Death Cage (1989)

Death Cage (1989)
Aka; Bloodfight 2; Mortal Combat 2: Death Cage

Starring: Robin Shou, Joe Lewis, Steve Tartalia, Mark Long, Kam Seung-Yuk, Wayne Archer, John Ladalski, Toby Russel
Directors: Chan Man-Sam, Robert Tai
Action Director: Robert Tai, Alexander Lo Rei

 

I don’t really have an intro to this particular piece of work. It’s such a shoddily-plotted time-waster that it’s hard to comment on it beyond its fight scenes. It does, however, occupy an interesting place in director/choreographer Robert Tai’s filmography. By 1989, his Shaw Brothers days were long behind him, and his ninjasploitation era had apexed with Ninja: The Final Duel only a few years earlier. I guess this film was a transition in this Tai’s final period, which saw ever-so scant returns during the 1990s. The last time I’d heard about him was when he teamed up with Chi Kuan-Chun and the Wu Tang Clan to make a wuxia film during the late 90s/early 2000s, although that film never saw distribution. I find it rather odd that one of the genre’s highest-paid choreographers (according to an interview he gave at the now-defunct Kung Fu Cult Cinema website years ago) had practically drifted into obscurity by the late 90s (unless he was a regular on Taiwanese TV).

In the city of Bangkok, there are two very “important” schools, those being the Wai Chai School (whose master is a real sissy) and the Kents School, ran by farang Joe “I beat Chuck Norris” Lewis. During a tournament, a Kents fighter named Lai Chai (Kam Seung-Yuk, who looks like Lam Ching-Ying on steroids) beats the Wai Chai’s top student, See Hom (Robin Shou, of the Mortal Kombat films), by cheating. While working See Hom’s leg over with brass knuckles, his master tries to intervene and gets his leg permanently broken for his troubles. The Wai Chai school is disgraced and closes down, although to be honest, we never had much evidence that the school had any more than three students.

Some months later, See Hom’s master and his worthless adopted daughter is living with him at his car garage, when they are visited by the master’s brother-in-law, Tang Chuan (the Ghost-Faced Killer himself, Mark Long). Tang Chuan decides to pass his wushu and tai chi skills on to See Hom via exercises that involve objects at the car garage. So See Hom is slowly becoming a real kung fu master, while the lack of decent competition for the Kents school means lower betting profits for its owner, Mr. Hunter (Joe Lewis). Thus, a rematch between See Hom and Lai Chai is in the works. And what will happen when See Hom proves to be more than a match for Lai Chai *and* the Kents star fighter (Steve Tartalia)? Then we’ll see just how dirty these farangs are willing to play.

Death Cage is little more than The Karate Kid with a few extra helpings of stage blood for our actors to be doused in and spit up. Beyond that basic premise, not very much in this movie makes any sense. I don’t know how the Wai Chai school could have become so popular when the master is so against fighting that he encourages See Hom to *let* a bunch of random Thai thugs wreck his garage in front of his face. How could a sissy like that run a school capable of producing the only competition worthy of the Kents Gym fighters? Oh, yeah, I remember now: bad writing.

If you were to judge the film on the first three fights or so, you’d wonder how Robert Tai ever reached the exalted position at the Shaw Brothers that he once did. The first fights in the ring, especially those between Robin Shou and Kam Seung-Yuk, who wears a lion’s mane wig and is decked out in leopard print, are rather lackluster. Shou’s punches and kicks are pretty basic, broken up by the occasional drop kick or throw. Still, Shou did better work in the American Mortal Kombat films than he did here. Things pick up a little during his first fight with Tartalia, since the latter is a more dynamic fighter. We didn’t see much of his skills in Once Upon a Time in China (1991), but Tartalia is actually a first-class kicker. His moves are more stylish than Shou’s, who turns out to be a more economical fighter.

The movie picks up in the second half, with several 1-on-2 and 1-vs-many fights. These dwarf those earlier ring fights, and choreographers Lo Rei and Robert Tai feel much less restrained in their choreography. We see Robin Shou take on a bunch of machete-wielding Thai thugs (probably the only Thai people in Thailand we see in this film), with a rhythm that recalls some of Jackie Chan’s better group fights. Shou’s moves are still pretty basic, but the direction itself is solid. Mark Long gets two fights, his main one being against Mr. Hunter’s two bodyguards, a white girl and a black girl (both of whom are blonde, if you care). Those two girls have a lot of acrobatic moves and moving-in-tandem choreography, which is really neat and comes close to representing the high point of the movie.

