"That's a good bet." SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO

I picked up this and Universal Soldier out of the bargain bin at Wal Mart for $11 the other day.

"That time i heard you Coming!" *tee-hee*

Dolph- "Whuu?"

Also Dolph's delivery makes it sound like he doesn't understand what he's saying(or maybe he just doesn't understand what he's saying)

*after brandon makes that lame turkey basting joke when they're being electrocuted*

Dolph- "HAHAHAHAHA! YEAH! Fuck youuuuu!"

Love this film. Love the way that young yakuza cat says to Dolph in the tea house " Youz gut a probleem bucka!?!?! " holding the butterfly knife up.

The Wal-mart by my house had Universal Soldiers for $5.50
lol

I would love to see how long the actual script for "Showdown" is. The movie is less than 80 minutes and it is basically all fight scenes and shootouts. Hollywood, if you're listening, make a few more like this.

I don't like to use the term masterpiece a lot, especially after a first viewing, but when I see a movie such as Showdown In Little Tokyo I have no choice but to. Some of the best lines have already been mentioned before but that fact we get "That time I heard you coming" and " Kenner, just incase we get killed, I wanted to tell you that you have the biggest dick I've ever seen on a man. " in about a five minute time span is just amazing. How can a movie have that much awesome in such a short amount of time? There's also a shocking amount of man ass (including Dolph)!

My one problem with it is that they weren't able to find a more convincing body double for Tia Carrere. I'm not complaining because every little bit of nudity in a film like this helps, but it took me out of the film it was so bad.

Poor Angel. All she wanted to do was get it on with Yoshida while his buddies watched. For this she is beheaded?

I'll tell you how long it was! The shooting script is 95 pages and includes a longer opening scene featuring Kenner's former Japanese partner Eddie Yosuto.

There's also a chase scene after the Japanese bath scene where Dolph and Brandon go after the fleeing yakuza, it ends up in an action scene set in a mall (Lester going COMMANDO again?).

Not sure what exactly happened in the editing room but I think Warner Bros wasn't too happy about the movie (and released it in a mere 140 screens). Rumor also has it that Dolph and Brandon did have disagreements with Mark Lester.

I also have an older version of the script (104 pages) that had a slightly different storyline and had a more serious tone to it, less tongue in cheek (and maybe aiming to be closer to BLACK RAIN)...

JOX, I saw...Showdown In Little Tokyo in theaters, and it is...Awesome! Cary Tagawa is absolutely an...EEEEEEEEEEEEEvil villain, Tia Cararre is properly beautiful, and our heroes...Dolph and Brandon, kicked all kinds of tail, and were...Excellent.

LUCKY YOU!!! (and released during the same summer as T2 and POINT BREAK how can you beat that?!)

I have to hunt down a DVD version of Showdown in Little Tokyo. I used to have it on VHS. Along with Tango and Cash, Showdown in Little Tokyo is one of the best buddy/cop movies to come out of the late-80s/ early-90s.

You can find the DVD real cheap, especially used on sites like Amazon. Unfortunately it's a really no frills DVD. Full frame and not even a trailer.

I'm hoping it'll get a Blu-Ray upgrade at some point just like we're finally getting with JOHNNY HANDSOME this week.

I love the line Brandon Lee has--can't remember exactly what it is--but he has a speech outside of the Yakuza club that ends with him saying (paraphrase) "Now let's go kick ass and then eat sushi off those naked chicks!" Lee sells the line with great enthusiasm.

It depresses me to think about how big a star Brandon Lee could have been if he hadn't been killed on the set of The Crow.

Agreed. He had the martial arts chops for sure, but he also had a great charisma and downright acting ability that most action guys don't have.

He's certainly better than John Cena or Huey Long.

Agreed. Showdown, The Crow and Rapid Fire were my holy trinity of Brandon awesome when I was a young uber-fan of his. God damn I was gutted the day he died.

Isn't this the flick with a naked Tia Carrere? Ah, fuzzy mid 90s HBO memories...

Most obvious body double I've ever seen.

perk

Naked Tia Carrere?

AND Brandon/Dolph?

Nice.

Yeah right up there with the Halloween-party-bag-level rubber hand the bikie loses to the samurai sword.

Well, technically it's Howie Long. I happen to know that as I'm a big American Football fan and I'm familiar with him as a player and as a television host. You don't want to confuse him with Huey Long, a Louisiana governor from the '30s who supported a populist method of government. But anyway, yeah Firestorm was unfortunate and the fact that it got a wide theatrical release when Showdown only barely got released makes me shake my head.

Sure, SILT is goofy to the extreme and has obvious flubs and flaws in it, but it's so damn entertaining and has such a quick pace to it, I'd punch my grandmother in the mouth to see a director's cut of this, and in Blu-Ray at that. Ok, maybe I wouldn't do that to granny, but I'd love to see it one day.

Finished re-watching this classic earlier with my friend who hadn't seen it before, and it's still as great as I remember.

Hilarious bits like Brandon Lee just walking by in the beginning as his introduction, and his quick warming up to Dolph "Despite that I like you." are great.

I really hope that there will be an uncut Blu-ray release sometime. It's 76 glorious minutes of action and electric guitar beats.

There's a scene where all the gangs in the area meet up, and it's priceless. Every gang is basically a different ethnic stereotype: latin cholos in flannel shirts and Locs, black guys in doo-rags and wifebeaters, and shirtless Yakuza guys.

