Posts Tagged ‘Loren Avedon’

Virtual Combat aka Grid Runners (1995)

Posted: 29/03/2018 in Trash movies
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– “Dragon” Wilson doing his best Liu Kang impersonation!

 As the movies thought us in all the way back in the 80’s the peak achievement of science is bringing a hot virtual woman into the real world. In this movie it’s brilliant Dr. Cameron that develops the procedure that can take a virtual character and imprint it’s consciousness onto the cloned body. Naturally his first choices are characters from the popular CyberSex video game- nice and subservient girl Liana (played by the always charming Athena Massey) and dominatrix called Greta ( Dawn Ann Billings).

Comes equipped with her very own whip!

Besides being a horny old goat Dr. Cameron also has a solid business acumen- he tries to sell his ex- virtual babes to a greedy businessmen Burroughs right away. Unfortunately for him he ends up so caught up in his work that he fails to notice that another VR character is willing himself to a physical form– a final boss of the Virtual Combat game Dante (played by a chiseled, long haired Michael Bernardo). Soon enough Dante kills the old man and I was really sad to see him go, he might have been an old pervert but he sure was a brilliant scientist!

And how does he keep his Video Game powers in a real world exactly?

Now, Dante is none other the character that’s been giving our here Quarry (Don “Dragon” Wilson) nightmares. You see Quarry is a Grid Runner ( a kind of a VR Cop) and he uses all of his free credits on just that game.  He could never get past Dante in the Level 10 of Virtual Combat. And to be honest, I do know how that feels like (’cause I’m that generation that grew up with Sega Mega Drive 2). Naturally a nightmare turns oh too real when Wilson’s partner gets killed by Dante while tracking the girls.

Naturally Wilson vows to avenge his fallen partner even if that means disobeying a direct order by his boss.  To get to the bottom of things he starts fighting anyone and everyone that stands in his way (from the gang members to the cops!) and he even ends up throwing down with none other than suited- up Loren Avedon (The King of the Kickboxers,  No Retreat, No Surrender III) and I must admit going corporate did not diminish his impressive kicking ability one bit! On the flip side he didn’t seem to keen to go running after Wilson so I guess suit does have it’s limitations.

After all the battles he lays low in a shelter where by coincidence he finds a runaway ex-VR girl Liana. He doesn’t immediately realize what he stumbled across but he gets her tracking neckless off of her and soon enough the rest of her clothes too.

Their moment of happiness didn’t last long because Avedon and his goons managed to track him down. Even after putting up a fight Liana ends up captured again and  barely makes it out alive. Then to make things worse it turns out that the leak in the department was his boss all along! So he almost got killed again. Well, at least he managed to  dispose of the Dominatrix Greta vie repeated kicks to the stomach and she evaporated for some reason (I mean you never know with those cloned bodies, they don’t make them the way they used to do).

Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead!

Now, we finally get to the final confrontation and the interesting thing is- Dante speaks only trough the unique form of telepathic narration (Bernardo doesn’t even move his mouth). Something like an omnipotent “Fight!” voice from Mortal Kombat whenever you see him frowning followed by a voice coming from out of nowhere.  Not really the reaction you want your Big Bad of the movie to project.

Now, in spite of all that, Bernardo shows some neat Martial Art movies and his fight with Wilson is good fun (even with all those cheese Special Effects thrown in for good measure) if not exceptional. “Dragon” also does some Bruce Lee tribute jumps and it all ends with badly animated laser blasts. Man, I do miss those in the modern movies.When all is said and done Wilson is back spending his credits on video games (he learned nothing?)- but now he’s using them to hook up with Liana and that’s definitely a better option than more of the Virtual Kombat!

Verdict: Generally, Wilson’s more serious movies tend to get a little dull, so his SF phase actually strikes me as a breath of fresh air. He did more than a few SF movies (Sci-Fighter, Future Kick, Cyber Tracker) but man he should have done a lot more!

And if you want some more Bernardo in your life (this time with his actual voice) there’s a pair of extremely fun and gory MMA style flicks Shootfighter: Fight to the Death and Shootfighter II that paired him up with the Karate Kid’s William Zabka and Hong Kong movie legend Bolo Yeung. Those are awesome as hell!

Trivia: Omnipotent voice is actually Michael Dorn- Worf from Star Trek: Next Generation.  Actually a great choice. Too bad they botched it so much with the dubbing process.

