Before "Showdown in Manila"I decided to go back a little to the good old past and refresh my memory of a number of films by the well-known Don "Dragon" Wilson.
I’ll say right away that his films are not always etched in the memory, and for me, even among actors of category B and below (Daniels, Speakman, Zagarino, etc.) he did not particularly stand out. He is remembered mainly for his attacks against Van Damme.
I decided to get through the trilogy"fire ring"and refreshed my memory"Sci-Fighter". I’ll say in advance - I didn’t waste my time, but the whole trilogy has a bunch of tendencies that all the polylogues in such low-budget films had. But in order.
"Ring of Fire" (1991)
The plot is stolen from"Romeo and Juliet": in America there are constantly street fights between the Americans (representing kickboxing) and the Chinese (all kinds of Chinese wushu-hand-to-hand combat, drunken style and karate with taekwondo), one of the Chinese falls in love with the sister of one of the Americans. The film has the atmosphere of a typical hand-to-hand action movie - combat music with an oriental flavor, training to it, loud sounds of blows and that old style of filming fights.This is a big plus for fans of the genre.
There are a lot of fights, but the editing is an order of magnitude weaker than in other films of those years, sometimes at the moment of blows the frame changes and it is not clear how it arrived. Street, ring, with weapons and even, to apparently correspond to the name, a fight under a bridge in a circle of fire and according to the rules from “Kickboxer” - with glasses in bandages (and by the way, unlike Kickboxer, they lead to the death of one of the heroes ). Most of the characters (from the Chinese side) are memorable (from the American side I only remember Gary Daniels, who also has several fights, but alas, he is not a central character). Also full, sorry for the expression, of tits and naked female bodies. All these traditional combinations give good visuals and the time spent on the film is not considered wasted.
But there are also plenty of disadvantages. The first one is himself Wilson. He has few fights here, his on-screen brother and his friends fight for him, and the hero has a love story (which doesn’t interfere much, by the way, and adds meaning to the movie). All his fights are only at the end, and they are less impressive than the showdowns in the ring at the beginning. Also, Don, who is given too much time, is unconvincing in his acting. The second problem is that the plot weakens at the end - the unpunished murder of one of the characters (no one was imprisoned or killed for this), leaking off-screen characters (cops). The third problem is rather weak installation.
Nevertheless, the film is worth watching at least once (for the sake of, for example, “Drunken Master”). There is even some kind of message embedded in it.
"Ring of Fire II: Blood and Steel, 2"
The plot continues the first part - the hero marries his girlfriend from the first part, but they are attacked by a gang of shaggy jocks and injure his girlfriend. Then they kidnap her from the hospital and the hero runs to look for her in the gloomy American dungeons.
And at this moment, a knowledgeable viewer understands: this film is a 70% copy-paste of the now forgotten “Warriors”: the same motley gangs with distinctive features (scavengers, roller skaters, ninjas and main jocks), the same radio with a troll presenter and the deception of the heroes during with the help of a gang of beauties.
The depth of the plot of the movie begins to give way, replacing the attempt to write a story with meaning to a plotless action movie - and this trend has befallen many films, the most similar situation is “The Best of the Best”, where the first part is a serious sports drama, the second is about Cage fighting, the third is about the adventures of the main character somewhere else and so on.
There is quite a lot of action in the film and this is pleasing, the production is not the best, but it does not hurt the eye, but it is noticeably inferior to the first part. We must pay tribute, in fights between minor characters it is not always completely clear who will win whom.
The drunken master also returned and made it fun again, adding points to the film. However, the rest of the mistakes of the first film carried over into the second (editing, left-handed Persians, and so on).
As before, you can watch it, you won’t regret your time after watching it, but you won’t want to watch it again.
"Ring of Fire 3: Lion Strike" (Lion Strike, 1994)
As I said above, according to the trend, the third part will be about Wilson, but without the rest of the guys. Maria Ford, who played the hero's wife, apparently moved higher in her career, so her character, as usual, "died in a car accident off-screen". The rest of the guys also disappeared somewhere, only that same “unnecessary cop” remained, who was at least good for something in this part.
So the plot is the hero Wilson's after the usual everyday life of a doctor (a shootout with the mafia, breaking the faces of tipsy bikers near the registry and sparring during working hours on the roof), he accidentally crosses the path of the Russian-Italian mafia alliance. It turns out he has some kind of disk and the whole film he and his little son are pursued by bandits with cranberry Russians in earflaps.
The plot and script are outrageously stupid, a bunch of ridiculous cliches, stupid mafiosos to the point of comedy, having arsenals of weapons and helicopters, but still stupidly merging at the hands of the Dragon and his new juicy forest ranger chick. There are a lot of fights, they are watchable, but they are an order of magnitude worse than in the previous parts and only the final battle of the Dragon with the Former KGB officer stands out from them.