Later, Mark Long’s daughter, whom we saw practicing baguazhang earlier, takes on the two female bodyguards in a brutal and vicious fight in closed quarters. The movie ends with a rematch between Robin Shou and Steve Tartalia and then a final fight against Joe Lewis. These two fights are set in a bamboo cage adorned with sharpened stakes. By this point, Tartalia’s character has trained in classic kung fu as well (watch for a cameo by the late John Ladalski as one of his teachers), so the two are better matched. Shou gives the best wushu-centric performance of his career in this fight, with lots of traditional handwork and forms being integrated into his kickboxing. Tartalia, while still showing us some great bootwork, backs it up with some more classical kung fu movies as well. It actually becomes less interesting when the legendary Joe Lewis steps in, since he’s obviously over the hill (although he’s still pretty built) and his moves are even less flashier than Shou’s (Lewis does try to make up for it with some bizarre overacting). Things get outrageously violent as characters get impaled in different ways and nobody faints from blood loss, Thai people, where muay thai was invented (or at least popularized), aren’t even worth mentioning.despite the red paint being splashed about. But when these characters die, boy, do they die hard.

Jaguar Lives! (1979)

Jaguar Lives! (1979)

 

Starring: Joe Lewis, Christopher Lee, Donald Pleasence, Barbara Bach, Capucine, Joseph Wiseman, Woody Strode, John Huston, Gabriel Melgar, Anthony De Longis, Sally Faulkner, Gail Grainger, Anthony Heaton, Luis Prendes
Director: Ernest Pintoff
Action Director: Joe Lewis, Bob Bralver

 

A quick visit to the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) will reveal that one of the producers of Jaguar Lives! was none other than Fred Weintraub. This fact immediately set the warning signals blaring in my head: “Here we go again. Yet another attempt for him to recapture the glory of Enter the Dragon.” While his first attempt, Black Belt Jones (1974), was moderately successful in that regard, his subsequent attempts—Golden Needles and Hot Potato—were dire efforts indeed. By this point, Jim Kelly’s short-lived career was already on the skids, while John Saxon never seemed to capitalize on whatever potential Enter the Dragon might have given him as a screen fighter. Thus, it was time for a new star.

Enter Joe Lewis. Lewis had been a soldier in the Marine Corps and studied shorin-ryu in Okinawa—getting a black belt in a mere seven months--before being shipped to Vietnam. Following release from active duty, the entered the tournament circuit. At about the same time, Lewis trained with champion boxer “Sugar” Ray Leonard and studied jeet kune do under the tutelage of Bruce Lee himself. He moved on from point fighting to kickboxing in the early 1970s, and then onto full-contact fighting in the mid-1970s. By the time he retired from the ring in 1983, he had been voted the greatest karate fighter of all time by his peers. Joe had it all: strength, power, and speed, not to mention an impressive (if intimidating) physique. To sum it up, he was the perfect choice to big the Next Big Thing in martial arts by 1979, a Jaguar Lives!—what with its obvious Enter the Dragon sensibilities—was meant to be his star-making film.

Lewis plays secret agent Jonathan Cross, code-named “Jaguar.” We open with him and his partner, Brett Barrett (aka “Panther”, played by Circle of Iron’s Anthony De Longis), rushing to the site of a monument to stop a terrorist bombing. Cross gets hit by friendly fire while chasing down the bomber and ultimately fails his mission. When we meet him again, Cross has been retired for a few years and now dedicates his time to working on the ranch with his Sensei, played by Woody Strode. He receives a visit from his former employers, including Anna Thompson (The Spy Who Loved Me’s Barbara Bach—knowing her from just that film, it’s odd to hear her act in her own natural accent). They ask him to take on a mission to stop some huge conglomerate of drug dealers from doing drug dealing stuff—the details are a bit sketchy.

