Year:  1987
Rating: 6.0

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Well, we may have lost the Vietnam War but damn if we didn't kick their ass in the movies of the 1980's. One has to wonder why this trend came along. We left Vietnam in a mad scramble on the roof top of our embassy - something of a national disgrace for the country in that we could not defeat the North Vietnamese with all of our air power and men. No one wanted to talk about Vietnam for years and when it was the subject of a film such as Deer Hunter in 1978 and Apocalypse Now in 1979, it was a portrayal of loss and insanity.


But along came Reagan and the Shining City on the Hill and a huge investment in the military and suddenly we were strong enough to invade a tough country like Grenada and trade weapons with Iran and run out of Libya after the barracks were bombed - but that was on the ground - in our imagination we had our mojo back. Of course, we could not re-write the history of the Vietnam War but we could go back in missions afterwards - usually to capture prisoners left behind - and kill the Vietnamese by the hundreds. So we had the Missing in Action films and Uncommon Valor getting a big star like Gene Hackman. And of course Rambo. America could still do it and we went to the movies and felt better.


I actually had no idea that this 1987 film went down that road. I just knew it starred Cynthia Rothrock back in her prime when she was performing amazing martial arts. She was still making films in Hong Kong at this time before she finally left for America. Though this stars three Americans, it is essentially a Hong Kong film with Corey Yuen directing and doing the action choreography. It was also produced by Seasonal which was one of the top companies producing martial arts films with content like Drunken Master and Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow (as well as Tsui Hark’s first two films). With the No Retreat, No Surrender trilogy (Corey Yuen directed the first as well) they were attempting to break into the American market.


So right off you are starting from stupid. The idea of a few brave men (and one woman) going deep into SE Asia and killing hordes of Asians is absurd and obscenely nationalistic. These guys beat us and now we are to believe they can’t shoot straight. But put that aside. This is a movie. A form of fantasy and so what counts are really the action scenes and in particular the martial arts and within that narrow frame, this film delivers for the most part. Rothrock is sadly not the lead but she gets a few fights in – the lead goes to someone I have never heard of – Loren Avedon – who was spotted practicing martial arts in a dojo and asked to star in the film. He is really good. Great gymnastics and HK quality movie martial arts. And kind of a goofy personality. He went on to perform in the third film in the trilogy (they are unconnected except in title) but never broke out for some reason. Throw in another fine martial artist, the Korean Hwang Jang-Lee who was in more kung fu films than you can count and pretty much always as the bad guy. But Hwang is only the secondary villain here – the honors for being the main bad guy goes to Matthias Hues from Germany (playing a Russky) and he is built like the proverbial brick shithouse – massive and trained in martial arts. Good fight between him and Avedon at the end. There is a lot of action in fact and with Corey Yuen directing it you know it has to be solid.


Just a second for the plot. Scott (Avedon) shows up in Bangkok (a bonus for me seeing Bangkok in 1987 - "You have no rights. This is Thailand") to visit his Thai girlfriend. She gets kidnapped by the Vietnamese in cahoots with the Russians for reasons I never quite understood and held in Cambodia. Our boy Scott decides to rescue her and brings along two friends (Max Thayer and Rothrock). Easy pee-zee. American guts and will power. As dumb as a rock but what the hell, I enjoyed it for what it was. Of course, now we are friends with the Vietnamese but it is still good seeing a few Russians get what is coming to them!