ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Coventry Like the case with so many "notoriously awful" Z-grade exploitation directors, I have a love/hate relationship with Cirio H. Santiago. Of all that movies that I have seen of him, I honestly couldn't award any with a rating higher than 3 out of 10, but at the same time I certainly don't regret having seen them! Some of his works are just plain terrible ("Demon of Paradise", "TNT Jackson") while others are hilariously inept but non-stop entertaining trash hits ("Equalizer 2000", "Future Hunters", "Caged Fury"…). With "Death Force" Santiago delivers one of the better titles of his impressive repertoire; a vigorous and raw action picture with a couple of ludicrous plot ideas, flamboyant characters and – especially when approaching the finale – a bunch of cheap but gory massacres! Lots of bad muthas losing their heads in the final act, I guarantee you! But the thing that makes "Death Force" particularly unique is that it can be categorized in no less than three different exploitation sub genres. With its many story lines and colorful cast of characters, the film qualifies simultaneously as Kung-Fu/Samurai action, Blaxploitation and revenge thriller! And what's really funny is that there are also enough alternative titles to fit the different categories, as the film is also known as "The Black Samurai", "Fighting Mad" and "Vengeance is Mine". At the end of their tour of duty in 'Nam, three buddies named Morelli, McGee and Doug (the former a white boy, the other two black guys) have smuggled a fair stash of gold. Morelli and McGee have the ambitious plan to become the mob bosses of Los Angeles, but they righteously fear that Doug is too much of a soft family man that will hinder them. Morelli comes with the idea of killing Doug and McGee immediately agrees, also because he's always been jealous of Doug for having such a beautiful wife. They cut Doug's throat and throw him off a yacht, but apparently they didn't properly lean to kill in Vietnam, because Doug survives and washes ashore a small island. Seriously, how do you fail slicing somebody's throat? The plot gets even more deranged when the little island turns out to be inhabited by two ancient Japanese samurai warriors that still believe WWII hasn't finished and refuse to surrender. While Doug receives a full samurai training on the island, Morelli and McGee work themselves up to fearsome LA crime lords (illustrated through dozens of shootout sequences) and McGee also aggressively stalks Doug's wife. Dough eventually leaves the island - though not before a cheesy and fake-sentimental farewell to the 2 samurais - and head backs home with only vengeance on his mind. You can say a lot about our pal Cirio H. Santiago, but not that he didn't do his homework and carefully studied action blockbusters of the 70s decade! "Death Force" is a typical product of its time, stuffed with redundant romantic interludes, wannabe groovy music and costumes martial arts. Bad blokes Carmen Argenziano and Leon Isaac are the most familiar faces in the cast, and it shouldn't come too much as a surprise to learn that Q. Tarantino is a big fan of this junk as well.

Wizard-8 What attracted me to this low budget Filipino drive-in movie was its premise, that being the tall and muscular actor James Iglehart wielding a samurai sword and slashing his way through the American mafia on a quest for vengeance. Admit it, that premise sounds pretty cool. However, I didn't think that the movie quite lived up to its potential. The main beef I had with the movie was how the first half of the movie played out. It's kind of slow, and almost totally devoid of real action. Some more action sequences in this part of the movie would have greatly helped. However, once Iglehart makes his way back to America and begins his samurai vigilante antics, things do pick up considerably. Some of the fight sequences are surprisingly good, filled with great energy and some very convincing choreography that really makes you believe the participants are fighting for their lives. Weighing the first half of the movie against the second half, what you end up with is an okay low budget Filipino actioner - far from the worst of its kind, but at the same time you'll see potential that was not quite realized.

Comeuppance Reviews 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.

Darkling_Zeist 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?