out of the frying pan and boned up the ass with a red-hot poker [movies]

showdown in little tokyo

so i guess what they're saying is, white people have bigger penises than asians?
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yea, we all know that low budget 80s action movies can be hilariously ridiculous. we've all admired the enigma that was jean-claude van damme and scoffed as he graced even the simplest line with a sense of incomparable innocence, as if totally unaware of its meaning, simply a vessel through which god himself spoke to mankind. we already know that anything starring chuck norris is going to get you through those rough, lonely patches when the world is beating you down at every turn. that stuff is old news. the 80s has been picked clean. time for something new. something fresh. something about asians...but not too much.

time for showdown in little tokyo. this isn't just another one of those cheesy 80s b-movies, this is something very different. this is dolf lundgren as you've sometimes seen him before, except this time it's the 90s and that means everything is just a little cooler, a litter funnier, a little tougher, a little manlier, a little more homo-erotic, a little more ludicrous, a little more in-your-face, but a little more sensitive as well. yes, you may have seen him in rocky IV or he-man, but you've never seen him like this before (unless you've already seen this movie).

here's the trouble, i want to tell you about all the crazy funny stuff in this movie, but at the same time i don't want to be the one that ruins the experience for you. it's gotta be a complete surprise. it's one thing to go into a movie expecting it's going to be horrible, i mean, it is dolph lundgren we're talking about here...his record speaks for itself, but you never expect something of this caliber. it's the kind of thing that slaps you in the face and makes you stop and wonder - "was this made by a bunch of crazy geniuses that crafted such a complexly intricate network of high-concept themes and infinitely relevant social commentary that they are just kicking back on a distant planet somewhere laughing at my puny attempts to make sense of it?"

things are just flying at you at break-neck speed and you're struggling to catch up: the stereotypes, the cliches, the decapitation, the body doubles, the honkey-samurai infiltration outfit, the gay...omg, the gay! i don't want to tell you, but you must know...no, no, you must see for yourself. it truly is a spectacle to behold.

ok, in case you hadn't picked up on the fact already, this movie stars dolph lundgren, but it also stars brandon lee, tia carrere and about 50 other guys you've seen in a billion forgettable movies, but have never bothered to learn their names. of course when you talk about a brandon lee movie you can't help but talk about the tragedy of his death and whatnot...i'm not trying to take away from that, it was pretty sad, but i find something even more depressing about his story. yea, the guy lost his dad in a tragic accident, he lived 11 years with that sorrow only to die in a freak accident himself, but on top of all that, he never got the chance to even make a decent movie. that's a goddamn bummer if i ever heard one. you could argue that the crow was a decent movie, which it was, but you could also argue that the motherfucker never even lived to see a screening of that movie, so it doesn't really count. the fact is, at the moment of his death when his life flashed before his eyes, as far as he knew, he'd never made a good movie in his life. how seriously depressing is that? it really makes you question whether it's ethical to even write a bad review about the guy. i know i wont. it just doesn't feel right. and when you factor in how incredibly humiliating it must have been for him to play the part he plays in 'showdown in little tokyo' you feel even worse for him. it's just degrading.

still, that shouldn't stop you from acquiring this movie and laughing your ass off. in fact, sometimes it even makes it that much funnier. god, i can't believe i said that. i'm sorry, brandon.