5 things to love about Extreme Heist aka Wicked Game (2002)

What’s it about:

Ex-Power Rangers actors Johnny Yong Bosch and Jason Narvy play a couple of criminals who stumble across a money laundering enterprise and steal a huge amount of money. Together with a FBI agent they must stay one step ahead of the cartel who want their money back.

5 things to love:

1. The stunts. My word, this film puts a lot of big budget films to shame. All the stuntmen throw themselves around with complete disregard for safety. People jump out of planes, off cars, down stairs, off roofs. At time it feels like a stunt show. A few bits look faked but most of it looks very painful and very dangerous. It’s akin to watching an episode of Jackass in places. Take a look at this sequence:-

2. Johnny Yong Bosch (terrible haircut aside) gives a fun, light-hearted performance and has a great rapport with Jason Narvy. Both of them aren’t great actors by any stretch of the imagination but the friendship between them both is palpable. Bosch I feel could have maybe given Mark Dacascos a run for his money if he’d been given a few more roles.

3. The plane scene. Okay, now I’m getting into spoiler territory. The film begins with a skydiving sequence (that’s shot for real, no blue screens here) and I sat there thing, okay so that’s cool. But then at the end Bosch and the main villain jump out of a plane together with one parachute and fight over it as they fall. It’s a sequence I’ve seen in other films (Point Break, Eraser, Terminal Velocity) only this time it’s a genuine sequence with no digital trickery. It made the whole thing really exciting to watch.

4. A lot of films have terrible ideas of how computers work and how you make money transfers but this one takes the cake. Everyone seems to be using technology from early 90s.

5. I’m a fan of the original Power Rangers TV show (it was a gateway drug for a lot of Japanese media) and it was great to see a cameo from Paul Schrier (Bulk from Power Rangers) playing the owner of a restaurant. He and Narvy (who played Skulk) give each other a knowing look which made me smile.

1 thing it did need:

Better cameras. The whole thing looks like it was shot on MiniDV and it’s super grainy. Had they got a better DOP and budget this might have been a cult classic. As it is it’s too ugly and rough around the edges for most viewers. I loved it though.

Crazy, Crazy Good Action: Drive: The Director's Cut (1997)

I can't quite believe it's taken me two years of writing this blog to get around to reviewing the film Drive. I'm not talking about the Ryan Gosling one (though that's awesome too for different reasons and I'll be reviewing it very soon) I'm talking about the amazing martial arts film from 1997 that was directed by Steve Wang (who also did the Guyver movies). It's probably one of my favourite films of all time and I can't begin to count how many times I've watched it. It's just such a fun action movie; the kind they don't really make anymore. Everything is dour and brooding now. I think at the time it didn't get the reception it deserved and partially that was the fault of the producers who edited it down to a lean 90 minutes and shoved it out direct to video. Luckily, it got much better reception in the UK and I think that was down to it being released in an extended two hour director's cut over here.

The film sees Mark Dacascos play Toby Wong, a seemingly ordinary man on the run from a group of bounty hunters led by Vic Madison (John Pyper-Ferguson). In order to get away from his pursuers Wong kidnaps an innocent bystander, Malik (Kadeem Hardison) and forces him at gunpoint to drive to LA. It turns out that the bounty hunters can't just kill Wong because they want what is inside his body. You see he's been fitted with an experiment "bio-engine unit" by an evil Chinese corporation which increases his strength, speed, stamina and fighting skills to near superhuman levels. Wong needs to get to LA in three days in order to sell the technology to an American businessman. Malik agrees to help him and the two hit the road but it's going to be far from an easy ride and there's going to be whole load of detours.

The first thing I've got to say is that fight work and stunts in the film are way, way above average, particularly for an American production. Hats off to the choreographer Koichi Sakamoto and his Alpha Stunts Team. There's a little bit of wire work used here and there but it's only really used to enhance fights rather than create massively unrealistic moves. Instead of using it for lifting fighters in the air (like Crouching Dragon) it's more used to fling enemies across the room. A lot of American movies tried incorporating wire work in action films in the late 90s and most of it was pretty poorly integrated. Here it works perfectly because the story demands it. Toby Wong is meant to have been biologically enhanced to be the perfect fighting machine, so it makes sense he should be able to take down 20-30 bad guys and not break a sweat. The fights are also really inventive in the same way that Jackie Chan's early work was. There's a particularly brilliant fight where Wong takes on a group of bad guys armed with electric stun batons and realises he can't fight back without getting shocked so he takes off his boots, puts them on his fists and carries on fighting. Genius. The final fight of the film is also stunningly choreographed with Wong going up against countless bad buys AND an even stronger, faster prototype fighter.

Of course, good fights are one thing but you need something more to sustain your interest for the two hour running time. While the story is pretty straight forward - it's more or less one long chase movie - the screenplay is nicely nuanced and there's some very quirky performances. The comedic interplay between Hardison and Dacascos is particularly a highlight and there's a real sense of friendship between the two. I particularly enjoyed the little in-joke where Wong is stopped by police and gives them his name as "Sammo Hung". At times, they maybe push the comedy element maybe a bit too far, like Wong doing a cringe-worthy karaoke performance(!) at one point, but I far prefer my action films to have fun than take themselves too seriously. The support cast is pretty great too. John Pyper-Ferguson is perfect as the increasingly crazed bounty hunter Vic Madison who is constantly getting his ass handed to him by Wong and there's a great, quirky performance by character actor Tracey Walter as his dim-witted sidekick 'Hedgehog'.

