02-08-2025, 10:48 PM
(This post was last modified: 02-08-2025, 10:48 PM by Drunk Monk.)
This is the film Jim Kelly (Williams in ETD) and Robert Clouse (director of ETD) made right after Enter the Dragon and it’s the epitome of blaxploitation.‘there’s a lot of style element lifted from ETD like the whipcrack striking sounds and Kelly’s fighting vocalizations, even some of the choreo, like the overuse of back fists. It kinda bogs the film down. Kelly had a style - lookin good - but he, like so many other action stars, is in the wake of Bruce.
Gloria Hendry is standout. She’s another genuine karateka and was the first black woman fo kiss James Bond (Live & Let Die). Earl Jolly Brown is also here as another henchman - he was Whisper in Live & Let Die. And Scatman Crothers plays the character he always plays, completely unconvincing as a karate master.
So many N words. Such can be blaxploitation. Funky groovy soundtrack too. Kelly can’t keep his shirt on but if I had a body like that, I’d be the same. He moves well, and both he and Hendry have solid karate foundations. They both manage some long choreo takes.
It’s a tired plot tho. The dojo is on some real estate that a developer wants so they get the mob to put on the heat. Lots of breaking glass as bodies are tossed thru and into it. My fav part is when BB Jones hires some trampoline chicks to back him up for a raid on the mob’s winery, and they take out a surveillance camera by setting up a mini-tramp, bouncing up to take a Polaroid pic (using the same collapsable model I used to own), then bouncing up again to clip the photo ever the lens. That so would not work.
This would’ve been so much better if it was written as a prequel to ETD. Kelly’s BB Jones is essentially the same cat as Williams, right down to the big collars and bell bottom pants.
Not D00M recommended - seen on Internet Archive
Gloria Hendry is standout. She’s another genuine karateka and was the first black woman fo kiss James Bond (Live & Let Die). Earl Jolly Brown is also here as another henchman - he was Whisper in Live & Let Die. And Scatman Crothers plays the character he always plays, completely unconvincing as a karate master.
So many N words. Such can be blaxploitation. Funky groovy soundtrack too. Kelly can’t keep his shirt on but if I had a body like that, I’d be the same. He moves well, and both he and Hendry have solid karate foundations. They both manage some long choreo takes.
It’s a tired plot tho. The dojo is on some real estate that a developer wants so they get the mob to put on the heat. Lots of breaking glass as bodies are tossed thru and into it. My fav part is when BB Jones hires some trampoline chicks to back him up for a raid on the mob’s winery, and they take out a surveillance camera by setting up a mini-tramp, bouncing up to take a Polaroid pic (using the same collapsable model I used to own), then bouncing up again to clip the photo ever the lens. That so would not work.
This would’ve been so much better if it was written as a prequel to ETD. Kelly’s BB Jones is essentially the same cat as Williams, right down to the big collars and bell bottom pants.
Not D00M recommended - seen on Internet Archive
Shadow boxing the apocalypse