For my first utterly ruthless (and enlightened, of course) film critique, I decided upon a little known movie starring Charles Bronson called Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects. This film was the end of a long run of very (some bordering on laughably) low-budget films produced by the Cannon Group, most of which were directed by J. Lee Thompson including this one. It's funny because J. Lee Thompson began his career directing all-time classics like The Guns of Navaronne and the original 1962 Cape Fear, and how in the fuck he got stuck doing these potboilers is beyond me. My only guess is that besides Michael Winner, Thompson is the only director Bronson could get along decently with. Winner and Bronson collectively directed nearly all of Bronson's films from the 1970s onward (aka the bulk of his career)
The Cannon Group's relationship with Bronson started with the first sequel to Death Wish (titled Death Wish II, not surprisingly), which I'll tackle in a later entry, and ended with this one. Each of the Cannon/Bronson flicks got progressively and laughably cheaper as they went on. It's noticeable in two regions: 1) At least 9 or 10 actors from Death Wish 4: The Crackdown are randomly reutilized here, and 2) Every fucking prop looks like it's made out of cardboard or styrophome, possibly both. Seriously, Bronson chucks a person through a wooden cabinet twice in the movie (scenes epic in their hilarity enough to justify watching the film if for no other reason) and both times they literally crumble. Not only that, but everything on the film looks like it's been waxed over or something. The plastic-ish video quality was somewhat of a trend for the Cannon Group ever since Death Wish 3.
But enough ranting about Cannon and styrophome dressers, let's get down to the film. The plot is fairly basic, but if you know anything about the Cannon Group that shouldn't be surprising (they also produced the majority of Chuck Norris' 80 flicks, as well as Bloodsport). Charles Bronson plays Lt. Crowe, a hardened, racist, and thoroughly pissed-off vice cop on the trail of a pimp "called Duke" who runs a covert child prostitution ring in Los Angeles. He also has to find a kidnapped Japanese girl who happens to be the daughter of a man who gropes Bronson's daughter on a subway.
The film starts in classic 80s fashion with a funky synth and guitar beat while Crowe and his partner Eddie Rios (played in hilariously wooden fashion by Perry Lopez, who ironically enough played villain and Bronson prey Ed Zacharias in Death Wish 4: The Crackdown). They stake out a hotel where Duke drops off one of his boob-endowed products off for a customer. Crowe and Rios storm in on the whole affair, leading to extreme hilarity in the form of the film's first (of many) examples of extremely hilarious bad acting. As Crowe shows him his badge, he bellows "Damn it! Fuck you and your badge! You can't come in here like this and disturb someone's privacy you son of a bitch!" Clearly this half-witted fellow doesn't know who he's fucking with. And the next exchange features a hilarious example of excellent dialogue-based editing: when Crowe tells him that he's going to "take him down to the station", he yells "Bullshit I AM!"......uh, were they so close to bankruptcy they couldn't afford one more shot to say "Bullshit YOU are!"? They probably were.
HAHAHAHA!
The ensuing fight between Pedo #1 and Bronson is hilarious. Pedo chucks flower vases and coat racks at Bronson while calling him a "motherfucking bitch", a "fuckhead", and a "fucker". Bronson dodges them all and jump-kicks him through the first of two styrophome wooden dressers. Crowe then tells him that he IS going to swear out a statement against Duke, to which Pedo #1 replies "I can't do that! He'll blow the fucking whistle on me!" Well, if he meant a rape whistle he was right, because what Bronson does next with the man's dildo is basically just that. Offscreen as it is, it'd be disturbing if that scene and the movie weren't so downright hilarious. The funny thing is that when Crowe gets home, he simply tells his wife that he "did something stupid that might jeopardize my pension....."....uh, that's putting it a little mildly.