No Retreat, No Surrender 3: Blood Brothers (1990)

Posted: 25/11/2013 in Trash movies, Worse News
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We already covered one of the “crown jewels” of Loren Avedon’s career King of the Kickboxers but it’s time to take a closer look at the movie that propelled him to his short- lived B movie stardom. After launching his career with Corey Yuen’s “classic” “No Retreat No Surrender II” (remember- the first one introduced the world to the awesomeness of Van Damme and his incredible splits) he continued his rise thru the ranks with the sequel. Now, this sequel is mostly a sequel in name only- having completely different tone, and abandoning previous “Tournament”setting for more urban of a urban Kickboxing meets Spy Thriller style.

This dude cracks me up!

Films starts with a fitting quote from Mao Tse Tung of course fallowed by a terrorist action by bunch of ridiculous mustached idiots. Their plan comes undone when one of the hostages turns out to be CIA agent Casey Alexander, man whose kickboxing skills are only overshadowed only by his  over the top facial expressions (ala Erik Roberts). He kills the bad guys and gets the girl (there’s always a girl there somewhere). In the meantime his younger brother Willis beating up some noobs.It turns out those are his students and he is just “preparing them for the street”. I am always shocked and amazed by complete lack of charisma and acting ability by this man! Anyway he is called by his father on his birthday party/ family reunion and he reluctantly agrees.

No.Retreat.No.Surrender 3.1990.DVDRip.XviD BROTHERS BLOOD.avi_000147600Mao said it best…

He arrives at the birthday in an old Volkswagen Beetle and ripped up jeans with some Communist insignia. Hmm… I’m wondering if the Chinese director is trying to tell us something here. Anyways, kudos for sneaking in thing like that in something that is an American production. He then menages to get into an argument with his rich CIA brother and quickly leaves. After the party’s over a new party begins as the old man faces bunch of assassins who look like Ninja Bee Gees in his very home and he even menages to kill one of them.Unfortunately he menages to die by flying out of the window like a freakin’ cannonball in one of the many hilarious highlights of this movie. His killer is devious Franko, a man that can be best described as am albino mulleted mongoloid.

Avedon returns home but it’s already too late, his father’s carcass is floating in the family pool. He then has a dramatic, tearful scene with his older brother and I painfully realize that his Keith Vitally is just as terrible actor as Avedon himself, hell maybe even more so! Next thing we see is a funeral and the FBI brother who gets a tap on his back via one of his superiors with words like “he was my partner and my best friend”. We momentarily realize that this man was in fact responsible for the murder… yeah cliches galore in this one!

Avedon journeys to Hawaii to have his revenge and his brother tries to track him down (unfortunately it seems CIA didn’t train him enough cause he fails miserably). First thing Avedon does is find a local dojo and gets into the fight with the friends Martial Artist he has here (how convenient). After blowing some steam they use their prowess and also their acting skill to get Avedon into a gang that they suspect is responsible for the murder. The less said about the way they manage to do that- the better. He ends up being rapidly inducted into the gang with his first mission to… KILL HIS BROTHER! No, I am not making this shit up.

After a disastrous “fake” subduing of his brother, the boss finally figures thing out (he’s no the head of operation for nothing) and starts torturing the brothers and the random girl the older brothers is having sex with when he’s in Hawaii (how conveniant). After being electrocuted the devious plan of CIA agent and Albino dude is finally clear, they want to use Avedon to kidnap the Ambassador of Mozambique and make a diversion which they’ll later use to FUCKIN’ BLOW UP THE PRESIDENT WITH A BAZOOKAA! These men aren’t thinking small.

No.Retreat.No.Surrender 3.1990.DVDRip.XviD BROTHERS BLOOD.avi_004907800

Of course they have a hiccup in their plan and that’s older brother Casey freeing himself and threatening their whole plan. Then finally two brothers team up and put all the evil folks thru their Martial Art blender. It’s also fun to note that the Lowe, the director desperately tried to tone down his usual sensibilities and make fight scenes a bit more in American Karate/ Kicboxing style opposed to over the place Chinese Wire- Fu but it’s like he said “fuck it” in this last scene and went over… and out.

Notice the joyful death of Franko, the albino killer!

Verdict: Director Lucas Lo shows everything that was wrong in Hong Kong cinematography of the 80’s/ 90’s in one place. And Avedon- well he proves why he was never propelled to the stardom of his dreaded nemessis Jean Claude Van Damme.

Trivia: Same director and lead actor had another team up not long after and that resulted in probably the most over the top Martial Arts film of all times- King of the Kickboxers. If you missed it- you enjoy the review here.

PS Loren is having a comeback of sorts these days acting in Frank Caruso’s vehicle Risk Factor and the movies seems like something you can watch straight after NR NS III without spiking a beat.