By Geno McGahee
I finally got around to watching the 1991 action film “SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO.” I’m not sure why I waited so long, considering my love of action films. Whatever the case, I watched it now and it was a mixed bag that checked all the boxes but seemed to be missing something.
Dolph Lundgren was being groomed to be an action star since his role as Ivan Drago in ROCKY IV. He had the great look and was very popular, leading to starring roles in MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, THE PUNISHER and DARK ANGEL, but none hit the mark. They were all big losers at the box office.
The studios weren’t ready to give up on Lundgren and teamed him up with Brandon Lee, son of the legendary Bruce Lee, in a buddy cop action flick. This was the first big opportunity for Lee and considering Lundgren’s inability to sell a flick on his own, having a notable co-star made sense, but the film still bombed, but it’s not a bad film.
Chris Kenner (Lundgren) is a detective that plays by his own rules. He begins by crashing an illegal fight club and kicking everyone’s ass until Sato (Toshishiro Obata) shows up. I knew he was bad news. He was the asshole from the TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES movie and he still played the bitch to the villain here. What’s strange is that Shredder had his face scarred by Splinter and Kenner scarred the face of Yoshida (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) and both guys had Sato as their bitch. Maybe Sato has a scarred face fetish.
After another fight with the bad guys, a group called “Iron Claw,” Kenner meets his new partner, Johnny (Lee), and he is one in the long list of partners for Kenner. As Johnny enters the police station, all of Kenner’s former partners wish him good luck, including a dude from the movie GUNG HO, I think. I think he was in GUNG HO. I didn’t research it. I might be wrong.
Yoshida is a really bad dude. He is distributing meth, killing tons of people, owns a seedy club and even beheaded, Angel (Renee Allman), which was insane. It’s later hinted that Yoshida can’t get it up. I’m not sure if that’s legit or if Kenner was just trying to get a rise out of him and I’m not talking in his pants.
After killing Angel, he rapes her friend, Minako (Tia Carrere), which leads her to a failed suicide attempt and a rescue by Kenner and Johnny. There’s one thing I should mention about Tia Carrere in this that I did not enjoy. At one point, Kenner is in a hot tub and she asks to join him. She drops her robe and they got the worst body double in the world. The double had fake boobs and the hair wasn’t remotely close. I understand that Tia probably had a no nudity policy, which is fine, but at least get a close double. Another note, is the line “you’ve got the biggest dick I’ve ever seen” by Johnny. Maybe I’m old school, but if I saw one of my friend’s dicks and he was hung like a moose, I wouldn’t say anything. I wouldn’t say a comment like “you have Godzilla’s tail between your legs” or anything like that. I would just not say anything and make sure that I slept on my back if I ever went camping with him.
The police duo keeps disrupting Yoshida, but they soon get caught by the bad guys and nearly killed. Believed to be dead, Kenner and Johnny attack the drug factory and have one final battle with Yoshida and his goons. I was happy (spoiler) to see Sato get it shoved up his ass. Johnny knocks him into a vat of alcohol and then throws a lighter into it saying that “you have the right to die”….not the best action line ever, but props for trying.
The final battle is Lundgren and Yoshida sword-fighting, which is a bad move by Yoshida. When Lundren has a sword, he “has the power” as proven in MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE when he shoved it right up Skeletor’s ass sideways.
As you may have suspected, the good guys win, but this film gains like a million points for the death of Yoshida. It is one of the funniest and most awesome deaths of a bad guy ever. You should watch this movie just for that last death scene. I don’t know why this movie flopped. If I saw it on the big screen, I would force all my friends to go just to see that scene and to watch that hot tub scene again to see if Dolph’s cock was an anaconda like Brandon Lee said.
SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO is a good movie. The problem is the same problem that we have in most Lundgren movies. He has a very hard time showing emotion and connecting to the audience. The acting just isn’t developed enough. Lee needed some work too but he was getting it quicker.
The action is tremendous in this and the story is pretty good too. Dolph and Lee work together pretty well and with a little better direction, maybe they could have brought something more out of Lundgren. Whatever the case, this is an action film worth a watch and I recommend it!
