Death Force (1978)

Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

American soldier Doug Russell (a solid and likable performance by James Iglehart) gets betrayed and left for dead by his two buddies while stationed in the Philippines. After washing up on a remote island and being taught in the ways of the samurai by a Japanese soldier, Russell returns to America to exact a harsh revenge on the two guys who double crossed him.Director Cirio H. Santiago, working from a tight and involving script by Howard R. Cohen, keeps the engrossing and enjoyable story moving along at a brisk pace, maintains a tough gritty tone throughout, stages the exciting action set pieces with skill and aplomb, delivers a few nice dollops of bloody gore, and caps everything off with a genuinely startling surprise bummer ending. Leon Isaac Kennedy as slick operator McGee and Carmen Argenziano as hard-nosed cynic Morelli make for perfectly hateful and ruthless villains, the ravishing Jayne Kennedy adds some real class as Russell's loyal singer wife Maria, and the ubiquitous Vic Diaz pops up in a nifty cameo as an oily Chinese hood. The get-down funky score by Jaime Mendoza-Nava and Eddie Villaneuva hits the right-on groovy spot. A worthwhile exploitation item.

Doug Russell (Iglehart), McGee (Kennedy), and Morelli (Argenziano) are Vietnam buddies. They're on a boat headed home after finally completing their service - and stealing a cache of gold. The duplicitous McGee and Morelli stab Russell and throw him overboard. Instead of dying in a watery grave, he washes up on a remote island inhabited by two Japanese soldiers (played by Gamboa and Avellana) who have been living there since World War II. The two soldiers nurse Russell back to health, and also train him in Japanese Karate and swordsmanship. When he finally makes it back home to L.A., he has a new set of skills to use on his attackers. And he's going to need them, because McGee is attempting to move in on Russell's wife, Maria (Jayne Kennedy). All Russell wants to do is reunite with his wife and young son, but McGee and Morelli are making it hard for him, as while he was stranded on the island, the two men moved up in the L.A. underworld. Now they control many things, including the club scene, where they have Maria, a singer, blacklisted from performing. That's clearly the last straw, and Doug Russell becomes FIGHTING MAD! Hard to believe, but this is the twentieth Cirio movie we've seen. So we're pretty familiar with his style, and Fighting Mad stands as a solid, snappy entry in his canon. It seems to have a faster pace than some of his other works, and the editing style reinforces that, with no scene ever going on too long. The parallel plot lines of Russell on the island doing his extensive training/what's going on at the home front, and eventually the two coming together, made for entertaining viewing. There's some nice humor to leaven things out, and plenty of 70's style that is extremely visually appealing. Soft focus Jayne Kennedy mixed with giant, boatlike cars reinforce this feeling. As does the scene where Kennedy walks by the famous Rainbow club, and we see that Savoy Brown is playing with Baby, with Man performing a week later. Born Losers (1967) is on a cinema marquee, Fonzie is on the cover of People magazine, and haircuts were only 2 dollars. What a time.Leon Isaac Kennedy (not to be confused with Lawrence Hilton Jacobs or Philip Michael Thomas) plays a good charismatic slickster, and how could you not love his great outfits? Iglehart also shines, along with his non-Japanese compatriots, in the Hell In the Pacific (1968)-inspired plot line. The scene in the barbershop is also a movie highlight, and all his sword work does indeed pay off later, with multiple "fan favorite deaths" following his training. They do indeed get some classic comeuppance! The final showdown between Kennedy and Iglehart features another favorite cliché, the "talking baddie", who continuously says the hero's name as he's trying to bait him to fight. So Fighting Mad contains enough elements in its 90 or so minutes to certainly entertain.A great example of Drive-In action, we can definitely recommend Fighting Mad.

My first Cirio H Santiago film! This one has a brain-meltingly random premise, Afros, cool music, is choppy as hell and even throws in a bit of gore at the end there.Russell is a Vietnam vet who's smuggled some gold with his mates Morrello and McGhee, who of course double cross him, slit his throat, throw him in the sea and head off to L.A to waste the mob there and become crime lords (as we see them blast their way through many gangs). McGhee also has the hots for Russell's wife, and periodically turns up to try and woo her (getting more aggressive with every visit).Russell, however, washes up on a desert island, where he meets two Japanese soldiers who have never surrendered (and never will). After becoming friends and indulging in some funny banter ("You should see Japan now!"), the ranking officer (great character) teaches Russell how to slice things up good with a samurai sword, which as you know will lead Russell back to LA where he can chop his buddies, and their hired goons (Hired goons?) into little pieces.Full of ridiculous situations, action scenes and funky music, Fighting Mad is a good bet for an exploitation fan. There's a good relationship between Russell and the Japanese officer, and just when I thought Russel would never get off that damn island, he does in a rather sad scene and the film picks up from there. Whenever the film bogs down in training sequences, Santiago just switches to L.A to show McGhee and Morrello taking on rival mobs.Once Russell arrives in LA, he becomes an unstoppable killing machine to get to his enemies. It looked like some of the violence had been cut from the version I watched (a leg being severed), but as there were several graphic decapitations at the end, who knows? This is good for a watch if you're like me, and just switch your brain off before hitting 'play' and just go with the flow. It's cheap and cheerful and action packed – what else do you want?

With the belated rise in popularity of Asian exploitation; towering grindhouse icon, Cirio H. Santiago has become somewhat of a bona fide underground cinematic hero; this is due in no small part to his series of low-budget, high-octane, post Apocalyptic actioners, and ribald entertainments that so did exceptionally well during home video boom of the 80's. The doyen of post holocaust automotive Armageddon, Santiago perfected the machismo-soaked iconography of swarthy, leather-clad heroics where dusty, embattled muscle cars, festooned with gaudy Motley Crue accouterments blazed a furious trail of carnage across a noxious, corrupted landscape, where brutality and automotive prowess were the only viable remaining currency. Santiago directed these dystopian vistas with their crimson-hued skyline, mottled by the choking dust of deathly radioactivity with great gusto; so it came as no great surprise to discover that his earlier title, and wildly entertaining revenger, 'Fighting Mad' (aka) 'Death Force' was by no means an impoverished backwoods cousin to his better known PA extravaganza's. Brawny, James Inglehart is part of a roguish trio of opportunistic thugs and after a particularly frantic blag upon a yacht, things go south, he is left to rot in the midst of the briny sea. Being a purebred Grindhouse classic, the film's unerring goal is unrelenting revenge; and after washing up on a deserted island he is trained by two Japanese soldiers stranded there since the end of WW2; naturally we have to endure a little ham-fisted cross cultural observations pre-chop sock, but swiftly, Santiago constructs some amusing training vignettes, while not on par with '36 chambers of shaolin' they prove to be an excellent aperitif before our vengeful black samurai (fortunately not the dire Al Adamson interpretation) replete with diamond-edged Katana blade proceeds to exact a most furious and dreadful revenge. Ostensibly 'Fighting Mad' is the timeless fable of a muscular, super-irked black man decapitating dumbbell Mafiosi with a diamond edged katana blade..so what's not to like?