User Reviews

This cheesy 80's classic with it's awful continuity, dreadful script, half baked story and wooden acting still rates as one of my favourite films of its kind.

The plot is loosely based around Dolph Lundgren's character "Kenner" setting out for revenge on the Yakuza Oyabun "Yoshida" who killed his parents when he was a child. Years later Kenner is an LA cop and crosses paths once more with Yoshida when he comes to the USA to set up a drugs syndicate.

As you'd expect, you get to watch Dolph and his side kick played by Brandon Lee kicking ass and shooting holes in everything that moves. There are a bevy of good looking, half naked women on display, the most delicious of which is a young Tia Carrere.

My personal favourite in all the filming errors has to be when Kenner sustains a gunshot wound and immediately clasps his shoulder in pain followed by the words ..."Its OK, it went straight through". A moment later the camera views him from the rear and there is no exit wound ! Even better though, a few moments later the camera re-focuses on Kenners naked chest and the bullet wound is no where near his shoulder, its actually in the left lung / heart region ! I don't think he would be in any state to carry on fighting with that injury !!!

Because "Showdown in little Tokyo" refuses to take itself seriously, much in the same mould as John Carpenters "Big trouble in Little china" did, all you have to do is relax and enjoy the total self indulgence that this film allows you !

Great fun. 7 out of 10.

Mark Lester knows exactly what you want and gives it to you. Let me set a scene in this film for you: Brandon Lee, dressed in a natty suit, joins Dolph Lungren - who is dressed as if he walked straight off the set of a Data East beat 'em up - to walk into a bar where old men are eating sushi off of nude models while two slightly less nude women fight sumo style atop tables. Meanwhile, on a stage that looks like the Fortress of Solitude, Tia Carrere sings "Slow Hand."

To top that off, there's a scene where evil Iron Claw Yakuza boss Funekei Yoshida (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) kills Angel by cutting her head off while engaging in foreplay as his underlings watch. And when they find her headless body? Yep. That's the church from Prince of Darkness.

No movie has had meaner bad guys more worthy of being killed by two cooler cops. You have Chris Kenner (Dolph Lundgren), an American raised in Japan, teaming with Japanese/America Johnny Murata (Brandon Lee). While they hate one another at first, they soon become great partners and murder everyone who gets in their way to solve the case.

There's also a bonkers scene where Kenner rescues Tia's character from committing seppuku by tackling her through a plate glass window. There is no subtlety here.

Somehow, the Iron Claw has united the Crips, the Mexican gangs and the Hell's Angels. And if you wondered, where is Professor Toru Tanaka? He's right here.

This is a movie self-aware enough to have Brandon Lee's character say, "You have the biggest dick I've ever seen on a man," while also having the most over the top action sequences to ever be released straight to the shelves of your local video store and a body count of 58.

After being disappointed by Warner Brothers taking over this film and cutting eleven minutes, Lester started to finance and sell his movies himself to keep control over them. Good for him.

Another delightfully cheesy action movie from the guy who brought us COMMANDO and CLASS OF 1999. SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO is full of clichés from start to finish, contains an incredibly poor script, bad acting, and tons of gratuitous sex and violence. It's the classic action B-movie, absolutely hilarious in places without meaning to be, and a lot of fun with it because it's just so bad. There is no plot to this film. Lundgren and Lee are two nominal policeman, partnered up in a fight against a Japanese drug lord. The whole film consists of them battling the Japanese in one way or another. There is no police presence in this film, no other characters apart from the bad guys, the good guys, and the love interest. The script is full of dumb, occasionally offensive one-liners which nevertheless add up to make this an entertaining experience.

Lester goes out of his way to deliver as much adult entertainment as he possibly can. Thus we get naked hookers being beheaded, tons of naked women around at every possible moment, Tia Carrera's body double being brought out at every opportunity. The violence is just as extreme, with people getting impaled, slashed, stabbed, gutted, having their little finger cut off, plus tons of shooting and the like. The destruction level is high. Buildings explode and burn to the ground, people are thrown through tables and windows. There's a ton of heavy weaponry and plenty of exciting martial arts fight sequences, with all the violent neck-breaking you could ever want.

