That last one was something of a classic, a true cult film and a showcase for what the man and myth (and Canon) could do. Worlds started opening up for Van Damme at this point, his star began to climb: he was a man who could kick, and starred in a big action movie, there's always a space for that on the videostore shelves. This coincided with a rise in a supposed "Ninja Phenomenon" that I am thoughtlessly regurgitating here. To be fair, people were getting the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a lot of Godfrey Ho stuff was being pumped out, cartoons and shows seemed to have a ninja character, the classic "Neuromancer" told tales under a sky tuned to the channel of television static with a ninja bodyguard against the backdrop of "the rise of Japan" (a common thing in fiction of the 80s to be fair, Zaibatsus and "Japanese Superpower" are common tropes in cyberpunk.) Hell, I distinctly remember watching a movie on telly as a kid where a purple-clad ninja uses handguns to slide down the cable of a lift and I can never remember what it was, and may have hallucinated it. If you know which movie that is, I would be extremely grateful.
Credit: Rotten Tomatoes. Holy fuck it may be "The Phantom"!
The king of these was Sho Kosugi: he starred in the utterly ridiculous Canon trilogy of "Enter the Ninja", "Revenge of the Ninja" (the best one, a hilariously good trash time), and "Ninja 3: The Domination", and was something of a cult B-movie star of his own niche at the time (I like him in "Blind Fury" - that movie's fun if you get a chance). This is a vehicle for him, and for his son Kane Kosugi (who would later appear in "Cat's Eye", "Godzilla Final Wars" and "DOA: Dead or Alive" - fuck yeah), coming at the tail end of the ninja craze in 1988... Our man Van Damme gets to play the villain here!
I give you, after much preamble: "Black Eagle".
(Photo Credit: Rotten Tomatoes, and apparently every dad's video shelf)
So, the concept!
A plane goes down over Malta, and it has a missile guidance system aboard. The Americans want it, but so do the Russians. The Russians (under Colonel Klimenko) have sent their best man (our boy!) Andrei to retrieve it; so does CIA bigwig Rickert (William Bassett)
(Jim Houseman from "Metal Gear Solid"! He only died last year, bloody hell. RIP Dude.)
Not to be outdone: they need to send their best man: Ken "Black Eagle" Tani (Sho Kosugi) to go get it, but he's on his mandatory holiday with his kids: thus they scoop up his two sons (Kane and Shane Kosugi, no notes on naming your children there Sho: perfect) to join him in Malta, make a holiday of it, and beat the Russians to the prize! He is accompanied by a reticent former agent/priest (Bruce French) and a current agent (Doran Clark), on a wacky Bond-esque race to the jet!
This fucking sucks as a premise. If you told me this was a knock-off of a knock-off (like a Weng Weng movie, or an Italian copyright case waiting to happen), which had somehow found its way to the desk of Sho Kosugi's agent, I'd believe you. I'm 400% certain that Kosugi did this not to make a family comedy or spy movie, but to hang out with his kids, so it gets a point for that:
But when I'm getting a Sho Kosugi movie, I at least want a premise where I am guaranteed he'll kick some ass, especially if I'm doing a Van Damme movie night and the premise is "he's the goon." But more on that later.
Concept: 2 (I'm generous because him being with his kids is wholesome)
Execution.
Fuck me.
Alright, aside from summing it up with that admittedly awesome image, I'll let you know now that that colour grade and tone is what you're in for. This film commits the worst possible sin, particularly for "dad-violence" action movies and Van Damme kick-athons with Sho Kosugi as a super spy, in that it's incredibly dull. We mostly have half-hearted "Casino Royale" spy shenanigans in the hotel, and the action sequences are Sho Kosugi luring a guy round a corner, shivving him, and maybe a half-finished martial arts fight WITHOUT MUSIC. I have taken the liberty of taking screen shots for you here:
Hell yeah, right?!
That comes an hour and ten minutes in, lasts maybe a minute, and isn't even the final fight. The majority of the movie is this:
And then shots of Malta.
Plus it makes other weird choices too: our hencheman Andrei (Van Damme) keeps flirting with a nice lady on the Russian boat, and they seem to get along! He seduces her, and they get to hook up, but then in the finale (spoilers I guess) he saves her life when the boat explodes, and there's been this whole "honorable henchman" fight going on between him and Kosugi, the kind of thing which is part and parcel in these movies (immaculately done in "Hard Boiled" and "The Raid"), only for Kosugi to attach Andrei to a boat propellor and mince him in the water, and for the love interest to scream. It's weirdly off-kilter and unpleasant.
And our hero finds the plane 45 minutes in, gets the thing and gives it to Rickert, and the mission should be over! Only Rickert pulls a new objective out of his arse, the two kids get sent home (thus even tossing out the potential conflict of Kosugi having to go and do spy stuff in time to get back to his holiday with kids he doesn't see enough of, which the movie has been attending with the effort of an AI advocate writing something) and the movie spins its wheels further, remembering that we're supposed to have a battle between martial artists at some point.
Stellar work, straight out of the choreography of a Danny Dyer fight in a car park.
The closest I get to good filmaking is the beginning when we get a contrast between the CIA outpost and the KGB ones:
They look like a poorer, grittier outpost (likely a result of the lower budget) and then we meet Rickert in a restaurant ordering wine. I'll fucking take it.
Execution: 1.
Charm.
Okey dokey, there are a couple of... standouts.
Aside from that, I do get a little bit of glee from seeing the most conspicuous henchmen yet, pictured here spying on the heroes in the airport of Malta:
Brilliant, I kind of respect the audacity there, that's actually a baller move. Just you guys wait, we have an entry coming later which is even more brazen...
I suppose we do get Van Damme chasing Sho with a bit of wood ala Shaun's stepdad Phillip after 2 kicks and some circling 20 seconds into their fight, which does make me giggle:
The finest in "kids on the playground" choreography.
Charm: 2.
Villain Time!
i cannot remember the name of the main villain, or even if he died at the end, and I am writing the review... I suppose Van Damme plays the villain's henchman, but there isn't enough of him:
Him, and the bit of wood are the best bits to me, you can watch his scenes online, and your cup of tea will still not have finished brewing.
Villain: 1.
So the score stands at 6.
Bonus points round!
We get splits:
And here:
There is a sex scene, but Van Damme doesn't get his arse out, so what's the point? And there are no other collaborators: he never worked with Kosugi again, which is a shame, they deserved a chance to kick some ass.
Final Score: 7.
A disappointing effort, and a stumbling block in terms of potential, but they can't all be winners, and I'm glad we're getting them out of the way early...
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