We then begin a subplot involving a Japanese businessman (portrayed by James Pax and his huge glasses) who appears to be slated for business with Americans, as we see a scene where an arrogant asshole of a consultant teaches him and his coworkers that talking about bowel problems is not proper American business etiquette, referencing them as "Kinjite! Forbidden subjects! (I have a hunch they only randomly pulled that name up for a title at the last minute when they realized that every other title involving the word Death had been taken). It's established that he's pretty sexually frustrated with his wife, as she seems quite distressed upon realizing that he reads adult comic books and sees bargirls during business dinners. He then simply informs her that her sexual gifts are "few and bitter" and this literally gets her on her knees apologizing for this. Damn. It'd be weird to live in such a mysoginistic culture (though I'm not sure Japanese culture is really this bad and if not I'm sure this film is banned there.....hell I'm sure it's banned there regardless.
Cut back to America, LA, and into the world of Lt. Crowe coming home from work and stumbling upon his daughter Rita (Anne Hathaway) making out with a guy. This guy is lucky he didn't get
his head firmly rammed into his own ass. I'd be terrified as fuck to be dating Charles Bronson's daughter. But luckily Crowe allows him to live (at least onscreen).
Not too long afterwards we are introduced to the pimp Duke (portrayed in stereotypical stereotypicalness by Juan Fernandez) and his bosom buddy Lavon (Sy Richardson) scoping out adolescent girls to kidnap for the ring. While panning with binoculars he stumbles upon Crowe and his daughter. He accosts Crowe at the food line with a cocky grin making suggestive remarks about Rita, to which Crowe slams a full plate of nachos and cheese into his face and walks away. Duke has an extremely annoyed and surprised look at this. Seriously though, should he have? He got it easy that time. But the next time not so much. Several scenes later, Crowe spots Duke buying clothes at a shopping mall (how fucking small IS Los Angeles in this film?!?!) and Duke gets into his car just in time to see what appears to be his fucking doom. Seriously, Bronson never gave a "You're fucked" look better than that still. Crowe then forces Duke to drive to an abandoned junkyard presumably to kill him, or at least to bully him further.
The last thing you see before you die.
This is where things get hilarious. First off, Duke offers Crowe a $25,000 gold and diamond President wristwatch in exchange for "never seeing each other again." Seriously, how fucking dumb are bad guys in Charles Bronson movies? Did I see this right? Did this dude actually think he could buy CHARLES BRONSON off?!? Needless to say it didn't work, and that's putting it mildly. In the mood for a bit of entertainment perhaps, Crowe puts his gun against Duke's head and forces the watch down his throat at gunpoint. While Duke is still in utter shock and awe that he just fucking swallowed a wristwatch whole, Crowe takes the keys out of the ignition, fills the car with newspapers, and sets it on fire. Duke is so stunned still that he doesn't even react to it (even though it happens right in front of him) until the entire backseat explodes into flames, during this time he panickedly forces the door open and calls Crowe a "fucking bastard" with spit literally flying everywhere.
Think fast!
Crowe then calmly explains that that was all "nothing personal, just a question of ethics", then walks off into the dark with Duke out $50,000: half of which burning fifteen feet from him and half of it in line to be expunged in the most painful shit of all time.
Next we see another scene of Crowe with his daughter, this time watching her at a swim meet with his wife. Now before I comment on the scene as a whole, let me just say that once again we have a Bronson wife character who is young enough to be his daughter and possibly much younger than that. He always ends up getting these young, faux-hot soap opera actresses playing his wives in a lot of his 80s Cannon epics and this is no exception. Daughter Rita does remarkably well in the meet and is soon subject to a barrage of tacky photography from another manly-man type. Just like Rita's aforementioned boy toy, this guy is lucky Bronson didn't just kill him then and there. And Bronson's attempt to act exasperated at the picture-taking is hilarious. In terms of the scene, it seems that Crowe has been so hardened and disgusted by all he has witnessed in the vice department that he is somewhat sexually protective of his daughter. Again, it always remains a possibility that the guy was killed offscreen. Or perhaps in the mean spirit of this flick, forced to swallow his camera.