One of the fun things about this film is watching all the mistakes and inconsistencies play out. My favourite scenes are the dummy in the car crusher and the fight at the end, where Lundgren gets shot through the heart and shrugs off the bullet. Acting-wise, Lundgren and Lee put in extremely poor performances. Yet they kick a lot of ass all the way through the film, which is the main thing. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa has a ball as the slimy, reptilian villain Yoshida – in fact he did so well in it he spent a career copying this character in many straight-to-video movies throughout the '90s. Tia Carrera is hopeless in her debut. Generally, this film is a lot of fun, despite it being shallow, brainless, clichéd, and unsurprising. Yet once in a while it's nice to sit back and chill out in front of a guy film like this.

On the final day of ICM's best films of 1991 poll,I decided to look for a fun final flick to enjoy. Having a fantastic run of '91 Action epics, the poster to this made it look like the right time to visit Little Tokyo.

View on the film:

Originally a grittier film, WB took the title from the makers hands and diced out a lot of footage, (none of which has sadly re-appeared) and re-edited it to make the comedy more prominent. Under these difficult conditions, director Mark L. Lester & cinematography Mark Irwin still take a successful swing at creating a wildly fun Action movie. Done the same time as JCVD's East meets West Double Team, Lester and Irwin use the Little Tokyo setting to punch in bright, pulpy colours that give the movie an explosive atmosphere. Serving up all the thrills and boobage to keep viewers eyes transfixed on the screen, Lester attacks quirky set-pieces in a male sauna and a beer factory with slow-motion for the crunch from Kenner knock out punches, to fluid camera moves for each of Murata's bone-breaking twists.

Although parts of the plots progress are jarring to the cuts and the voice over ending looks to have been slapped on, the screenplay by Stephen Glantz/ Caliope Brattlestreet and un-credited writers Gary DeVore and Jonathan Lemkin overcome the limitations by handing the buddy duo fantastic one-liners, and giving room for the baddies to shine in their sword skills to still appear to be a threat. His last co-starring turn, Brandon Lee (who plays Japanese Murata!) displays the charisma which would take him to starring roles,with Lee smoothly performing the fight scenes, and improvising some of the most memorable dialogue. Holding sexy Tia Carrere's (who clearly uses a naked body double-sadly) Okeya in one arm and killing baddies with the other, Dolph Lundgren matches his brute fighting by giving a real warmth to Kenner's friendship with Murata during their showdown in Little Tokyo.

*** Warning - this review contains "plot spoilers," though nothing could "spoil" this movie any more than it already is. It really IS that bad. ***

Before I begin, I'd like to let everyone know that this definitely is one of those so-incredibly-bad-that-you-fall-over-laughing movies. If you're in a lighthearted mood and need a very hearty laugh, this is the movie for you. Now without further ado, my review:

This movie was found in a bargain bin at Wal-Mart. That should be the first clue as to how good of a movie it is. Secondly, it stars the lame action-star Dolph Lundgren. That should be the second clue as to how good of a movie it is. I'm still shocked that it was even put on DVD (who would waste their money doing such a thing?), though as you might imagine, there aren't any extras or bonus footage on the DVD. In fact, there's not even a menu; the movie just starts playing.

First, the writer for this movie deserves to be tortured and killed. It has one of the worst scripts ever written and is plagued with terrible one-liners; remarkably unbelievable, fake dialogue; and inappropriate comments (like Lee's comment on Lundgren's. err. manhood, which I'll mention later). There isn't one single sincere sounding line in the entire movie. The dialogue and plot go hand-in-hand, as the script and plot both progress in an entirely nonsensical fashion. The two cops hate each other for no apparent reason at the beginning, and then for again no reason at all, Lee's character pulls over to the side of the road, runs around to the other side of the car, and says `I'm not going to let you go alone, 'cause despite myself, I like you! And I don't want to see you get killed!' . or something to that extent, anyhow. There are disgusting one-liners, mostly said by Lee. For instance, when duking it out with a bad guy, Lee says `You have the right to remain silent . You have the right to be dead!' Lastly, I'll mention the entirely inappropriate and nonsensical comment that Lee makes about Lundgren's nether-regions. When bad guys start to attack after a seemingly random love scene between Lundgren and Carrere, and Lundgren decides to fight them off in his underwear, Lee says to him: `Incase we die, I just wanted to let you know that you have the biggest dick I've ever seen on a guy.' . Yes, he actually says that. It makes no sense and isn't even possible (Lee never actually sees Lundgren naked, so how would he know?), but the writer threw it in the script anyway. The entire movie looks like some kind of action video game, and Lee even admits it. After Lee and the underwear-only Lundgren defeat all of those bad guys, Lee makes a comment that is also truly beautiful: `Wow, this is sort of like a video game; we just defeated the first wave!'

