American Rickshaw (1990)

Excellent adaptation.

Absolutely Fantastic

A Disappointing Continuation

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

A Miami college student finds himself framed for the murder of an evangelist's son. He hooks up with an Asian witch and a stripper to find the real killer and clear his name.......I honestly only saw this film because of the stars ridiculous name, and the fact that it was advertised as a martial arts movie in the UK, under the title, American Tiger.It's nothing of the sort. What we do get is a really bored looking Donald Pleasance, a woman in old lady make up, a cat, a snake, and a whole host of wonderfully bad nineties clothin and hair-don'ts.A raunchy movie is filmed without the stars consent, a boat blows up and the rest of the film consists of our lead being chased by a hulk version of Lorenzo Lamas.And it all ends with Pleasance making a speech and his voice turning into an animals.It has an air of mysticism to it, but to be honest it gets lost up its own backside come the conclusion.It's not a surprise that the lead didn't get many starring roles after this, what with his name and performance.It's pretty risible stuff, but just about worth seeing for Pleasance overacting.

When seeking fame and fortune as a movie star, a change of name is sometimes advisable. Take Mitchell Gaylord, for example: he's hardly got the kind of name that one would naturally associate with a cool tough guy persona. Unfortunately, Mitchell only saw fit to shorten his name, to Mitch Gaylord, which somehow sounds even worse.Still, even if he had changed his name to something a lot less effete, I still doubt his film career would have amounted to much with incomprehensible crud like American Tiger on his resumé. As Italian z-grade nonsense goes, this is amongst the worst, with an utterly nonsensical plot made all the more confusing by the muddled direction and editing.Mitch plays rickshaw driver Scott Edwards, who finds himself framed for the murder of Jason Motom (Gregg Todd Davis), son of a popular TV evangelist (Donald Pleasance, seriously slumming it). Scott attempts to clear his name with the help of a stripper (Victoria Prouty), and an old Chinese witch (Michi Kobi), but his every move is dogged by the real killer (Daniel Greene), who is searching for a key that will lead him to a magical statuette (that looks like Pumba from The Lion King).Crappy action, dreadful dialogue, risible special effects, and numerous moments that seriously defy description, American Tiger is one for dedicated bad movie buffs only.2/10. Half a point for Daniel Greene's massive torch, a half point each for Prouty's itty bitty titties, and another half point for Pleasance turning into a pig at the end. Yes, he really does!

'American Rickshaw' on my disc but even with its Italian title, 'American Riscio', it would be no better. Directed by prolific and usually reliable, Sergio Martino, this suffers from weak and mostly inexperienced cast and pretty ludicrous storyline. Male lead, Mitch Gaylord is famous for having been the 1984 US Olympic gymnast champion and his female counterpart is unknown Victoria Prouty, who does well enough compared to everyone else but is asked to play a lap dancer despite a most modest chest. Actually, this begins fairly well and remains quirky throughout but things start to go wrong with appalling police representation and then this Chinese mumbo jumbo which becomes more prominent as the film progresses. We also get a spluttering performance from, always willing but not always able, Donald Pleasence as an evangelical nutter preacher, gone very wrong.

After seeing this movie, I realize how bad a film can be. I was sober when I began the movie but it left me intoxicated with stupidity. I've never seen a movie about a rickshaw driver and, because of this movie, I never will again. What was Donald Pleasence thinking? A horrid film such as this does not deserve even a hint of his presence.