Next is a scene where Duke and Lavonne are once again casing for fresh meat in the child prostiution department, and they stumble upon a teenage couple, which prompts Duke to ask how he should scare off the boy so he can get the girl alone. Lavonne suggests that they take the boy as well and "diversify....part of the new operation". First of all I don't even want to know how they planned to break that guy in, unless Lavonne is gay. Just wrong. Then they drive past a restaraunt and he sees Crowe and Rios eating dinner, prompting Duke to forget about the couple and pull out an Uzi and blow the shit out of the place. It's clear in this scene that it wasn't only the styrophome cabinets that were a symptom of the shoestring budget. Literally every table and prop looks like it's made of cardboard: everything shreds to fucking pieces. The editing is so hilarious that one black dude is killed THREE times in the space of six or so seconds. THREE TIMES! It's so hilarious that it makes me feel bad when I realize I'm laughing at a scene of an innocent person getting shot to death. But then I ALSO realize that that "person" is very likely a dummy. See, this is what I meant about everything looking plastic: I literally DO NOT KNOW if the black dude killed in this scene is real or a dummy. How damning is that? Rios jumps out with his gun drawn and his hair askew. Seriously, another thing I've learned from this film as well as Death Wish 4: The Crackdown is that Perry Lopez is simply the fucking master of the bad hair day. I have never seen hair go so laughably wrong so fast.
Their police chief doesn't appear sympathetic to what just happened to them at all, instead screaming at them about how he finds it weird that people are out "gunning for them", but considering their rank and their department, why is that surprising to him? Crowe then calmly explains that a "pimp called Duke" is probably the one responsible, given that he is likely still smarting from the watch expulsion out of his rear. Needless to say, the police chief gets a bit annoyed. But only a bit. After all, Charles Bronson can do no wrong and this man knows it.
Not too long after we encouter the Japanese businessman again, this time fondling a business partner's breast during a business-related dinner. Seriously, can people get away with this in Japan? I mean, between their fucking insane game shows and freedoms like this it seems Japan is the place to be. Shortly afterward he happens to get stuck on a bus next to Crowe's daughter Rita and gets an idea...a very naughty idea. In an earlier scene while he was still back in Tokyo, he witnesses a subway fingering (actually something apparently very common in Japan) and gets the impression it's a cool thing to do, given that the woman involved doesn't scream out at all and "seemed to be enjoying it" (obviously this individual doesn't understand the psychology of sexual abuse victims and shame). He goes to do the same to Rita but he quickly learns that 15-year old American schoolgirls are not submissive objects like the Japanese women of this film's world and is stunned when she cries out in shock. Shocked himself, he quickly exits the bus only to get mugged and knocked out with a punch to the side. Karma? Very possibly. Another thing this film taught me is that two punches to someone's side will always knock them flat unconscious.
Crowe of course is racist enough already without learning that a "sleazy oriental" has groped his daughter. He and Rios are on patrol while Crowe rants and raves about how the Japanese are "taking over" Los Angeles and how this is the problem. In another hilarious scene, he rips into a mullet-headed Japanese kid for being double-parked (yet another man in here who was lucky to survive; not many people are known to survive an angry Charles Bronson) and then proceeds to rant and rave at a throng of confused Japanese onlookers. It's quite a spectacle, and un-P.C. as fucking hell.
I'll jump a couple scenes here because they can be summed up pretty easily: Duke ends up casing outside the school where the businessman's daughter attends and convinces her into his car under the guise of an appointment with the school headmistress. She's taken back to his apartment and raped by Duke, Lavonne, and another man offscreen (in all seriousness, the directing here, with the intercuts of sleazy 80s funk music and the door of the bedroom opening and closing with the men going in and out is pretty effective and disturbing in its own way). Crowe and Rios are assigned to the case and while on their first night of patrolling are radioed that the girl, Fumiko-San, has been spotted at a local hotel.
