Deudas de fuego

We need to know the answer. He had been fighting for vengeance for a long time only to be arrested.

Back in the magical 1980s the Filipino Silver Star Company had one big dream: making authentic American action flicks in their own neighbourhood. I mean, who's going to know? Just fly in some token American actors who peaked at least two decades ago, have them say any old action cliché that you can come up with in an afternoon and give it a violent title, it'll work. Unfortunately, the dirt cheap production values and clearly Asian surroundings can occasionally hurt the illusion. Silver Star's favorite token American was without a doubt Richard Harrison, this was the fifth movie he did for the company. By now unfortunately he has tremendous trouble hiding the boredom and disgust he feels for projects like these, which is sad because "Blood Debts" is by far the best Filipino movie he did (whatever that means).

What I love most about "Blood Debts" is that it doesn't take time explaining anything, because there's nothing to explain. You know from the first minute on that it's going to be a "Death Wish" rip-off, you know it will just be Harrison randomly blowing away scum for ninety minutes. Who cares where he went to high school or whether he likes long walks on the beach, it would just eat up murder time. His wife doesn't even have a name and she's in like six scenes. That's basically the main (only?) value these movies have. The makers know they don't have much skill in writing, directing or virtually any aspect of filmmaking, so they go for broke and give the audience exactly what it wants. I can respect that kind of attitude, it makes "Blood Debts" highly enjoyable. Bonus points for the "huh?" of an ending, it's less dumb than the ending to "Fireback" (another Silver Star production with Harrison in the lead) but definitely not by much.

This is one of Silver Star film productions - a Filipino film company that also released a number of other awful films played by their regular stars (Richard Harrison, Bruce Baron, Romano Kristoff) and their list of regular supporting casts (some familiar faces keep on showing up - Mike Monty, Jim Gaines, Don Gordon Bell). During the mid-eighties, Silver Star churned out quite a lot of low-budget low quality trashy action and war films: Fireback, Hunter's Crossing, Rescue Team, Mad Dog, Ninja's Force and Slash (a Rambo rip- off), to name a few. Watching these films, you may be entertained - for the wrong reasons!

Mark Collins (Richard Harrison), an ex-Vietnam veteran turns into a vigilante after witnessing some low-lives killed his daughter in cold blood. However, unknown to him, a ruthless businessman named Bill (Mike Monty) - who is planning to recruit him to do his dirty work - is having him under surveillance while he is going on his vengeance spree. Unable to force him to comply, Bill dispatches his goons to kidnap his beautiful wife. Realizing that his wife is under the mercy of a ruthless businessman, Collins has no other option but to carry out Bill's orders.

Working under cover with a hit woman, who is under the same predicament as he is, Collins begins wiping out everyone on Bill's hit list only to discover eventually that Bill has something up his sleeve for his hired killers.

There are lots of bad things to see: bad acting, bad script, bad directing, everything is just bad. It's plain to see that the writer or producer was inspired by Death Wish II. The first 30 minutes of the plot resembles that movie while the other half extends the plot about the vigilante being under the gun. This film, like all other Silver Star productions, tries very hard to westernize its production design despite the fact that it was made in the Philippines. Unfortunately, however hard they tried, this is still a clunker.

I was a teen when I saw this at the cinema and could even feel how bad it was. However that didn't stop me from watching more films of Silver Star productions because I was expecting to get a good laugh from seeing something so-bad-it's-good.

If this should make its way to DVD, only lovers of 'so-bad-it's- good' movies need watch it. Others stay away!

While a little unevenly paced, Blood Debts delivers as a trashy, Filipino action flick. It offers many of the hallmarks of such a film: poorly acted death scenes, takes that started before the actor realized he should be speaking, camera work that looks like it was done by adolescents, and dialog that is not only delivered poorly but sounds like it hastily written on napkins minutes before the camera rolled.

The plot is ludicrous and offers up plenty of hilarious moments as seemingly every criminal in the Philippines gets a bullet from Harrison. The music sounds like it belongs to a family friendly, Chuck Norris flick even while Harrison is plugging rapists. Most of the characters move with all the grace and fluidity of a bad video game.

It does lag a bit in the middle but the rest of it more then successful enough to consider this a very solid, trashy, actioner.

For those who don't get it, it's a 3. But for those who love the so bad it's good genre, you'll be thoroughly entertained by this steaming loaf of a movie. If you like Samurai Cop, Miami Connection and the like, you'll love blood debts. Especially the ending ;)