Tag: film criticism

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: China O’Brien II (1990)

*SPOILERS
AHEAD*

Sequels
aren’t as common in martial arts cinema as other genres (at least not
for U.S. fare), and ones within the direct-to-video realm are
similarly rare. While China
O’Brien II was
shot simultaneously with its predecessor and therefore a
guaranteed
release,
the original’s success assured that a sequel would indeed be in
demand. Sadly, this is an
instance
where embarrassing stereotypes about sequels indeed
apply.
While
the original China
O’Brien
was a simple but endearing adventure that established
Cynthia Rothrock in America’s martial arts movie scene, China
O’Brien II
rings hollwer.
The circumstances behind
its creation
ensure that its production values and action content are as strong as
its predecessor’s, but an
uneven story and an unambitious
screenplay go a long way in making this the inferior flick.

The
film opens at night with a low-key soundtrack and
a
convoy of cars making its
way through a forested area. Things pick up soon, as the
convoy
divulges
a slew of police officers who’re
hunting
the story’s villain. Escaped convict C.Z. Baskin (Harlow Marks) –
ex-Special Forces operative and drug smuggler – shoots several
officers before turning up at a hideout with his sizeable
gang
of Vietnam veterans.
He lays out his goals in
a straightforward way:
he wants
to kill the judge, prosector, and detective responsible for sending
him to prison, along with a former teammate who betrayed and stole $5
million from him. Barely five minutes into the movie and we already
have enough information to determine that the hero-villain dynamics
have flipped: whereas
the first film featured our heroes attempting to topple a villain
who’d
entrenched himself in the system, this one casts the heroes as the
establishment and the villains as outsiders. We’ll
see soon
enough that
such a reversal actually renders our protagonists more vulnerable
than before.

Baskin
succeeds in having
his personnel eliminate
their
first three targets in short order,
treating
us to
a convoluted scene
where the
judge is murdered while participating in a magic act. The final
victim, Frank Atkins (Frank Magner), is living
under
the Witness Protection Program in the same town where Lori “China”
O’Brien (Rothrock) is receiving a commendation for ridding the place
of organized crime. Also present
are her returning cohorts Matt Conroy (Richard Norton) and Dakota
(Keith Cooke), and we see that their collective
problems
have become significantly less drastic
in
recent times:
while Dakota beats up a couple of men harassing a woman (one of
them’s future Mortal
Kombat
star Chris Casamassa), China and Matt drive off to arrest a bumbling
mountain man called Chester (J.R. Glover) who made a mess of a local
bar. The
trio seems to have everything under control.

This
impression continues even as the plot begins to move along and
several of Baskin’s men arrive
to kidnap Frank and his wife Annie (Tricia Quai) during
the July 4th
celebration.
Despite
an ominous soundtrack, our
heroes
thoroughly kick the crud out of these guys. The would-be kidnappers
flee, and China gets the cagey Frank to tell her about the
situation…though
he leaves out the bit about the stolen money.
An unproductive call from
his
FBI keeper
gets
Frank into an uproar, but China shuts him down and forbids him from
leaving town. Frank
doesn’t like this. Unlike
its predecessor, this
film has almost nothing to say on gender roles or feminism, but
there’s a glorious moment where the impotent
Frank whines
“I bet you like beatin’ up on men, don’t you?!” It’s a
not-so-subtle reminder that China is a subverter
of norms and
that men of questionable character can’t come to terms with
this.

Dakota
is dating Frank’s stepdaughter Jill (Tiffany Soter), which is a
little uncomfortable when you remember that Dakota is old enough to
be in college but
Jill
appears to go to school with students in
their
mid-teens. He
picks her up from the
campus
on
his bike and
brings her home, where Baskin and his men are lying in wait. Dakota
puts up a fight, but he’s kidnapped along with Jill and Annie.
Ironically,
Baskin’s
attempt to thus
press
Frank to surrender himself and the money almost goes wrong: Frank is
in the process of skipping town when China happens upon him and finds
out what’s going on.
(Frank’s
shame at being shown up by a woman is complete when he threatens her
with a gun and she takes him down from
the other side of a door.)
She
calls in Matt and her deputy Russell (Michael Anthony), and they
hatch a plan to retrieve the hostages with Frank’s (forced?)
cooperation.
The next day, it’s put into effect: Frank meets with Baskin at a
rock-crushing plant while
China & Co. Sneak up
, and following a massive fight scene that parallels the first film’s
sawmill brawl, all the good guys escape. Baskin, who gets quickly
taken out by China early in the fight, vows revenge.

