Death Fighter Flm Review

Hey, I will watch anything that takes place in Thailand and especially in Bangkok. Great place to live. You are all invited to visit. Not me, The country. This has straight to video all over it from the opening scene and though the plot could have been written on the back of an envelope, there is some pretty good action in here. It feels very much a throwback to the action films of the 1990s - dumb, lots of martial arts action and a minimum of special effects or CGI. That Don "The Dragon" Wilson and Cynthia Rothrock are in it only adds to that feeling. The film was made in 2012 under the name White Tiger and shelved for five years which is never a good sign. Perhaps not to be confused with the 1996 film of that title and with similar plot points, it was renamed to Death Fighter. Not sure what held it up as it is as good as most DTV films. It has a fine line-up of martial artists - perhaps it just looked like it came from another era - zero flash, lots of clunky dialogue. It is directed by Toby Russell, son of Ken Russell. His name might be familiar to Hong Kong film fans. His book The Essential Guide to Hong Kong Movies was on my shelf for years.

It begins with a nice foot chase through the jungle with some parkour tossed in - but quickly shifts to Bangkok. Yay! Turner is in his hotel room listening to his girlfriend complain about coming with him to Bangkok and barely seeing him. But I have to help my partner, he says. His partner is played by Joe Lewis, a legend in real life for his martial arts but that was back in the 70s and 80s. This was his last film before he passed away. Turner is played by Matt Mullins - a name that will scare no one but in fact he has won a number of martial arts competitions and has some nifty kicking moves. He leaves his girlfriend and goes to help Lewis. He is after Draco, who has his fingers in everything from drugs to trafficking to gold. Turner is an FBI agent off duty. In the fracas that follows, Lewis is killed and Turner has to take on Rothrock and Jawad Berni. Yup. Cynthia is on the wrong side of the law in this one. Can't recall seeing that before. And Berni is a very good French martial artist.

To get revenge for the death of his partner, Turner teams up with Bobby (Wilson) and off into the jungle they go. Goodbye Bangkok. It was nice to visit. On the way they pick up a short Thai friend of Bobby's (Wirat Kemklad) who also very much impresses with his martial arts. But that isn't all - they stop off in a small village where a nurse (Yui Chiranan Manochaem) is tending to patients. She comes along as well and what do you know - is tougher than a hurricane and kills plenty. Sparks of course between Turner and Yui and it is Goodbye Miss American Pie. Don and Cynthia have a decent fight - not quite what they were in the 90s but still nice to see. Mullins has the good fight with Berni. Yui just beats up everyone she meets. I don't know if the actress has had any training as she mainly has appeared in Thai TV dramas, but she does fine. So, you pay your money and get a lot of action along with a plot that is as rusty as an old nail in the rain.