatedly trying to appease a man
who seems annoyed by her presence. Lulu herself seems obsessive – trying to
follow Jake on outings and entering his hotel room while he’s away to bring him
food he didn’t ask for. (How did she get in, with the door locked and the window on the second story??) While others have accused Seagal of vanity for
frequently having onscreen girlfriends much younger than him (i.e. there’s a 25-year
age difference between the performers), I’m merely troubled by the film’s
portrayal of Jake as a man worth pursuing.

Eventually, Jake is granted a meeting with the man whose life he saved earlier and is vindicated in his belief that the Abu Karaf are innocent of
kidnapping. Mongkol reveals to him the identity of the mysterious woman – Lena –
and her connection to the deceitful McQuoid. Jake and Sunti return to Fitch’s
club, where Lena is lying in wait. Armed with a whip and razor-sharp nails,
Lena – revealed as a transwoman – fights and loses to Jake, who subsequently puts
together the masterplan before killing McQuoid in self-defense. It essentially
amounts to a rebel military faction having kidnapped the senator’s daughter and
framing the Abu Karaf – encouraging the U.S. to attack them and thereby
eliminating the rebels’ competition in drug distribution. Our heroes now know
where to go: to rescue the girls, they will need to storm the home of the rebel
leader – General Jantapan (Tom Wu).

At this point, this becomes a supernatural story. While Jake and Sunti return to
the monastery for a final blessing, Jantapan facilitates dark magic. He’s the
one who stole Jake’s shirt from the hotel, and has delivered it to the
mysterious old man from the market. This fellow is not only a demon-worshipping
mystic, but an actual wizard who creates an effigy of Jake from the shirt. As the heroes infiltrate Jantapan’s domain, Jake meets the general in combat
but is increasingly disabled by the wizard abusing the doll. Things seem
bleak until the effigy explodes in his hand, and as the camera zooms out
of the arachnid-infested temple, we see the entire Buddhist monastery praying and
chanting like mad. The wizard tries to rally, but eventually he’s overpowered by the supernatural forces and collapses. At the
same time, Jake overcomes Jantapan – defeating him with a blow that sends him
flying across the room. It’s been an exhilarating fight entirely in director
Ching’s style, featuring an absurdly cool instance wherein Jake bisects a flying arrow with a sword.

TRIVIA: Tom Wu is award-winning martial
artist, having medaled in international wushu tournaments.
Though Steven Seagal and Byron Mann are also martial artists, Wu is the only
one among the starring cast to have been active in competition.

During all of this, Sunti has been protecting the girls and
singlehandedly taking on an entire platoon of Jantapan’s men in a firefight.
Though both Jake and he are victorious, Sunti
collapses in Jake’s arms, his body riddled with bullet holes. As the movie
draws to a close, its final scene is of Sunti’s funeral, wherein Jake wades
into the river to distribute his ashes.

image

While it’s tempting to think of Sunti’s rescuing the girls as his redemption,
it’s his manner of death that symbolizes atonement.
Buddhism – the religion of Sunti and the real-life Steven Seagal – does not
seem to include the concept of divine forgiveness seen in Abrahamic systems,
and Sunti’s decision to help Jake is an attempt at personally compensating for his
misdeeds. Sunti kills several people prior to the finale –
something he’s visibly distressed by – so I think that being struck
by so many bullets is his form of penitence. An act of
masochism, if you will, to assuage the guilt that he’s carried for so long.
Every bullet that he’s used to kill people, he tries to take back. It’s a
depressing thought, and as the film concludes, one can’t help but hope that
Sunti has better luck finding enlightenment in his next life.

Belly of the Beast is one of Seagal’s
most colorful and exciting movies. Disappointingly,
it’s also one of the most convoluted. I have tried to relate the story coherently,
but I’ve needed to gloss over and omit several characters, events, and details
to do so. According to Joe Halpin – a regular writer of Seagal’s post-theatrical
films – the stories of these films remain in an amorphous state throughout
production, with bits and pieces being added and removed and significant sections being lost in editing. Belly of the Beast isn’t hopelessly bad in this regard, as you can
still make general sense of events, but I’ve watched it many times and still don’t understand all of it. I’m also at a loss why the credits don’t list
at least three of the most important characters: the abbot, the evil wizard,
and Lena.

Speaking of Lena, her inclusion is surprising. It’s unheard of to
find a female character in Seagal’s films who can legitimately fight, and trans
characters have been absent altogether. Thailand is known for its transgender community, and with trans characters frequently appearing in Thai films, this
may just be a unique way of representing them as part of the environment. Disappointingly, Lena
isn’t that great of a character: while she does have a pretty good fight, she’s
a one-dimensional villain who is amused by violence and tortures a man to death
– in other words, she’s not a very flattering representative of her demographic.
Jake’s daughter Jessica is less exotic, though I’m pleased that she’s not strictly treated as a damsel: she remains reasonably calm throughout her
incarceration, mounts an escape attempt, and kills a guard with his own knife
when he attempts to rape her friend.

It’s also worth noting the story’s political twist. The Abu Karaf is an
Islamic militant group, but they’re innocent of the crime General Jantapan tries
to pin on them. Jantapan successfully diverts attention from his own activities by playing to America’s post-9/11 suspicions…and it’s not terribly unrealistic. It’s not
sufficiently explained how Jake figures out the truth, but having
this as part of the story feels like a warning against political tunnel vision
and the tendency to blame all terrorism on Islamic influences.

Despite the production’s shortcomings, Belly
of the Beast was a breath of fresh air for Seagal’s career when it was
released and can still be regarded as such. In the midst of many gloomy
vehicles shot in Eastern Europe, this one is more colorful and bombastic
than anything else Seagal’s starred in. Siu-Tung Ching is one of the most acclaimed
directors the star has ever worked under, and his lavishes exalt the film and
make me wish he’d helmed more American pictures. While I’m usually not a fan
of fight scenes incorporating a lot of wirework, I like seeing action stars
stepping out of their comfort zone, and in this regard, the fights are
exciting. I can’t see myself recommending the movie to people who don’t like
Seagal to begin with or viewers who hold Tony Ching to a higher standard, but
as far as exotic B-movies go, this is worth seeing.

TRIVIA: Production designer Trevor
Murray was found dead in his Bangkok apartment while the film was being shot, having
died of natural causes. Murray was a veteran of filmmaking and a jack of all
artistic trades, with previous credits in art direction, model-making, set
decoration, and puppetry. Belly of the
Beast is dedicated to his memory.

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Belly of the Beast (2003)
Directed by Siu-Tung Ching (The Sorcerer and the White Snake)
Written by James Townsend (Undisputed 2: Last Man Standing), Thomas
Fenton (uncredited), Steven Seagal (uncredited)
Starring Steven Seagal (Above the Law), Byron Mann (The Man with the Iron Fists), Monica Lo
(Legacy), Tom Wu (Marco Polo)
Cool costars: Sara Malakul Lane has
since become a B-movie star and appears in the cult classic Sharktopus. Kevork Malikyan – best known as Kazim from the third Indiana Jones movie – plays a doomed businessman killed by Lena. Don Ferguson and Erik Markus
Schuetz, who regularly appear in Thai movies as combatants, play uncredited bodyguards.
Title refers to: Possibly the dangerous mission undertaken by Jake and Sunti.
Potential triggers: Kidnapping, attempted rape, violence towards women, sexist dialogue
Copyright GFT Beast Films Inc.,
Studio Eight Beast Limited, Century Time (H.K.) Ltd.