Wanted: Advice on Bmovies ala Gary Daniels, Dacascos, Bernhardt

[myosimka]

Daniels dropped off the face of the planet. Dacascos hasn't been used for his awesome MA talent in years.(Except Pacte des Loupes duringwhich I had to OD on caffeine to stay awake for the fights) and Bernhardt is off track because he was on the mega shoot for Matrix 2/3. What's a junky to do?? Gotta have my Drive, White Tiger, Fist of the Northstar, etc. Any suggestions would be helpful. And anyone who mentions Don Wilson will be summarily beaten.


Thanks

Ap-if you chime in here I'd appreciate it. I have always appreciated your taste or rather lack thereof in this area.

[Chang Style Novice]

I fear the golden age has passed. However, Liu Chia Liang returned to directing this year with the HK release "Drunken Monkey" - I haven't seen it, but my hunch is that it'll be a real throwback to the good ol days.

I mean - look at the director and title!

[jun_erh]

at this forum

they love that stuff.

[PHILBERT]

Fist of the North Star was...wow...God I don't know really. It basically had no story. Kenshiro was a pansy, not the awesome fighter he was in the comics. He was tough, but he was mentally weak and too much a pansy at times. The story was hard to follow, even after reading the comic, and the fight sequences were few and far between and poorly fought. It seemed as if the movie was hashed together in like a week.

http://us.imdb.com/Name?Daniels,+Gary

His last movie was in 2001.

[Chang Style Novice]

Yeah, I didn't want to say anything, because I like a numbskull kick-flick as much as anyone, but I fell asleep during FotNS. Love Drive like it was my baby, though. Especially Brittany Murphy's cameo.

[African Tiger]

"Only the Strong" and "Double Dragon"

I'm sure Mark would rather they destroyed the prints of both of those turkeys!

[African Tiger]

Oh, and the pathetic syndicated series based on a really ****ty movie,

THE CROW

ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

[African Tiger]

Wow. One more post and I become the devil......


MUAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! Sell me your soul, KFO'ers!

[PHILBERT]

I thought the Crow and Only the Strong were good. Other than the fact they should have just capped him in Only the Strong.

[rogue]

Tiger, you ever see a movie titled Raw Talent? It was made during the Kung Fu heyday as a blend of kung fu flick and hardcore porn flick. It failed on all counts.

[SevenStar]

Check out bolo yeung's movie - Tiger Claws. Don't bother with Tiger Claws 2, only check out the first one.

Also, check out Don Wilson's movie (yeah, I brought him up) Ring of Fire. There are some pretty good fight scenes in it, and Daniels plays a role as a thai boxer. Eric Lee and several others are in it also.

Have you seen Big Trouble in Little China? If not, you should. Maybe check out Showdown in little Tokyo also.

Best of the Best is always a good one... I can go on for days...

[myosimka]

I've seen everything Dacascos has done and Daniels doing no movie for 2 years and the last ones being more action(bad action) than MA has caused the shine of White Tiger to fade.

If there are any up and comers that anyone feels is being overlooked...hidden gems. That's what I am looking for.


Big Trouble in Little China can hardly be called a hidden gem. Great suggestion but been there done that. As were most of the ones thrown out. I'll certainly keep an eye out for Drunken Monkey though I am more a fan of the American style Bmove than HK.

Lastly, Tiger Claws? Cynthia Rothrock and Jalal Merhi? Heaven help us! The only thing that could have made that movie worse would be the presence of Billy Blanks trying to infiltrate the fight school with Merhi. But they only have 1 week to train. So Master Pan can triple their training. Nooooo!!! Not the dreaded Talons of the Eagle. For god's sake even the title is similar.

Didn't like Ring of Fire that much but certainly better than most Wilson films. At least that series stopped at 3 as opposed to Bloodfist which I think is still going on in the double digits.

[SevenStar]

Only ring of fire 1. Don't bother with the sequels. I musta misread the post though - I didn't know you were looking for hidden gems, only ma flicks. Here's another, but it's by no means hidden - No Retreat, No Surrender.

[Chang Style Novice]

I'll certainly keep an eye out for Drunken Monkey though I am more a fan of the American style Bmove than HK.

I understand, after all the HK version hardly ever has the soft-core sex scene shot through at least a centimeter of gauze with incredibly obvious body doubles and a truly generic hair-metal power ballad for a soundtrack.

[apoweyn]

myosimka,

Sorry. I just found this thread. Hmm... lemme see...

Well, he's not a newcomer by any means, but my personal favorite is Olivier Gruner. French ex-kickboxer, ex-spec ops turned martial arts actor. Admittedly, a lot of his movies aren't very good. But he does have a sense of credibility that I dig on. My personal Gruner recommendations:

Angel Town: His first flick. And the one with the most fight scenes. French kickboxer vs. LA gangs. Also a great training sequence with him squaring off against the students of his friend's dojo.

Automatic: Gruner plays an android. Several androids, actually. He inadvertently kills a human in defense of a woman. Then they get sealed up inside the building and hunted down by mercenaries. It's Gruner's "Die Hard" knockoff.

Sidenote: I have this theory that virtually every martial arts star has to make 1) a Die Hard knockoff, 2) a "secret underground tournament" movie, and 3) a post-apocalyptic future movie. For Gruner, the underground tournament movie was "The Circuit", which could have been good if Jalal Merhi had absolutely nothing to do with it. But since he was heavily involved, it kinda sucks. As for the post-apocalyptic future movie, that's "Nemesis." Not a bad flick, for what it is. It's Albert Pyun directing (Cyborg, Heatseeker, etc.). Worth checking out, but not much martial arts.

Savate (aka The Fighter): Another tournament movie (though this one is neither secret nor underground) set in the wild west. I like this one personally. The actual tournament itself is pretty underwhelming. But there are several action scenes leading up to that which are worth the time.

Interceptor Force: Gruner's answer to Predator, I suppose. He's part of a government team that has to investigate a UFO crashsite. Hilarity ensues. Whatever you may think of the premise, there are some pretty good fight scenes.

So that's Gruner. Who else...

Keith Hirabayashi Cooke. I love this guy. Though he's usually stuck with bit parts. He appears briefly (and masked) in both Mortal Kombat films, Beverly Hills Ninja, China O'Brien 1 and 2, and King of the Kickboxers. But if you want a full Keith Cooke movie, Heatseeker (directed by Pyun, as I mentioned). In the future, corporate-sponsored cyborgs duke it out in big tournaments to prove who's cybernetic implants are the best. Cooke plays the only pure human good enough to compete. That man can kick like few other people I've seen. And his archnemesis in the film: Gary Daniels.

Michael Worth is another guy who's been around a while but may have slipped under the radar. He's a JKD stylist, which is interesting all on its own. His first movie, to my knowledge, was "Street Crimes" with Dennis Farina. Pretty good flick. If you dig on that one, check out some of his others. I can't remember too many titles, so I'd check out IMDB. Oh, one other one: "Navy Seals 2." Has sod all to do with the Navy Seals, really. But it's a good (read: cheesy) modern-day kung fu flick with Worth, Sophia Crawford, Hakeem Alston, etc.

How's that for a start?


Stuart B.