The late Brittany Murphy also has a very funny small part as the crazy owner of motel who briefly helps out Wong and Malik. She plays the role like her character is permanently on drugs, giggling constantly and trying to hit on Hardison at every opportunity. There's no explanation for why her character is so unhinged. It's just another of the film's weird offbeat elements. It's full of them. For instance, there's a whole running gag that 'Hedgehog' is always obsessively watching a TV show called 'Walter the Einstein Frog' about a frog who works in an ER! Who knows what the writer Scott Phillips was thinking when he wrote that bit. It's a shame that both he and Steve Wang have never really made anything like this film again - though they are still working together on the kids show Kamen Rider. I think Drive is probably the high water mark for Dacascos' career too. He and Hardison did reteam a year later on The Crow: Stairway to Heaven TV series (along with Ferguson) and in a film called Instinct to Kill, but both was nowhere near as good as this.

I usually end my reviews by trying to find one or two faults with a film but with Drive I found it really hard. The film is that good. The only quibble I have is that I always found it a bit mercenary that Wong is trying to sell the equipment inside him to an American businessman. That's tantmount to corporate espionage and quite an odd goal for a traditional action hero. I'd almost prefer it that he was just looking to get the bio-engine surgically removed and destroyed but... oh well. Nothing's perfect. But this film is as close as it gets. If you can get a copy of this director's cut I highly recommend it. The 90 minute cut keeps most of the fights but loses a lot of character moments. Drive is a magnificent martial arts film that no fan of the genre should be without. And if you've already seen it and are thirsty for more check out my review of another Koichi Sakamoto movie - Broken Fist.

GRADE: A 

Underrated martial arts: Broken Fist (2008)

I was thrilled to see this little flick has finally got released on DVD because I've been waiting ages. It originally came out in 2008 as Broken Path and played a few festivals in the US before disappearing without a trace. Thankfully some clever marketing guy has brought it to widespread attention by giving it the more marketable name of Broken Fist and releasing it in the UK.

Here's a bit of background about why I was so interested in it. Firstly, it's directed by Koichi Sakamoto. You might not recognise the name but he was the primary fight choreographer behind Drive (Mark Dacascos one, not Ryan Gosling) – one of the best DTV martial arts flicks ever – as well as Guyver: Dark Hero. Secondly, the premise is insane. A lot of films claim to be wall-to-wall fighting but this one actually delivers on that promise. It does not stop.

Sakamoto also did a lot of the stunt work on the TV series Power Rangers, which you may sniff at but so did Isaac Florentine (Undisputed II & III, Ninja, US SEALS II, The Shepherd) so it's clearly a very good breeding ground for quality action directors. I guess it's here that he met the leading actor of the film, Johnny Yong Bosch (who played the Black Ranger for several seasons as well as the the two movies).

Bosch plays Jack Ellis, an young guy who has recently moved into a small farmhouse in the middle of nowhere with his wife, Lisa (Pamela Walworth), and daughter. After having a small housewarming and packing the kid off to summer camp he and Lisa set about renovating the house, however the only thing that's going to get renovated this weekend is Jack's face as a group of masked attackers descend on the house intent on killing him and Lisa. Who are they? What do they want? And where did Jack suddenly gain these awesome fighting abilities?

To say any more of the plot would ruin it (mainly because there's not much more to it). The set up is all done by the 15 minute mark and after that everything takes place in real time as Jack tries to escape with his wife and fight off his attackers. Yes, it is literally 75 minutes of non-stop fighting. Okay, maybe there's 5 minutes of dialogue interspersed in there but that's it. One review I read described it in a perfect way – it's like watching a mix of an action movie and an experimental art film!

Considering the length of the fights, the choreography never gets dull. Sakamoto really knows how to inject fights with fun and creativity. There's a lot of jumping and flipping but nothing looks like it used wires and each punch and kick looks brutal. And there's some crazily gory death scenes too. At times it almost feels like your watching a horror movie. I thought it was quite clever to have the bad guys where masks as I guess it made them easy to double but from what I could tell Bosch did most of his own fight scenes. Hats off to the guy, he was incredible in this.

I can't understand why he hasn't gotten more work (I know he does a lot of anime voice over work) because he was on fire in this. Not only was he great at fighting he also had some good charisma that reminded me a little of Mark Dacascos back in the day. Some producer needs to use him in some quality DTV action movies now! And while you're at it, sign up Sakamoto to direct them. There are so many terrible, lazy, boring DTV action films out there, these guys could blow the competition out of the water.

One negative thing that a lot of people have brought up about the film is the indestructibility of all the characters. There's only ever 5 attackers and Jack in the whole (maybe they should have used more). Everyone gets hit, stabbed, cut, kicked, thrown down stairs multiple times. Sure, it's highly unrealistic but I think after about the first ten minutes you just accept that the makers aren't trying at realism, they are aiming purely for enjoyability. And for me they succeeded. So if you can get over this small point I think you'll love the movie, it gets my highest approval!

GRADE: A