From here on out, the film follows the Jaguar as he goes from one country to another—most scenes were filmed in Spain—talking to people and getting into fights. His first stop is a country in the Middle East, where he has to free a prisoner. The prisoner gives him information about a crooked general (played by Young Only Live Twice’s Donald Pleasance) somewhere in Latin America. The info he gets there leads him to Hong Kong for a couple of minutes and then to Italy, where he fights a bunch of people in a luxury car factory. Then onto Macao, where he hooks up with a former flame – an agent who dresses like a nun (played by Sally Faulkner of Vampyres). He’s shanghaied to Japan, where he meets up with a former War Buddy and high-ranking drug dealer, Adam Caine (Christopher Lee, of Terror of the Tongs and The Man with the Golden Gun). After that, he just has one more location to head off to…

Enter the Dragon had its obvious James Bondian elements: the villain with the island lair, the “high tech” fortress and drug lab built beneath a palace, the involvement of British Intelligence in the plot, etc. The script for Jaguar Lives! takes those elements and brings them to the forefront. No fewer than three former Bond villains show up in supporting roles: in addition to Donald Pleasance and Christopher Lee, Dr. No himself, Joseph Wiseman, has a cameo during the Middle East sequence. There is more than the usual globe-hopping, although the film does not do a whole lot with it. I mean, he goes to both Hong Kong and Macao, chases down a young Yuen Wah (Bruce Lee’s former stunt double and Jackie Chan classmate), and never fights any kung fu killers in either place! While the change in scenery is always welcome and keeps the film from being boring, the film rarely allows itself to fire on all cylinders.

It is obvious that the movie was made for a much smaller budget than the same year’s Moonraker, so no gondola chases through the canals of Venice, or Cape Canaveral-esque space centers in the middle of the Guatemalan rainforest, or laser battles in giant space stations that would make the ISS look puny in comparison. Nonetheless, if you are going to do some globe-hopping, or even pretend you are, try to make a more concentrated effort to at least fake the international flavor for the audience. If you’re going to film a 70s martial arts film in Hong Kong, we demand at least one fight involving a bunch of Golden Harvest stuntmen!

Joe Lewis handled the fights while Hollywood veteran Bob Bralver (whose credits include Darkman; Death Race 2000; and Avalanche) coordinated the regular stunts. Lewis is not all that bad of an action director, especially in his freshman film. Lewis had an extensive background in numerous styles—besides shorin-ryu karate and jeet kune do, Lewis had studied boxing, tai chi, judo, and was a wrestler in college. Lewis gives himself ample opportunities to show off his patented left side kick, and his handwork is surprisingly fast compared to the slower haymaker punches that even the best American fighters used in their films. Besides the obvious omission of fight scenes in the Chinese locales, the biggest disappointment is the Italian car plant fight, in which Lewis takes out a dozen tool-wielding men by throwing metal objects at them. No martial arts, just throwing objects. Very disappointing action direction decision there, guys. Much better is the stunt-based fight where Lewis takes on a bunch of guys riding motorcycles.

The best fights come in the last act. During the Japan sequence, Jaguar is taken to a large garden, where he walks around being attacked by fighters armed with different weapons: katanas, sai swords, and a yari spear. The finale is the most prolonged fight, in which a man who was trained by Bruce Lee takes on his final opponent, best known for starring in a film based off an idea Bruce Lee had. It could have done with less running and more actual fighting, but there are some good moves displayed and the action is photographed better than some of the earlier fights. The setting of an old Spanish castle is also novel and is used to good effect, too, especially when the two men pick up old, rusted pole arms and start jabbing at each other like modern-day gladiators.

That said, a handful of few fights, a strong supporting cast, and a touch of globe-trotting flavor can only do so much for an undeveloped storyline—you may not remember every fiendish scheme from every James Bond or Mission Impossible film, but you know they’re there—and listless direction. Jaguar Lives! is certainly an improvement over the likes of Golden Needles and its ilk, even if it is unlikely that it will ever join the ranks of Enter the Dragon and other Hollywood classics. This goes even today, when twenty years of green screen fighting, CGI-enhanced action, and Shaky Cam have led fans to reassess these films from simpler times. Jaguar Lives! serves as an interesting curio and ultimately a failed attempt one of the greatest ring fighters into one of the greatest action stars.