This
fight scene, in
which Dakota doesn’t actively participate,
is a demonstration of how he’s
become estranged from
the other lead protagonists. While
neither
his screen time nor his contribution to the action content has been
reduced,
he shares very
few
scenes with China or Matt and has no one-on-one
time
with
them at all.
What’s more, he’s become almost facetious to the story.
While
the original movie featured his quest for revenge as a major plot
point
and gave him moments wherein
he
at least helped
China out of a jam, here he’s little more than a flashy side
character.
The importance of his kidnapping is diminished by China already
being prepared
to put herself on the line for Jill and Annie, and probably the most
significant thing he does throughout
the picture is
rescue Jill from molestation
by one of Baskin’s men (Douglas Caputo). I’ve heard that Keith
Cooke was very discerning
about
only accepting
roles that highlighted
his onscreen presence; if this is true, then
Dakota
being
indepdent of China and Matt probably appealed to Cooke,
but the result is that the film could’ve largely been made without
his character. The things he does and the things that happen to him
don’t affect the plot much, and that’s disappointing.

Baskin
effectively isolates
the town by cutting phone lines, scrambling radio airwaves, and
setting up roadblocks.
The next day, his crew rolls in to flush out China and her allies,
and the rest of the movie consists mainly of China, Matt, and Dakota
taking out opponents throughout
town.
It’s a cool collection of fight scenes, including ones with a trio
of specialty fighters (Billy Blanks, a whip-wielding Indiana Jones
wannabe, and Toshihiro Obata wearing a pair of Freddy Krueger claws),
but the
whole affair is one-sided with our
heroes
rarely losing the upper hand.
Things are a little more perilous for the characters who aren’t
martial artists: Russell is shot to death trying to get help, China’s
dispatcher Lucille (Cindy Clark) is killed when the police station is
shot up, ol’ Chester is killed just shortly after being sprung from
jail,
and even Frank is gunned down by Baskin as his family and he try
to escape with the money. Baskin grabs the suitcase of
dough,
ignoring the women, and is subsequently killed by Annie after
she grabs Frank’s rifle.
It’s surprising,
a little disappointing, but also apt that the antagonist is taken
down by a character who even the audience is meant
to consider beneath notice. C.Z.
Baskin is a more threatening and able villain than Edwin
Sommers was, but in the end, they’re both eliminated by a former
victim of their greed.

TRIVIA:
Filming had already wrapped
when director Robert Clouse was told that the runtime had to be
increased. Some additional action scenes were shot, including the one
featuring Billy Blanks, who was cast at short notice.

The
film ends on a downer, with China and Matt leaving Frank’s funeral
and mourning the loss of Lucille and Russell. Dakota’s there, but
he doesn’t leave with his friends.
Looking
back at the whole picture, I get the impression that the filmmakers
were intending for this to be a grittier
and more perilous movie than the original – you get hints at a
darker tone throughout via the soundtrack – but they
failed
to achieve the effect by reserving
all of the more
depressing stuff
for
the final
15
minutes. Sure, the
movie collectively
lacks the original’s upbeat tone, but it’d
be
comparable to shooting The
Empire Strikes Back
without the heroes facing
any setbacks prior to Luke Skywalker losing
his hand.
It just feels uneven.

China
O’Brien II
is a typically
inferior sequel in many ways, but its production circumstances make
the situation a little weirder. The films were shot at the same time
with much of the same crew and supporting cast, so their look and
design are
identical. That’s what makes it so disorienting that China
O’Brien
should be such an engaging romp while its follow-up is a distant
exhibition. I don’t know nearly enough about the production to say
more, but it goes to show just how delicate of a process it is to
create
a cult classic. It’s difficult to capture lightning twice, even
when the bottles are standing right next to each
other.

Nevertheless,
as
technically
the more mature film of the two, the sequel manages to make at least
one
narrative point about
change and adaptation. The most obvious example
of this
is China’s relationship
with
firearms, which was laid down in the original film and even
reinforced,
here. China never uses a gun, even
opting
to use a hunting bow when in need of a long-range weapon, but she
reluctantly
approves of
her allies using them. Russell uses a machine gun during the brawl at
the plant and there’s a meaningful shot of China entrusting a gun
to Frank, and
even Matt takes control of a rifle at
one point.
(There’s
also
a
recycled shot of Dakota riding his motorcycle with an M-16 strapped
to his back.)
The good guys kill people with these weapons – a signifier
for
lack
of control and a major no-no in the past, but now an apparent
necessity. There’s much to be said about taking a realistic look at
self-defense and firearms, but in the context of the film, this
underscores the effectiveness of the villains: they’re apparently
so dangerous that they drive our heroes to desperation and put a dent
in China’s ideals. In the aftermath, Sheriff O’Brien probably
reflects
on her worldview and how she intends
to protect
her town. It’s impossible to imagine her deputizing schoolchildren
anymore.

The
relationship Matt and China share with Dakota also
comes under the header of change.
The former two are
now
a
couple, but Dakota is noticeably estranged. They
still share
friendly gestures and
show concern for each other,
but there are hints that the trio may be in the process of breaking
up. Dakota’s status as a deputy is strictly voluntary, and after
seeing him spend more time with Jill than his cohorts and not joining
them after the funeral, I’m left with the impression that their
dynamic is coming apart. Dakota doesn’t hint at his plans and I
don’t want to make unfounded predictions, but as China admits that
she’ll miss her fallen friends, perhaps the
unspoken message is that she’ll also
miss
Dakota, now that he’s beyond
her inner circle.