Second, the plot of this movie is despicable. It suffers, in my opinion, mainly from the fact that it just doesn't exist. The trailer for this movie - which IMDb has available for viewing, by the way - makes it sound like the movie is about two cops trying to stop the Japanese Yakuza from taking over Lost Angeles. This is extremely misleading, however, since the movie has practically nothing to do with that at all. They make very brief, vague references to the Yakuza trying to start up a methamphetamine business with local drug dealers, but the entire movie ACTUALLY revolves around a poorly-written attempt for Kenner (Lundgren's character) to revenge the death of his parents, whom the Yakuza leader (named Yoshida) killed when he was only 9 years old. The entire plot can basically be summed up like this: Yoshida wants Kenner dead, Kenner wants Yoshida dead, and the two try two kill each other. And of course all the while Kenner's sarcastic sidekick (named Johnny and played by Brandon Lee) acts like an ignorant idiot, and Tia Carrere gets naked. twice.

The acting is one of the worst parts of the entire movie. The dialogue is so unrealistic, and their entirely insincere portrayal of it emphasizes this even more. You'd expect poor acting from action stars anyway, but this movie highlights some of the most unimaginably bad acting ever recorded.

Finally we get to the heart of the movie's baseness: the flagrantly bad action. There are so many astoundingly bad, unrealistic action sequences in this movie, it's just downright impressive they managed to fit them all in. Although Lee has his fair share of bad scenes as well, most of the truly terrible action involves Lundgren. For instance, Lundgren nonchalantly takes on four or five kung fu bad guys one-handed, without spilling his tea. Then, when surprised by an oncoming speeding car, Lundgren casually leaps over it. Or how about when he reaches THROUGH a closed door, grabs the villain on the other side, pulls him back through the door, and beats him up? Or when he picks up Tia Carrere, gently walks (not runs) backward through a glass door that shatters around him, and leaps down a one-story height with Tia still in arm, only to then lift up an entire car without the slightest effort and uses it as a barricade to shield them from bullets? All of the shameless gunfights are terrible as well, with Lundgren and Lee killing every bad guy instantaneously, while the rain of bullets from their fifty attackers never seem to hit either of them. That is, of course, until the final fight scene of the movie. Lundgren gets shot point blank in his bare chest in a region that even if it did manage to miss his heart, would still immediately begin to fill lungs with blood and kill him within a matter of seconds. Despite this, Lundgren remains in top-notch condition and manages to duke it out in the middle of a parade with Yoshida, the evil super villain. And of course the passing people in the parade dressed as samurai are carrying REAL, fully sharpened katanas, which the two use to sword fight. Now in addition to his bullet wound, Lundgren gets several deep slices in his chest and arms. Does this stop him? No, of course not! In fact, a few seconds later after easily killing the evil Yoshida (who gets pinned to a dartboard-like wheel and then bursts into flames for no reason), Lundgren casually walks off with Tia and Lee as if he wasn't injured at all. God, it's terrible.

All of these factors are then mixed up with an entirely unnecessary, gratuitous nude scene every five minutes, including topless women at a party, the beheading of a topless woman, women at a strip club, nude women at a Japanese spa, and the pointless hot tub and love scene with Tia. Not to mention the trip to the bizarre sushi bar, at which rich Japanese men are eating sushi off of naked women. Which, by the way, prompts Lee to say with much fake enthusiasm that after defeating the bad guys he and Lundgren will `go eat fish off those naked chicks!' Which, of course, is followed by a disturbing high five. And we can't forget the terrible editing either, like when the villains are crushing a man trapped in a car at a junk yard, and the editors left in a really obvious glimpse of a prop dummy. The credits also list an enormous list of stunt workers, which implies that a lot of the action probably wasn't done by the movie stars after all.

In the end, this movie repeatedly outdoes it self with brazen badness. It is illogical and impossible, and as a result, remarkably entertaining. If you're looking for any kind of thoughtful cinema, this movie will make you want to die. If you're looking for a good laugh and a good time mocking bad movie making, this movie will delight you. As an actual movie, I'll merit this movie a 0.5 out of 10. As an entertaining way to waste an hour and eighteen minutes, however, this beauty takes the cake.