This upcoming scene is epic in its hilarity in more ways than one. Crowe and Rios barge in on the room filled with crack-addled pornographers filming an illegal shoot. Unable to hear them knock and break down the door due to a blaring phonograph, Crowe smashes it to bits (with an annoyed "HEEEEEEY!" from one of the men; clearly this shitty 80s music was the lifeblood of this guy) and orders all of them on the floor. But watch out!!!!! There's one behind him and he makes the fatal mistake of smashing Crowe in the back with a lamp. Another one tackles Rios. Together they beat the shit out out of the two idiots and another one who joins the fray. It looks all over, but is it? The next setpiece is mindblowing in its hilarity: the final pornographer literally comes out of nowhere, slams the set lighting out of the way, and ROARS at Crowe, featuring in one of the most hilariously awesome movie stills of all time. He attempts to roundhouse-kick him, but the kick literally goes right under Crowe's arm. He then repeatedly punches him in the face while the guy is literally hopping at his mercy before being smashed through the second of the two styrophome wood cabinets with one of the most laughable faces of defeat ever captured on film. Seriously, if you need a reason to watch this film, watch it for this scene. And watch it on slow-mo.
This gets my vote for the fucking greatest movie still of all-time. How could anything beat this?
OH NOES
FAIL
RETREEEEEEAT!!!!
Usurped!
The face of Bronsonian defeat.
The funny thing is that shortly afterward they stumble upon the oriental woman involved in the film and it turns out that she ISN'T Fumiko-San. FALSE ALARM. HAHAHAHA! Goddamnit. I would not want to be involved in a false alarm with Charles Bronson at the helm, if this is the result. But it also makes you wonder why the fuck those guys didn't just surrender since they weren't doing anything illegal other than drug use and violating hotel policy by staging a film shoot. Bizarre.
Meanwhile, the San family hears reports of belief that Fumiko has been the victim of foul play, and her businessman father (I only just found out his name is Hiroshi) goes out looking for her. He ends up walking past a porno theater with a man hilariously trying to entice customers in, calling out things like "Bring the little lady in here and you won't have to use your hand tonight!" He makes the mistake of attempting to entice Hiroshi in and gets his ass slammed against the wall. A cop appears out of nowhere and not only pulls Hiroshi off, but also slugs him in the stomach and slams his fist into his back. Seriously, how much can cops get away with in this movie? The level of police brutality is hilarious and ridiculous beyond belief.
Before long we see a scene of Crowe talking to the girl that Pedo #1 was about to assault in the beginning of the film when he "disturbed his privacy"; she appears to be pretty brainwashed as she makes up excuses for Duke and is psychologically defensive of him. But she does give him a vital clue by telling him where he irons his pants. After a change of heart, she calls the joint later and warns the store owner that Crowe and Rios will be on the way and to warn Duke, but the clue is enough to get them on Duke's tail as he leaves the store. They roll into his apartment complex and speak with the "security guard" (played by the one and only Robert Axelrod, probably better known as the voice of the main villain from Power Rangers), who is rude and is obviously bullshitting them to get them away. When Crowe tells him he believes Duke has a Japanese juvenile with him, Axelrod coldly starts reading off the names of all the Japanese tenants. Crowe has no time for this, and casually grabs a marble statue and throws it through the glass security shield. Axelrod, scared shitless, kindly informs them Duke is in room 906, even going so far to inform them that the "elevator's to your right!". What a gentleman.
Crowe and Rios make it upstairs just in time for everyone to have left except for LaVonne and Fumiko (locked in a bedroom unbeknownst to them). Crowe tells LaVonne that they'll let him go if they tell them where Duke is. He, of course, is a stubborn bitch and refuses, prompting Crowe and Rios to dangle him from the balcony until he "tells them where he is." First off, LaVonne must have never seen Star Wars. Dantooine much? A simple answer of ANYTHING could have at least given him a chance to live. Instead he just keeps yelling "I don't know! I'm slipping! Sweet Jesus! I don't know!" over and over until he finally slips out of his boots and falls to his death. Even more directing mishaps here: they dangle him over a pool area with the concrete straight below him and the pool a good fifteen feet north, but somehow when he falls he curves (!) and lands in the pool. Even more ridiculous is when his body rises, he is now a white man. Seriously, WHAT WAS THE FUCKING BUDGET OF THIS FILM?!? A black man falls to his death into a swimming pool and magically floats to the surface as a white man. Ridiculous.