However, the advantage of the film is still a huge amount of action, fights, chases and explosions, ridiculous, but suitable for lovers of B-grade oldies. Whether or not to watch the third part is up to you.
"Fantastic Fighter" (Sci-Fighter, 2004)
One of the first attempts to bring together forgotten stars on the screen by that time (2000s). The attempt is mediocre.
The plot is partially stolen from Mortal Kombat - a boy and his dad find themselves in a buggy and virus-ridden training program that looks like another part of Tekken or MK. Dad, played by Wilson, passes all the tests one by one and saves his son.
An attempt to collect the stars of the old B-movie did not turn out very well - a couple of scenes with Lamas, one of which is promising, but we don't see much of Lamas later. Rothrock also appears in an unconvincing short fight. Wilson himself doesn't even show what he did before either. Did the best job of all Chris Casamassa (Scorpio from MK), it is clear that he tried the best and the scenes with him are the most memorable.
Is it worth watching? Only for children for whom MK and Bloodsport are too early.
Many will ask - why am I talking about these, in general, passable action films, in a positive way? Yes, because in many modern crafts, called action films, there is not even such and such. In the third part of “The Ring” (the darkest), a lot of action happens in 20 minutes from the beginning of the film, while in many non-action films, only 30% of the entire movie is action and it is staged from the back with a twitchy camera. The hope, of course, is for Statham and Adkins (+ someone else).
Thank you for reading, peace and goodbye to everyone.
Author: Uran
Especially for Fight-Films.Info
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Tags: Lion Strike, Ring of Fire, Sci-Fighter, Gary Daniels, Don Wilson, Chris Casamassa, Lorenzo Lamas, fire ring, Ring of Fire 2, Ring of Fire 3, Cynthia Rothrock
Tags: Lion Strike, Ring of Fire, Sci-Fighter, Gary Daniels, Don Wilson, Chris Casamassa, Lorenzo Lamas, fire ring, Ring of Fire 2, Ring of Fire 3, Cynthia Rothrock
Yuri Skromny:
THANK YOU very much for the tip about EXTRASENSE. A very extraordinary film! I still got through it. I rarely watch films in advance, especially Russian ones.
Of course, there are more than enough mystics there, although sometimes they did it as best they could, but still. Well done! It was like some kind of fairy tale. It's not entirely terribly shot. Rather, the actors would have to play their shots more artistically than athletically. + the editor messed up in many places. And so - a completely decent movie and, so to speak, a discovery for me!!!
jaidev,
Glad you liked it! Indeed, the plot is a “hodgepodge” of mysticism, and either bodybuilders or ninjas - this is definitely a mishmash. But forgive me, the USSR still existed (at its end) in 1992... The battle scenes still pleasantly please me! ))))
The best film with him is Red Sun Rising, a lot of humor and James Liu...
Thanks for the review of old films. I would like more notes like this.
Well, as a matter of fact, Don Wilson never knew how to play, he is first and foremost an athlete. Even Daniels can portray something on screen, but Dragon, alas, cannot. Therefore, all that remains is to admire the secondary characters in his films, and the “b” category action.
DIV,
You're welcome, thanks to the admins for posting and formatting.
There will certainly be more such notes.
uranium,
Good reviews!
I immediately noticed Wilson’s weakness in choreography and in cinema in general. This guy, of course, could “punch him in the face” and did it successfully, but in the movie it was a disgrace. However, there is still some charm. In Don Wilson himself and in the surroundings of films, say, “Runaways of Computer Networks”, well, just ah) It was nicely filmed, I love watching it again.
There's plenty of fanservice in the form of, excuse me, tits. As a result, they somehow took it with something, but not with the choreography... In "Black Belt" with the number of real athletes and the plot, etc.
And Wilson somehow fit into all this normally; in my opinion, they didn’t expect super choreography from him. already at that time there were, of course, more popular names and, what is important, more skillful directors. Albert Pyun, if he told Van Damme “make a turntable” twice and filmed it beautifully, that he still watches “Cyborg” with bated breath - we must pay tribute to the filmmakers, too, and not to the movie fighters. And it was with the film makers that Don was unlucky, alas.
I think if Ng See Yen had worked with him and forced him to perform the correct “cinema” choreography at speed, Don would have looked very successful.
Yuri Skromny,
Thank you!
In fact, they were waiting - he’s “sort of Asian.” Although yes, since it’s “like an Asian”, then “it’s like a fight.” The time will come, perhaps I will do more reviews of his films, although, to be honest, I don’t feel like watching it yet, I have Wincott now, and then, perhaps, Cynthia Rothrock and Matthias Hughes. And we need to go through perestroika.
uranium,
And if he gets around to reviewing me, I’ll hire Michael Worth... Really memorable films with him, like “Knuckledusters”.
Yuri Skromny,
Do it right now - I’ve hardly seen Worth.
uranium,
I would like to overcome laziness first) well, okay, one of these days it will be.