brandon lee

Showdown in Little Tokyo (1992)

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Growing up, I only knew the bookends of Brandon Lee’s biography: birth and death.  Brandon Lee was born famous as the son of martial arts legend Bruce Lee and, shockingly, died at the height of that fame while filming his breakout role in the goth superhero classic The Crow.  There were obviously other highlights to his fame in the 28 years between those bookends, but I don’t remember them happening in real time.  I’ve since been getting to know Lee posthumously as he randomly appears on the covers of used DVDs at local thrift stores, starring in low-rent martial arts actioners with titles like Laser Mission, Rapid Fire, and Kung Fu: The Movie.  He’s not especially talented as a dramatic actor in any of those forgotten action cheapies, but he does share his father’s talents for sharp, convincing fight choreography and, not for nothing, his father’s handsomeness.  Maybe that’s why Lee was paired with a more charismatic actor for his leap from Hong Kong to Hollywood productions in 1992’s Showdown in Little Tokyo.  Just a couple short years before his major break in The Crow, Lee was cast as a sidekick to cartoon muscle freak Dolph Lundgren, who gets all of the best one-liners and over-the-top stunts while Lee plays straight man, cheering him on.  Like Laser Mission, I had never heard of this film before I found it at the thrift store, and it helped flesh out my understanding of Lee’s brief movie star career between birth & death.  Unlike Laser Mission, though, it was a memorably fun, goofy action flick regardless of its significance to Lee’s biography.

A sleazy Los Angeles buddy cop movie from the director of Commando, Showdown in Little Tokyo has great pedigree as a VHS-era action classic.  It also has one of the most racist premises in that canon, which is no small feat for an era obsessed with urban and immigrant crime.  Brandon Lee (a half-Chinese actor) plays a half-Japanese cop who was raised in California, disconnected from his cultural heritage.  Dolph Lundgren (a Swedish actor) plays an all-American cop who was raised in Japan, submerged in that heritage, so he serves as Lee’s tour guide on all of the finer points of Japanese culture as they take down the yakuza stronghold in Little Tokyo.  It’s a racist angle on mismatched multicultural partnership that’s not at all helped by the decision to avoid subtitling most of the Japanese dialogue, nor by the Orientalist notes of the soundtrack cues whenever they encounter the head of the yakuza (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, of Mortal Kombat fame).  And yet, even though the central white-cop-Asian-cop dynamic of Showdown in Little Tokyo is heinous in concept, it’s often adorable in practice.  Lundgren & Lee have an oddly romantic rapport, even partnering up after a meet-cute fight scene and spending some quality time at a local bathhouse.  In the movie’s most often-quoted scene, Lee compliments the size of Lundgren’s penis after spotting him disrobing for a soak in the hot tub, remarking “You have the biggest dick I’ve ever seen on a man,” to which Lundgren replies, “Thank you.”  The two end that exchange unsure how to say “I love you” in a macho way, so they opt for “Don’t get killed,” and “You too,” instead.  Since they can’t have sex with each other for 1980s reasons, they’re assigned to protect the life of Tia Carrere from the yakuza, whom Lundgren beds while Lee salivates, but it’s mostly a formality.

The homoeroticism of Showdown in Little Tokyo is apparent as soon as the opening credits, which are a dreamlike montage of biceps, swords, guns, abs, and tattoo ink shot with the erotic tenderness of a Red Shoe Diaries episode.  The women of the film get little to do beyond being rescued and stripping topless – sometimes as erotic dancers, sometimes as erotic sumo wrestlers, sometimes as live sushi platters, always as objects. Otherwise, it’s a film entirely about men and the male form.  Having defined the pinnacle of the genre with Commando, director Mark Lester has an eye for the shameless beefcake ultraviolence and an ear for the groany, juvenile one-liners that make for a memorable action classic.  Lundgren doesn’t have Schwarzenegger’s comedic chops, but he still fires off line-deliveries of phrases like “This is illegal, and it pisses me off,” and “If I don’t have breakfast, I get grumpy.  I don’t think you’ll like me grumpy” with enough deadpan bravado for those moments to land.  More importantly, he looks like a cartoon superhero in the flesh, especially with the exaggerated shoulder pads of his Japanese-themed leather jacket extending his frame.  Lee doesn’t come anywhere close to touching Lundgren’s action-star charisma here, but the movie also isn’t all that interested in giving him a chance to do so.  He’s just there to pump up Lundgren’s ego, compliment the gargantuan size of his dick, and give credibility to the phrase “reverse racism.”  Thankfully, Lester often distracts from that uneasy dynamic with enough explosions, swordfights, and beheadings to get away with the worst cross-cultural impulses of the script.  He has complained about the studio removing 10 minutes of footage from the final cut without his permission, but what’s left is one of the leanest, funniest, gayest action novelties of its era (and, by default, of Lee’s entire career).

