Rage and Honor (1992)
Starring: Richard Norton, Cynthia Rothrock, Terri Treas, Brian Thompson, Catherine Bach, Stephen Davies, Alex Datcher, Patrick Y. Malone, Toshishiro Obata, Tim DeZarn
Director: Terence H. Winkless
Action Director: Bernie Pock
Richard Norton and Cynthia Rothrock. They are like the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers of the martial arts movie world. Or maybe Errol Flynn and Olivia de Haviland…if Olivia had trained in Chinese wushu, Japanese karate, and several other martial arts systems. The thing is, these two have done lots of great things for the action movie world, but most people are likely to remember their collaborations, especially once both of them stopped working actively in Hong Kong and focused on making movies in the States.
Their first collaboration was in Sammo Hung’s Millionaire’s Express, a film that followed their respective Hong Kong intros: Yes, Madam! (for Rothrock) and Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Stars (for Norton). That film put them on the same team as bandits working under Dick Wei and Paul Chang. They quickly teamed up a second time in The Magic Crystal, this time as opponents: Rothrock as a the plucky Interpol agent and Norton as the kung fu-clawing KGB villain. Although it appeared they went their separate ways, with Rothrock working mainly in Hong Kong while Norton did projects in the Philippines, the two did join forces for a pair of programmers from low-budget legend Leo Fong: Fight to Win and Jungle Heat.
But in 1990, Golden Harvest found itself trying to break into the American market once more and financed China O’Brien, which reunited the two. They joined forces the following year for its sequel, followed by this film and Lady Dragon in 1992. They teamed yet again for Rage and Honor II: Hostile Takeover. Norton choreographed Rothrock in Guardian Angel the next year. They both had supporting roles in the Don “The Dragon” Wilson film Redemption (2004), although by that point, I think most people figured that we would never get something like they did in their heyday. Most of their collaborations afterward appeared to be documentaries, until last year when they did the Western film Black Creek.
Rage and Honor was their seventh (or eighth) collaboration and it is a conventional martial arts movie: the one where characters regularly break out into martial arts stances, even the policemen. Very seldom does anyone think to use a gun. But then again, that’s what gives these films their char.
Richard Norton plays Preston Michaels, an Australian policeman working in some urban hellhole American city for…reasons. He is currently working undercover in hopes of ferreting out a big drug dealer known as Conrad Drago (Brian Thompson, of Mortal Kombat: Annihilation and Lionheart). However, he is constantly getting in trouble with his superior, Captain Murdoch (Catherine Bach, best known for “The Dukes of Hazzard”), for playing the karate vigilante. Murdoch is always threatening to send him back to Melbourne, which begs the question: Just how did he get the job of working in the States in the first place. There is talk of his partner getting killed in the line of duty, but the film never makes it clear if it had anything to do with Conrad Drago. Or maybe he was on a police exchange program or something? I dunno.
Anyway, Cynthia Rothrock is also in this film. She plays Kris Fairfield, a history teacher at the local high school who also runs a dojo in the evenings. She is constantly followed by one of her students, a wannabe freelance reporter named Paris (Patrick Y. Malone, of “A Different World”). Anyway, some of the local policemen show up at Fairfield’s dojo to watch her give a demonstration in practical self-defense, including a pair of cops of whom Michaels is suspicious.
He follows them after the class and catches them selling drugs out the trunk of their car and confronts them. They are interrupted by the arrival of Rita (Terri Treas, of Death Stalker III and various “Alien Nation” TV movies), who runs a pharmaceutical company and is Conrad Drago’s main squeeze. She kills one of the cops, but the whole confrontation is filmed from afar by Paris. Paris manages to hide the tape, but is nearly beaten to death by the other corrupt cop. The blame for the cop’s murder falls on Preston and he enlists the help of Kris to help him find the tape and clear his name. While that is going on, we learn that Kris has her own history with Conrad…
What would normally be a standard, predictable film is rendered a little less so by a supporting cast of weirdos. We learn that Paris was able to give the tape to a junkie (and former stock broker) named Baby (Stephen Davies, of Bloodfist VII—there were seven of those damn films?), who is quite the character. He then hocked the tape to a career criminal named Fast Eddie (Tim DeZarn, of Spider-Man and Cabin in the Woods), who speaks mainly in top-heavy dialog. Then there’s a female gang of hookers and butch lesbian bruisers, led by an attractive black woman named “Hannah the Hun” (Alex Datcher, of Passenger 57 and The Expert). She is interesting because she speaks entirely in third person. And Brian Thompson is…well…it’s Brian Thompson. He gives a standard Brian Thompson performance, although Brian Thompson doesn’t chew scenery to the degree Brian Thompson did in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.
The film was directed by Terence H. Winkless, who got his start in the industry by adapting the source novel The Howling into a workable screenplay. He went on to direct the killer cockroach film The Nest, followed by Kickboxer clone Bloodfist, which introduced the world (outside of kickboxing circles) to Don “the Dragon” World. Interestingly enough, after making this movie, he spent a lot of time in the realm of tokusatsu, directing numerous episodes of “The Mighting Morphin Power Rangers”, followed by smaller stints on “Power Rangers Zeo”; “BeetleBorgs” and “The Masked Rider.” He even joined the Big Killer Animal boom that followed the “success” of the first Shark Attack and wrote Scorpius Gigantus.
Winkless’s direction in this movie is a bit odd. It has a story I can follow, but it never feels like a cohesive whole. The Captain Murdoch character disappears from the narrative shortly after Michaels is framed. There is a bit about most of the police being on Conrad’s payroll, but nothing much is done with that subplot. The movie teases a huge fight between Michaels and Drago’s bodyguard, Chan (Toshihiro Obata, who played Tetsu in the Ninja Turtles films). That never happens. In fact, both Chan and Rita just sort of observe the final throwdown between Drago and our heroes and then do nothing when good prevails. It almost suggests that they will just walk away scot-free. It’s weird: stuff happens and I understand why it is happening—except for Michaels being in the States in the first place—but it frequently doesn’t feel like an actual movie. Maybe it’s that cheap Cassio keyboard score that makes it feel like a made-for-TV film instead.
Credited as the stunt coordinator is Bernhard Pock, who did stuntwork in lots of big Hollywood films before dying in 1996 at age 33. I do not know if Pock did the fight choreography, of it that just fell to Norton and Rothrock, who did their best within the constraints of the production. The fights suffer from the same issues that plague a lot of American martial arts movies of the period: bad camerawork (i.e., too many close ups and bad angles) and editing. While it isn’t edited with a chainsaw like many movies these days are, it often cuts to an unflattering angle just as a blow is about to hit. It’s pervasive enough to be annoying, but there are still a few decent moments in the action.
Norton comes across as a standard Hollywood brawler who can throw a few kicks when need be. Rothrock is served better and gets to perform flashier moves, including a scorpion kick at one point. Norton’s earlier fight with Toshihiro Obata shows some promise, especially as it establishes Obata as the superior fighter. I was hoping that the climax would be set up so Rothrock would take on Thompson and Norton would have a rematch with Obata-san. But that does not happen and I’m disappointed because of it. Norton was better served by the choreography of his Hong Kong films and the China O’Brien movies. Both of them were, to be honest.
