Fighting Mad (1978)

 Fighting Mad (1978)
aka: Death Force; Force of Death; The Force; Vengeance is Mine; Black Samourai

 

Starring: James Iglehart, Carmen Argenziano, Leon Isaac Kennedy, Jayne Kennedy, Joe Mari Avellana, Joonee Gamboa, Leo Martinez, Armando Federico, Cathy Sabino 
Director: Cirio H. Santiago
Action Director: n/a

Fighting Mad is a late-period Blaxploitation film produced in the Philippines, not unlike TNT Jackson four years earlier. James Iglehart (of Black Kung Fu and Bamboo Gods and Iron Men) plays Doug Russell, a soldier stationed in Manilla. Iglehart and his friend, McGee (Leon Isaac Kennedy, of the Penitentiary films), are approached by another soldier, Morelli (Carmen Argenziano, of The First Power and Broken Arrow), who enlists their assistance to steal a crate full of gold bars from a deposit at the base. The bars are sold to a Filipino crime boss, who pays them with two briefcases full of money. However, Morelli convinces McGee that Russell is too much of a do-gooder to be of use to them and the two slice Doug up and throw him overboard.

Miraculously, Doug survives and washes up on an island inhabited by two Japanese soldiers (Bloodfist II’s Joe Mari Avellana and Jungle Wolf’s Joonee Gamboa) from World War II. One of them is originally from the samurai class and is a kenjutsu master. He agrees to teach swordplay to Doug. Meanwhile, Morelli and McGee are back in Los Angeles, taking over the organized crime while the latter tries to move in on Russell’s territory, schmoozing it up with his “widow”, Maria (Jayne Kennedy, of Body and Soul). Doug is eventually found and rescued by a Filipino military scout boat and eventually heads back to Los Angeles, ready to settle his score with his former comrades.

While not the best Blaxploitation martial arts movie ever made, Fighting Mad is surprisingly competent, considering that it’s a Cirio Santiago movie. The set-up is similar to what we’d see in Blind Fury a decade later, in which a Vietnam vet is taught swordplay after an accident of sorts. The movie jumps back and forth between three storylines: Doug learning swordplay and then seeking revenge; Morelli and McGee killing off their rivals to get stranglehold on the local organized crime; and then the plight of Maria and her infant son. The film jumps between these threads quickly enough that the pace never bogs down too much. Of course, it gets a little unbelievable when the police stop Doug and tell him that he has their blessing to exact vigilante justice on the villains. And I find it hard to believe that people would be pulling mob hits with a Tommy Gun in 1978, but I’ll let that slide on budgetary reasons.

The training sequences are fine, if nothing special. We get to see James Iglehart and Joe Mari Avellana performing sword kata, sparring and occasionally slicing coconuts in the air. The fight scenes are little more dodgy. They lack the crisp, strategic and exact approach to swordfighting that chambara films of the era featured. Iglehart comes across as too wild and uncoordinated in his sword strikes. He tends to swing like a maniac, almost getting by on luck or surprise, rather than deadly, calculated skill. The best fight comes near the end of the second act, when he takes on a Japanese crime boss and his henchmen in a martial arts school. The Japanese mobsters arm themselves with Chinese weapons, like broadswords and kwan dao, while the boss uses two-fisted katana. The weapons choreography is solid by American standards. The end is a letdown, although it does feature some low-budget gore and decapitations that was lacking in the previous fights.

All things considered, Fighting Mad is more or less a pedestrian effort whose only claim to fame is that Quentin Tarantino borrowed a line of dialog from it for Kill Bill Vol. 1. In that film, there’s a memorable line from Sonny Chiba:

 "Oh, so you'd be General, huh? If you were General, I'd be Emperor, and you'd STILL get the sake!"

 

In this film, one of the Japanese soldiers is complaining about having to cook the fish. He says that after more than 30 years, he would have been promoted to general, to which his compatriot responds:

 

"If you were General, I'd be Emperor, and you'd STILL be cooking the fish!"