-Brandon Ledet

Laser Mission (1989)

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I discovered the late 80s action cheapie Laser Mission as a thrift store purchase of what appears to be a DVD bootleg transferred from a straight-to-VHS release. The absence of a legitimate production budget is apparent as soon as its opening diamond heist sequence. The “most precious and largest” diamond ever mined in Africa is stolen from a banquet hall while masked villains gear up & load ammo against a black background. The effect feels like cutting between amateur camcorder footage of a VFW hall wedding and a TV commercial for car alarms. An 80s rock ballad recorded by Dire Straits co-founder David Knopfler wails, “In the violence of the night, his heart beats like a hammer, like the backbeat of a song. And the fire burns in him. He knows he don’t belong. Mercenary man, mercenary man, mercenary man,” before reaching its inevitable crescendo of a saxophone solo. It’s the film’s sole soundtrack selection and will repeat endlessly until the end credits. Laser Mission is Everything Is Terrible action cinema, a genuine VHS era version of Neil Breen’s weirdo vanity projects or Tim Heidecker’s Decker series. It’s flatly acted, looks like it was filmed in a backyard, and does not at all earn the confidence needed to pull off its sub-Commando sense of bravado. There’s something infectious about its constantly apparent cheapness, though, and by the end credits I found myself singing “Mercenary man, mercenary man, mercenary man” along with its one-song soundtrack while reaching for more box wine. It’s a “bad” movie, but it wasn’t a bad time.

Years before he went goth (and tragically died) for The Crow, Brandon Lee stars in his first deviation from the early career martial arts schlock that relived the legacy of his father, Bruce Lee. He appears here as the smartass superspy action hero Michael Gold. Lee lacks any of the charisma that makes the Stallone & Schwarzenegger characters he’s aping work on the screen. He’s also not nearly as physically imposing as those towering meatheads, so any direct attempts to make him look like a super cool, tough-talking badass fall humorously flat. When he shows up for secret meetings at US embassies wearing only an undershirt, he looks like a joke. When he calls a woman he meets for the first time “bitch” for turning down his sexual advances, he sounds like a chauvinist monster. Attempts to disguise himself for acts of espionage range from pathetically applying a fake mustache in a makeup mirror to monstrously adorning brownface & the rags of a crippled beggar. It also doesn’t help that Lee’s sub-Schwarzenegger one-liners are embarrassingly weak. Exchanges include the awkward, “Are you acquainted with theoretical physics?” “No, I specialized in recess and girls,” “Ha, very funny,” and a disgruntled “You know? You guys really know how to win friends & influence people.” The only thing that prevents Laser Mission from being a total embarrassment is Lee’s undeniable skill with martial arts. Practically no money went into producing this disposable schlock, but what little was there was all poured into its gun violence, explosions, and endless supply of nameless baddies for Lee to mow down with ease. The action is the only semi-legitimate element at play in Laser Mission (besides maybe its phenomenal theme music), which honestly wasn’t the worst choice it could have made in terms of VHS era craft. There’s nothing wrong with playing to your strengths.

Laser Mission‘s surface pleasures are so slight that it doesn’t even treat the audience to its titular lasers. Michael Gold is tasked by US special forces to retrieve a Russian scientist (Ernest “What Am I Doing Here?” Bornigne) famed as “the world’s leading expert in laser technology” before the KGB can nab him first. The race against the clock is especially dangerous because of the KGB’s possession of the comically oversized diamond from the opening heist, which they supposedly want to use to create the world’s most powerful laser cannon or some such nonsense. We, of course, never get to see said laser cannon because the movie can’t afford to depict it. Instead, we watch Lee evade capture from two bumbling Scooby-Doo level goons as he works his way closer to Borgnine’s laser scientist, eventually teaming up with that target’s daughter to complete the mission. In between disposing of baddies with liberally fired bullets & casual karate chops, he openly gawks at his new partner for her ability to fire guns & drive a getaway truck in heels even though she’s a woman. They eventually fuck, the scientist & the laser diagmond are recovered, and a few go-nowhere twists are revealed in a dry fart of a finale that sets up Michael Gold’s next mission, obviously never to come. Besides not delivering on the lasers it brazenly promises, it’s not too bad of a cheap action plot; at least, it wouldn’t be if the jokes were actually funny and the bravado was actually earned.

Laser Mission is mildly enjoyable as a late 80s curio. It’s at least amusing to see what happens when the Stallone/Schwarzenegger formula falls flat in less capable hands, even if the embarrassment for Brandon Lee’s failings as a leading man are palpably awkward. I can’t recommend the film at face value as a legitimately well-made action flick, but as a real world example of the kinds of VHS schlock Decker & Neil Breen are calling back to, it’s both fascinating & adorably campy. The only thing it’s missing, really, is a few lasers.

-Brandon Ledet