57 Toilet Theater Presents...

Martial Farts

Let me begin this post by expressing my eternal love for watching diverse people from all over the world, beat the shit out of each other. I have nothing but the utmost respect for all true martial artists and stunt people. When I lived in Philadelphia, I was lucky enough to get to hang out with some really kick ass stunt guys and gals from the Fearless Hyena Stunt Team. Very dynamic folks, these. Salt of the Earth. Jay, Muhammed, Raymond, Chris and Lael…Wherever you are, this one's for you. You guys Rock. Thanks again.

All glory to the Diaper Man.

Arena

A Bogus Journey to say the least. Arena follows the adventures of clean-cut, homeless space-lunk, and all-around swell guy, Steve Armstrong. On the space-town where Steve is stranded, there are fights in, you guessed it, an Arena. Steve reveals to his best friend, 4-Armed Obi-Wan Hobbit-Pachino his dream to be a fighter. 

Arena has the fight choreography of an old Star Trek episode. It has worse acting than Bloodsport, yet co-opts its theme with an interstellar spin, without any real stars to back it up. The main Bad guy is Goro's Dad, with a bit of Hoggle from Labyrinth and maybe some of Genreral Kael's bones. His fight with the kind mongoloid, Steve was so epic it actually broke my home Cheese-O-Meter, overloading it. Was it worth it? No way. 

Arena was directed by one of Charles Band's Full-Mooners, Peter Manoogian, who also squeezed-off cine-turds Eliminators (1986), and Demonic Toys (1992). Arena is one magnificent, majestic, brown cobra. It's like someone watched a bunch of Buck Rogers episodes on ether one weekend, and rewrote them as one script. If you want to see a sweaty man in a diaper fight with giant, lubed-up, space Boglins, urine luck.

Wang Yu, Sky fuckin High.

The Man from Hong Kong

AKA Dragon Files. Oh shit. How did this fall in the toilet?? It must have hang-glided in. I will grab it out. My hands will emerge from the bowl wet and shitty. No matter, the diamond will be saved. This crazy-ass movie, unlike the shit it's sandwiched between, has excellent martial arts, and great stunts. Real stunts without special effects or camera tricks. It is unfortunately almost impossible to come across this kind of guts and irresponsibility in stunt work today. (LINK)   

Some SPOILERS follow. It's a damn action orgy. What am I really spoiling? Shit blows up, OK?

HONG KONG 1975: Wang Yu beats up some cadet dudes in their underpants, and fucks a rad Australian Hang-Glider Girl. Except they call it some other shit. Kite-flying? His romance is interrupted when he gets called to make a duty. A kung fu man's gotta do, what a kung fu man's gotta doo, baby. A man is a man is a man. Wang goes off to battle, secret agent style. He meets up in Australia with some Narcs. He tells the Narcs what his Vice is. Gambling. He's like if Mr. Lee and Roper are the same dude. Did I mention this is the Australian Enter the Dragon, yet? It is.

AUSTRALIA 1975: Wang Yu sets a James Bond on fire, beats him up, tapes a grenade in his mouth and blows his ass up, sky high. This of course in retaliation to the Australian gang blowing he and his lady sky high. Killing her. (Someday, in the UK, it will be impossible for a fire to happen anywhere, without at least one Dr. Who getting burned.) Thanks to the lack of laws Australian filmmakers enjoyed back then, TMFHK's vehicular stunts are fuckin rad. They combine some of these with the physical stunt work awesomely. Street fights, bar, restaurant and hotel fights abound. Indoor? Outdoor? It doesn't matter. This is a Brian Trenchard-Smith stunt crew we're talking about. Only the hardest of the hard. The baddest of ass.  

Wang Yu 

AKA White Dragon. Wang is one of the born-tough who made films with the Shaws in the sixties. Known by his Aussie collaborators for being "horrible" to work with, and for his irrational, racist, sexist hatred of white chicks. He's starred in 81 films. (hkmdb.com) The year this film released, he divorced his wife and married a flight attendant. The daughter from his first marriage is Linda Wong, a Hong Kong pop singer. She sings all the Cantonese hits, Fatal Flying One-Armed Boxer Guillotine style. 

Sammo Hung

A childhood schoolmate, and long-time colleague of Jackie Chan, a man who is responsible for some of the best stunt work in film history, and a guy who just plain looks like a Triad Goon who would whup your ass in a hilarious way, Sammo Hung is a martial arts and stunt legend. A subject deserving of his own post, eventually.

Grant Page

Again, a man who deserves his own post. There's not a lot you can say about him that hasn't been said before. This guy is fucking fearless. Watch his feature film Stunt Rock: LINK (Featuring Sorcery) if you really want to see what this madman is capable of. Stunt Rock was also directed by Trenchard-Smith.

  

Brian Trenchard-Smith

Did his share of stunts, too. Wang really hits the piss out of him in this one. If you've seen the fantastic documentary on Ozploitation films, "Not Quite Hollywood", you know this man is that genre's greatest master. If you're looking for action entertainment that's truly nasty, bad and dangerously-made, he does it best.

Glad oy fawnd it. Oy'd hayte teh flush me dymonds!

Paul Dini wrote this??! 

Double Dragon

NEW ANGELES 2007: After the "Big Quake."(?) It's amazing that Shadow Boss Robert Patrick, in a suit and hairstyle on loan from the Demolition Man set, was able to amass so much criminal power. Especially when his core criminal empire consists of only his old lady (Cyberdine Sys Model: T-D-00) and 2 waiters. George Hamilton and Vanna White are news anchors, with weatherman Andy Dick. It is a dystopian future, where fighters are measured by how much they can bench press, and all the shitty chop-jobs people drive in are equipped with police computers that tell them how much each other can bench press, and indoor Mr. Fusions. 

The fighting sequences are as tired and unimaginative as the dialogue in this one. Alissa Milano has cut her hair short ala Tank Girl, and is part of a Graffito Gang that want to do right by New Angeles. Their idealism also on loan from the Demolition Man set via Dennis Leary's crew. Alissa's gang is called "The Power Core", because, if there's one thing all civil activists are after, it's power. 

The highlight of this double-headed, fire-breathing, poop-loop, is the really, really insipid banter the two Lee brothers share. Jimmy is played Mark Dacascos, AKA American Iron Chef's Chairman- the only talented martial artist in this dump. The Billy Boy is played by the Party of 5 kid who was also on…well, nothing. Eventually the brothers stop having poorly-acted arguments full of comedic air balls, and agree to ask the Power Core for help. They drop in on their headquarters at Nickelodeon Studios, where the young hop-heads kill time playing with toys, wearing CrossXColors gear and torturing an Abobo for info by overfeeding him and making him fill their HQ's air space with his farts?? Olfactory masochism? Strange interrogation technique, but one does not question The Power Core. 

Oh, did I not say this whole thing is really about some medallion that is split in half? It is. One half is good, one half is evil and when the two sides combine blah blah power blah. In the end, they of course fight Shadow Boss, and win despite his terrible, powerful clothes and hair. The reason they win is because of their brass-studded, dragon-fabulous karate gear, and because Dacascos gets deep inside Robert Patrick. That Jimmy runs so deep, it makes him slap his own face.       

There's a whole lot of shit out there. Hollywood will continue to pinch loaves forever. I'll see some of them, and hopefully some of you too, at the next Toilet Theater...

-2013 Wielgorecki