Anyways, they find Fumiko and return her to her family. Hiroshi and his wife come to their house to thank them and give them a gift and that's when Hiroshi and Rita meet eye-to-eye and both realize who the other is. Now, considering there was a good fifty or so minutes devoted to this subplot, I figured there'd be some kind of closure, especially since after close-up shots of both of their eyes there is a close-up shot of Bronson's face, so I figured he noticed his daughter's reaction and figured things out. But no, nothing. NOTHING. After that moment of recognition, they thank them and leave. And that's that. I seriously have to wonder if a) they would have gone over their runtime limit if they'd added one tiny scene of closure, or b) they didn't have the money and resources to film it. B could possibly be a possibility. But I've never seen such a huge subplot go unclosed before. Insane.
Anyways, Crowe and Rios receive word that Fumiko has died of an overdose. They figure out a poem she gave them as part of the gift was a riddle that leads them to a harbor where Duke is hiding out. The long and the short of it is that after a rather anticlimatic battle, Rios is killed by a crane arm and Duke is apprehended after driving his car into the harbor in an idiotic attempt to run over Crowe. During this said fight, we witness a hilarious scene of a couple hilarious-looking thugs opening fire at Bronson, who casually fires his gun at a trail of gasoline that very convienently leads right up to a gigantic stack of oil barrels the thugs are hiding behind. Even after the flames have surrounded these men they keep firing with straight faces. Utterly hilarious. These guys are almost as suicidal as the Japanese. I'm surprised that with the hilariously racist caricatures they portrayed the Japanese as in this film that the thugs were not Asian also. This is followed by three scenes of explosions featuring extremely obvious DUMMIES propped up by the barrels. Seriously, did Cannon have a fetish for dummies or something? Jesus Christ. This movie and Death Wish 4: The Crackdown seriously lacked funding in the mannequin department.
The film concludes with Crowe telling Duke that his original intension was to leave him beside the road tied up in a sack (nice guy, huh?), but he thought "poetic justice" wouldn't have been served. He then shows him what he means by sticking him in a giant cellblock with a bunch of serial rapists.
Once again, karma wins the day. A truly mean-spirited end to a mean-spirited film, but a film so campy, cheap, and hilarious that none of the mean-spiritedness can really be taken as offensive unless you're a fucking idiot soccer mom.
MOVIEMAKING VALUE: 6/10
COMEDIC VALUE: 9.5/10
OVERALL ENTERTAINMENT VALUE: 9/10
Highlights:
-"I'm going to take you down to the station!"......"BULLSHIT I AM!" That's all I have to say.
-Bronson setting Duke's car onfire then explaining that it was "nothing personal, just a question of ethics."
-idiot pornographer getting leg caught midkick and Brons-owned through a styrophome dresser
-Robert Axelrod getting a marble statue chucked at him
-exploding dummies galore!
Things I Learned:
-violating a pedophile with his dildo isn't illegal for a police detective, but it might "jeopardize your pension"
-you can swallow a watch whole without it getting lodged in your windpipe. You can also survive it getting shat out hours laters
-two punches to someone's side will knock them out instantly
-Japanese women are supposed to be fucked, perhaps seen, but definitely not heard.
-extra lives DO exist outside the realm of video games. If not, how else did one person get killed THREE TIMES in six seconds?!?
The bottom line is this: if this starred anyone other than Charles Bronson and were produced by anyone other than Cannon, this film would've likely been repugnant and burdensome, but there is so much campy b-movie goodness to find here that it's basically impossible not to like. This is an extremely entertaining film when taken in that regard and one I highly recommend to all crappy b-movie/action movie lovers. As the guy trying to entice people into the film's porno theater would say: "There's good stuff in here!"
