Budnik - 80s action movies on the cheap: 284 low budget, high impact pictures

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE

BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE

e-ISBN: 978-1-4766-2687-1

2017 Daniel R. Budnik. All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Front cover: Poster art for the 1987 film American Ninja 2: The Confrontation (Cannon Films/Photofest)Back cover images 2017 iStock

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com

This book is dedicated to Madelynn Fattibene,
my sweet wife, my love, my life.
Thank you for all your support.
And thank you for putting up with me when I dressed as a ninja
and ran around the backyard scaring squirrels.

To Fred Adelman of the eternal exploitation movie website Critical Condition. Fred has an incredible collection of movie memorabilia, including posters, ad mats and VHS tapes from all over the world. The illustrations in this book are taken from his collection. Back in 1994, my first piece of published writing was in a print issue of Critical Condition. It was good to work with him again. Thank you, Fred.

To the Margaret Herrick Library. A fantastic resource of rare cinema-related materials. Scouring their vaults sent me looking for movies Id never heard of. Plus, I learned One Great Fact from their files: Christopher Walken was originally set to star in River of Death. Could you imagine that?

To Eddie Brandts Saturday Matinee in North Hollywood. They are one of the best video stores in the United States. Quite a few of the films in this book were rented from there.

I ended up watching a lot more cockfighting than I ever expected. It happens, I guess. One goes into a project not sure of what to expect. I didnt realize how much fun the American Ninja movies were. I didnt know how crazy Indonesian action films were. I certainly didnt know that the Swedes made ninja movies. I should have seen all this cockfighting coming. This book travels to assorted spots in the world to examine the large (but similar) landscape of action films through the 1980s. So, although I expected to hear that same group of English dubbing artists that one encounters in nonEnglish films of this time period, I didnt expect the cockfighting.

I cant say Im a fan. It also brings up a strange association. A movie that has one car chase may have a shootout or a fistfight. Its the same thing with, say, a slapstick comedy. There may be a thrilling madcap chase followed by a pie fight. Its associative. Someone tuning into an action film is probably going to want to see a gunfight, followed by a car chase and so forth. But what does it say about what the filmmakers think of me when they associate my watching their film with an urge for cockfighting?

One doesnt necessarily have to love all the tropes of a genre to enjoy it. In the 1980s, quite a few comedies were notorious (Stripes, Summer Rental, National Lampoons European Vacation) for spending their first hour just goofing around with no particular storyline and then, suddenly, in the last half-hour a story comes out of nowhere. I was never a fan of that. Summer Rental, in particular, is quite funny and charming until the big boat race. Then, it becomes just okay.

So, theres nothing to lead me to believe that I need to love everything within action films to love action films. Heck, Im also not a fan of the sexual assaults against women in these movies, which are generally used as the excuse for a revenge plot in which some big guy goes crazy and starts shooting everything. For me, a grand action film is one that has charming characters (sometimes they can be tough guys, too), a minimum of plot and strong action set pieces throughout. Action U.S.A. is an almost-perfect example. American Ninja 2 is another. And that doesnt get us out of the As.

I also love my action films batshit crazy or super-weird. (Hello, anything directed by Arizal or The Courier of Death.) But thats a different kind of film; those films may not always succeed as action films but they may entice and pull the viewer along in different ways. The opening scene of American Hunter where the guys in the skyscraper are interrupted by a car flying through their window is exciting and crazy. The Courier in the previously mentioned film is just a bit too goofy-looking to be the kick-ass action hero that hes supposed to be.

Keep me excited and on the edge of my seat. Or keep me confused and amazed. Thats what I want from an action film. Boredom is not going to work. And too many shots of guys in long shot firing guns that cut to long shots of guys falling down dead can work for John Woo but can get deadly dull after a time. There are a lot of films like that in this book.

My purpose in exploring this area of film is because, to me, the 1980s was the true birth of the action film as we know it today. The films of Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Norris and others set the big blockbuster tone that action films exhibit at the box office in our times. In a bit, Ill discuss action (and adventure) films of prior decades. But, for now, its the big name stars coupled with the blockbuster mentality that arose out of films like Jaws and Star Wars in the second half of the 1970s that led to big, big action films.

And all big successes lead to knockoffs, rip-offs and odd follow-ups. The 1980s was the original decade of the slasher film and following all the children of Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger is a fascinating journey. Well, following the children of Indiana Jones and Rambo is just as fascinating. Watching the Indonesian take on Rambo or the Italian version of the Vietnam War (which can be as odd as their version of the American Old West) can really discombobulate a viewer as they watch something that was so specific to American culture, get moved around and twisted about. The clothes are there but its not the same person inside.

As with horror films, action films were helped along incredibly by the advent of home video. Companies like Action International Pictures and PM Entertainment (most of their product was made in the 1990s) thrived on low-budget mostly action films direct for the home video market. And there are plenty of other films in here that got very limited (or no) theatrical release. There are even a few shot-on-video films in here. Ingenuity knows no bounds.

Then, there are the legion of ninja films made by Godfrey Ho and Joseph Lai in the late 80s. Ho and Lai were known for their cut and paste style of filmmaking, in which they would acquire the rights to a random Asian film, the genre was irrelevant, and insert newly shot footage of Australian actors dressed as ninjas. They would completely rewrite the soundtrack of the acquired film to get it to sync with what the ninjas were doing and saying. Every one of their films is a semi-surreal, semi-incoherent adventure. They capitalized on the popularity of ninjas, a word which appeared in the title of all their films, but the original film, which made up the bulk of the movie, had nothing to do with ninjas. It was hucksterism at its absolute finest. You will encounter quite a few of their films in this book. Warning: Incoherence Abounds!