One aspect that I
wish had been taken greater advantage of is the rest of the town’s
involvement in defending itself. The movie starts off with the place
feeling as organic as before, but as the film progresses, we see less
and less of the citizens. By the time the big finale occurs, the
streets are empty. The film’s trailer promises us that “This
time, [China] will need to have the whole town cooking,” but the
most we see of this is an out-of-the-blue scene where a couple of
Baskin’s thugs are thwarted by two chefs armed with cleavers.
Perhaps that bit was inserted to pad out the runtime, but seriously –
where have all of the extras gone? I can see China advising the
townspeople to stay in their homes off-screen, but the impression
this makes is that, despite their successful rallying of the
community in the past, China and her friends are eventually on their
own when it comes to facing danger.

Despite
its drawbacks, I still recommend China
O’Brien II
– not to just anybody, but probably to general martial arts fans
and definitely to Cynthia Rothrock devotees. The fight scenes are
top-notch, and there are enough entertaining moments to make it worth
your while. The
movie has plenty of problems, but it avoids the most common sin of
sequels by not merely rehashing the last flick. This
one’s yet to be released digitally or on DVD, and while it may not
be worth buying a VCR for, it’s definitely worth digging an old
model out of the basement.

China
O’Brien II
(1990)
Directed
by
Robert Clouse
Written
by
Robert Clouse, Craig Clyde (The
Wild Stallion),
James Hennessy (Wind
Dancer).
Sandra Weintraub receives a “based on a story by” credit, but
it’s unclear whether this just refers
to
her work on the previous film.
Starring
Cynthia Rothrock, Richard Norton, Keith Cooke, and Frank Magner –
all of
who
appeared in the original China
O’Brien.
Cool
costars:
Chris Casamassa, Billy Blanks (The
King of the Kickboxers),
Toshihiro Obata (Rage
and Honor).
Donre Sampson plays one of the more
noticeable
henchmen, and while not particularly distinguished, he did appear in
the super cool Revenge
of the Ninja
and therefore merits a mention.
Title
refers to:
Cynthia Rothrock’s character.
Content
warning:
Violence against women, group violence, kidnapping
Copyright
Pan-Pacific
Productions, Inc. / Imperial
Entertainment Corp.

[500 Word Essay] Violence Against Women in Low-Budget Martial Arts Films

image

Photo credit
Lionsgate (2015). Absolution. Retrieved from IMDb.

One of the most
recurrent and unpleasant trends in low-budget action movies is
violence aimed at female characters. This isn’t unique to my
particular film niche, but its prevalence in direct-to-video kick flicks is telling of how readily viewers accept and expect to see
women treated violently onscreen. We’re talking about largely
independent productions which highlight fighting arts designed for use by anybody, but often,
these films maintain a status quo whereby unanswered physical aggression towards
women is a matter of course. I’ll try to briefly convey why this is
a problem and how it might be rectified.

[For clarity:
When I mention violence towards women, I’m referring to instances
where a female character is physically abused by another character
(typically male, though sometimes another woman). I usually don’t
count instances where the woman is an active combatant, though there
are problematic examples of that, too (e.g. the fight between Brandie
Rocci and Darren Shahlavi in Bloodmoon (1997),
reminiscent of a domestic violence episode).]

I’m not suggesting
that such instances of violence can’t be appropriate within a
film’s context. However, what makes the bulk of them disagreeable
and problematic are not only the societal norms they perpetuate, but
the effects they may have enacted on the DTV film-making scene. An
overabundance of female-directed violence probably contributed to the
rarity of women becoming physical players in action scenes (can’t be a victim and a hero at the same time, here), which in
turn makes actresses less likely to rise within this subgenre.
There’s no shortage of capable women in the field, but most aren’t
particularly well-known because they’re rarely portrayed the way
their male counterparts are.

Speaking of which…
Though male characters are more often on the receiving end of
violence in these movies, they don’t contend with the
above-mentioned detrimental effects. Men are much more likely to be
portrayed as fighters, period. The vast majority of these
films are headlined by male protagonists, and there’s no shortage
of successful male performers who got their start being beaten up in
fight scenes. There are no social stigmas decreeing that men should
generally be portrayed as helpless victims, and in a genre where
physical violence is the norm, that counts for a lot.

Dealing
with this issue isn’t as easy as finding the new Cynthia Rothrock, as
even movies which feature a powerful woman in the lead are often
still saturated with violence directed at other women. I also don’t favor doing away with this sort of violence completely, lest it
limit the kind of stories that could be told. I think a more sensible
approach would be to simply level the playing field by regularly
casting women in not only starring roles, but also physical
supporting roles – have women play more enforcers, lieutenants,
teammates, or even bystanders who can throw a punch. By subverting societal expectations, we’d not only
diminish the degree to which such films perpetuate unhelpful
prejudices (e.g. women are helpless in the face of violence), but
also open the film market to a greater variety of butt-kicking
talent.

Some films that
have already applied this concept
relatively well: Contour (2006), Ninja
Apocalypse (2014), Tekken (2010), Honor and Glory (1993), Xtreme Fighter (2004)