Showdown In Little Tokyo falls in that area with The Last Boy Scout and Tango & Cash where I really wish there was more of a demand for a better DVD. At least, the other two get widescreen versions with trailers though.

I wish studios like Warner Bros. just had a smaller department specifically made up of genre movie enthusisasts who could go through their archives and put together DVD special editions that could rival the kind of work that Anchor Bay was doing for awhile. Well, a boy can dream. Warner actually has quite an amazing catalog of 80's/90's action flicks (nearly the entire Seagal theatrical filmography, most of Stallone's less-succesful but still memorable action catalog, Eraser, the Lethal Weapon series, Bloodsport, Passenger 57, Action Jackson, etc.) and with just a little bit of effort, they could have an even more lucrative answer to the Weinstein Co.'s Dragon Dynasty collection. Instead we get the same transfers used over and over again for countless double, triple, and quadruple features.

Some with just full-screen transfers instead of their original anamorphic widescreen transfers.

I'm really glad I got the original double feature of The Specialist/Assassins, as the newer one only has the fullscreen transfers.

Warner Bros. would make a lot of money off of us if they actually used your brilliant idea, Jim.

A Stallone/Russell commentary on Tango & Cash would be AMAZING!

The SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO Region 2 disc is widescreen (with trailer)!

Yeah, I have that one. It's kinda annoying to have to go out of region for a widescreen version, but at least it's available.

That region 2 disc does sound enticing. If only it had a Dolph/Mark Lester audio commentary.

Well, I'm realistic enough to think the budget they'd get probably get wouldn't be enough to get a commentary track but I'd definitely support something along those lines.

Action is a weird genre to me because the movies cost so much to make and there is generally a lot more star power involved and a more mainstream audience but it just doesn't have the shelf life or audience demand like a lot of other genres, especially horror. You can get films like The Monster Squad or Night Of The Creeps or even smaller pictures with these jam-packed special editions but outside of the most succesful in the Schwarzenegger, Willis, Stallone filmography, you have next to nothing in action. It's particularly noticeable at Warner Bros. who own the rights to some of the finest action flicks of the era and feel no need to double dip. I guess the feeling is these movies will sell better sharing disc space with one another on a low-priced triple feature than putting more money into creating new editions. I mean, how in the fuck did Lethal Weapon never get a decent boxed set? Well, given Mel's latest antics, it's not hard to imagine why we won't see anything of that nature now, but given that WB not only has all the classic titles from their catalog but New Line's as well, I'm thinking if they put a good campaign behind them, they could really have something. Oh well. Just a thought.

That is something that I've never thought of, and would actually make a good write up. You're right about horror movies, Jim. Those are the ones that get the "star" treatment in having packed release, and those are usually films that were flops, or like Showdown In Little Tokyo, only had small releases and never went wide.

Action movies on a whole are usually pretty successful (especially the ones in the 80's and the early 90's) so it's confusing that those wouldn't have better dvd/Blu-ray releases.

I imagine that there's less of a hardcore action fanbase. There are horror conventions all over the place, but there's basically only the one action convention, and that just started up right?

Horror fans will buy that stuff over and over again, less so with the older action movies I'd think.

Yeah, I think anything from the 70's-late 80's in horror would get fans to re-buy for even the slightest new feature.

The new umpteenth edition of The Evil Dead that is coming out next month has 2 new features. It's first release on Blu-ray, as well as a brand new audio commentary that finally has Bruce Campbell, Sam Raimi, and Robert Tapert on the same track.

I only have the older widescreen release, but since this is essentially a Blu-ray port of the "Ultimate Edition" dvd set that also contains the original full frame ratio as well as the widescreen version, I'll be picking it up. Other people have bought EVERY version of it out there.

Horror movies just have "it" and can have many conventions with all the actors/directors/craft service guys and yeah, action movies don't really have the kind of stuff that can really be turned into fodder for the convention circuit.

Although Vernon Wells would make a killing showing up at signings dressed as Bennett.

I'd really love for their to be an action convention. That action fest, festival that just started (you were right about that, neo) is a good start.

Action movies need conventions too! At least have a horror con that also doubles as an action con. There's something for everyone.

Well, there is definitely more of a strong cult following to horror films but action films tend to have more universal appeal. Lots of non-genre fans will watch action films and I think that's where the "shelf life" thing comes into play. There's a lot of action films that have gotten "special edition" treatment on DVD when they made their video/DVD debut that I'm pretty convinced would never get that kind of treatment if they came out earlier and the studio actually had to dig some of this stuff up.

Perhaps with horror, it's a little easier since rounding up horror stars who regularly do conventions is a little easier but in the case of Warner, it may just be a lack of time to care. Where having Stallone, Willis, Schwarzenegger, or Kurt Russel rounded up for commentraies, documentaries, etc. for movies that probably weren't the highlight of their careers might be too expensive and time-consuming for its own good, you still have so much Steven Seagal stuff lying around that paying him a few bucks to take some time off from whatever DTV flick he's filming couldn't be too much of a challenge. Lionsgate tends to be more audience-friendly in that regard. In the case of something like Passenger 57, I'd be happy to just get the TV scenes as an added feature.

It is but you gotta do what you gotta do. I've got DVDs imported from all over the world to get the best editions of some movies.

In that case I forgot to mention the Region 1 has a few cuts I believe.