Blood Heat (2002)

Blood Heat (2002)
aka: Muscle Heat
Japanese title: Masuuruhiito
Translation: Muscle Heat

Starring: Kane Kosugi, Shô Aikawa, Masaya Katô, Misato Tachibana, Noboru Kaneko, Ikkei Watanabe, Joe Li, Ken Lo
Director: Ten Shimoyama
Action Director: Sam Wong, Chan Man-Ching

 

Kane Kosugi is one of those martial arts actors whose career should be a lot bigger than it is. Son of actor Shô Kosugi, Kane (and his brother, Shane), got his start in the business acting alongside his pa in some of the ninja movies that the man headlined throughout the 1980s. Much like his character in Black Eagle, wherever Shô went, so did Kane and Shane. As Kane grew up, he trained in more martial arts than a normal person can wrap his head around. In addition to Japanese martial arts (karate, ninjitsu, aikido, kendo) as per his old man, Kane also studied tae kwon do, gymnastics, judo, wushu, and breakdancing. That’s a perfect background for someone who really wants to get into the game, and yet, Kosugi hasn’t been able to do much beside the occasional thankless Hollywood role, a few good turns in DTV films, and the occasional Asian movie.

The Japanese film Blood Heat was supposed to be his big intro into the feature film industry, having already cut his teeth on TV with series like Ultraman: The Ultimate Hero and Ninja Sentai Kakuranger (released Stateside as Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers). It brought together the American-born Kane Kosugi with a Japanese cast and crew, Hong Kong fight choreographers, and superkicker Ken Lo as one of the main villains. In some respects, this was the spiritual follow-up to the 1989 film Bloodfight, another Japanese martial arts movie buoyed by Hong Kong talent (in that film’s case, Bolo Yeung and Simon Yam) produced for international audiences.

Kane Kosugi plays Joe Jinno, a former Navy SEAL who’s been in the brig for some time for disobeying orders to kill enemy terrorists, who turned out to be children. Jinno is living in the far-flung year of 2009, in which the recession that hit Japan in the 1990s has dragged on for longer than a decade. Illegal immigrants have flooded the country, setting up shop in abandoned industrial districts. Meanwhile, a powerful drug known as Blood Heat has been flooding the market, creating thousands of new addicts daily. It has even grown in popularity with salarymen and housewives, putting the country on the verge of a collapse of apocalyptic proportions. A secret mission with the Tokyo police has been set up and Joe Jinno is brought in to help the local authorities bring down the big dealers.

The biggest names in the drug business are the Lai brothers—Kenjin (Drive’s Masaya Kato) and Kenkyo (Joe Li, who had a bit part in Time and Tide)—a pair of half-Japanese, half-Chinese gangsters who not only produce the country’s Blood Heat, but also run the Muscle Dome. The Muscle Dome is an illegal fighting arena in the middle of the industrial No Man’s Land where desperate people go in hopes of making it big via gambling or fighting, but often lose on both. Kenjin has a special Ace in his had, namely the Chinese fighter Lee (Ken Lo, of Mahjong Dragon and Drunken Master 2), a Blood Heat addict who is virtually indestructible.

Joe and his partner, Aguri Katsuragi (Shô Aikawa, of Zebraman and Gozu), raid a nightclub where Kenjin is trying to sell some Blood Heat to the Russians. In the resulting firefight, Aguri is captured and taken to the Muscle Dome. Before Joe can rescue him, Aguri is thrown into the ring and subsequently beaten to death by Lee. With the mission more or less aborted, Joe goes on a vendetta mission against Kenjin, making allies with Aguri’s police officer sister, Akane (Silver Hawk’s Misato Tachibana), and clandestine outfit of petty criminal orphans, led by the enigmatic Ken (Noboru Kaneko, of Godzilla: Tokyo SOS).

So yeah, don’t really go into this movie expecting a WHOLE LOT OF PLOT. This is a movie that you watch mainly for the violent action, which is split between some well-staged John Woo-esque gunfights and the martial arts battles. The acting is okay, although native English speakers will probably chuckle as they are wont to do whenever a Japanese movie has more than three lines of English in its script. All of Joe’s narration is in English, as are much of the dialog between Joe and Kenjin. So be prepared for the occasional awkward moment of “Engrish” in this movie. Also, I’m pretty sure that Kane Kosugi was finding his voice as an actor, especially in his native English. So he comes across as a bit wooden, especially in his voice overs.

The action is choreographed by Sam Wong, best known as the Chinese soldier who has an exhibition fight with in Police Story 3: Supercop. Backing him up is Chan Man-Ching, a member of Jackie Chan’s Stuntman Association. I’m guessing that Sam Wong and Kane Kosugi got along very well, because some eight years later, Sam Wong brought Kane Kosugi onboard for his dismal (if well-intentioned) chopsockey film Choy Lee Fut. The fight scenes are generally staged well, but often suffer from some bad photography and hectic editing. Cinematographer Hideo Yamamoto has worked on some great movies in his career—Hana-Bi; Ichi the Killer; and a bunch of other Takashi Miike efforts—but I don’t think he is suited for the Hong Kong style of martial arts movie.

There are several fights in the Muscle Dome, although those tend to be least interesting of the set pieces. It’s not that they’re bad per se, but the film really kicks into high gear when Kane Kosugi is kicking the collective butts of multiple opponents. His fight in the glass room in Kenjin’s building is probably the highlight of the movie. It’s a nice mix of block and locks, karate-inspired reverse punches, and some awesome bootwork. Kane’s fight with Ken Lo doesn’t reach the (hoped for) heights of Drunken Master 2, but it is a respectable fight and once again, Kane launches a series of awesome aerial kicks that puts him up there with Scott Adkins as one of the best onscreen kickers of the post-Donnie Yen generation. Sadly, his big final fight with Masaya Kato is a little disappointing. Once again, the fight is fine in general action direction terms. However, after watching Masaya Kato almost steal the show from Mark Dacascos in Drive, I’m sure that we the viewer expected more than a swordfight with sledge hammers.

My criticisms aside, Blood Heat does offer us some pretty good Hong Kong style fight scenes at a time when Hong Kong had trouble doing Hong Kong-style fight scenes. I mean, the year 2002 gave us two nominations for Best Action Choreography that didn’t even have any action in them at all—Infernal Affairs and Princess D. The HKFA should have made an exception to their rules and nominated this one instead. Kane Kosugi shows off enough great bootwork that it is a gosh-darn shame that he doesn’t get as many quality projects as Scott Adkins.

This review is part of the "Oh, the Insanity! Oh, the Japanity!" series (click the "banner" below):