Low Blow

My review was written in April 1986 after a screening at UA Twin theater in Manhattan.

In "Low Blow", filmmakers Leo Fong and Frank Harris (who previously teamed on "Killpoint") reduce an action picture to its basic elements: fights, shootouts and simple delivery of expository dialog, with tedious results. This test of an audience's patience was filmed in Stockton, California, under the title "Savage Sunday".

Fong, who also produced and scripted for his Action Communications banner, toplines as private eye Joe Wong, an ex-cop who is hired by rich guy Templeton (Troy Donahue, looking like he's been to a nearsighted barber) to bring his daughter Karma (Akosua Busia).

Fong spends most of the film killing time by staging tough man contests and otherwise recruiting a team to go in and rescue the girl. Script fails to establish the evilness of the cult (other than their hypnotizing and seemingly drugging kids to keep them), but Fong & Co. Go in and kill the cult's guards anyway in ruthless fashion. Karma shoots Yurakunda (bad guy Cameron Mitchell), but her fate is just another loose end.

Sole point of interest in this clunker is the presence of Akosua Busia, actress whose next role after this in "The Color Purple" earned her an Oscar nomination. She is funny, vivacious and ultimately a bit touching in the stock, evil dragon lady role. This film won't appear on her resume, but it's a wild performance nonetheless. Busia's thesping contrasts with that of Fong and the rest of the players, who are strictly monotone. In fact, many of the smaller roles look like they're being filled with pals who work out with Fong at the local gym.

I wouldn't be surprised if this movie was made on a $500 budget with its bad acting an ultra poor sound quality. I bought the DVD for $3.00, and after watching it I felt like I had payed $2.95 too much.

The DVD cover displays a steroid freak (main character), a huge truck and a group of 80's punk rockers with M16 machine guns. Well, in the actual movie, there was no truck, no 80's punks and the main character was far from a steroid freak.

The most enjoyable thing about this movie was the main character's bomb car and his mad parking techniques, but other than that it's a complete waste of time. Although this movie is a great cure for insomnia, my advice would be to avoid it.

The bootless trio from the annoyingly haired 'Killpoint' is back : director Frank Harris, and 'stars' Leo Fong and Cameron Mitchell. A triumvirate of terrible. Harris in particular, should be ashamed of himself.

'Low Blow' isn't as sick, racist or downright nasty as 'Killpoint' - and that's it. It's just as amateur, vacant, irritating and soul-destroying in every other regard. Fong, despite slightly improved hair, drudges through this all-out dog's breakfast like a stop-motion clog.

A ridiculous, dozy cult led by Mitchell in a hood and sunglasses; and - the film's only plus-point - dishy but demented disciple, Akosua Busia, have kidnapped some girl and are brainwashing her on a farm. It's up to somnambulant Fong and a few bumpy grunts to rescue her.

All Fong films' selling point is chiefly the fact he knew Bruce Lee, but so did a lot of other people. I met Sir Michael Hordern once, but I don't go around doing Lear at the Old Vic.

You may ask - justifiably - why even watch this turnip ?

Good question.

Private dick Leo Fong is hired by millionaire Troy Donahue to rescue his runaway heiress daughter from Cameron Mitchell's pan-theistic "Universal Enlightenment" cult. Mitchell calls himself "Yarakunda", has a pentagram on his cheek, a red dot on his forehead, a cross around his neck, wears big Jim Jones sunglasses, dresses like a druid and hardly ever stands up during the entire film, so you know he means business, or possibly wasn't paid enough to actually act. Oh yes, and he's also blind, which means his Godly visions are more better than yours, so there. But Fong means business too! The sign on his office door reads: "Joe Wong, Private Investigator, Bounty Hunting, Conflict Management, Kung-Fu Fighting Lessons and World Headquarters of the Wei Kuen Do Association". (and yes, that's supposed to be funny) When he's not blasting away scumbags at his local deli ("Hey, forget the ham sandwich!"), taking down redneck purse snatchers, or deflating stereotypes about Chinese food and Asian drivers in Big American Cars, he's rounding up a motley team of specialists to aid him on the rescue mission by staging a tough man contest that attracts ninjas, kung-fu masters, Hispanic knife-fighters, black boxers, redneck purse snatchers and a female bodybuilder in red panties. Really. Frank Harris' direction here is a very slight improvement over his work on KILLPOINT, but it's Fong's screenplay that saves the day, using popular contempo action/buddy movie clichés to buttress his rather loopy main story. The puzzler here is real-life Ghanian princess Akosua Busia, who squanders the goodwill she engendered in Steven Spielberg's THE COLOR PURPLE by appearing here as Mitchell's conniving, sadistic daughter-slash-wife. Fortunately, her career would survive. One the plus side, Fong kicks Billy Blanks' ass, puts his foot THROUGH another man's head, and cuts the roof off a Mercedes-Benz hiding three goons who apparently can't find the door handles during the several minutes it takes Fong to run around the car cutting the roof supports. Hilarious stuff!

Cameron Mitchell's career is varied to say the least. One minute he's Minessota Clay, next he's a crazed gangster in Medusa, or a cop in The Nightmare Never Ends. If it was possible to speak to him today, I'd set myself down next to him at a bar, slide him a beer and say "Hey Cam, what was the easiest gig you ever did?" Unfortunately he can't answer, but I'm sure he would have said: "Probably that martial arts film where I didn't even need to get out of a seat, wore sunglasses, mumbled a lot, and groped a young actress." That film would be Low Blow, an action film starring Mitchell (who was an ex-special forces bar man in Codename Vengeance), Leo Fong, with an appearance by Stack Pierce (of Pyshic Killer 'fame'). Fong is an ex-cop turned PI, who seems to spend his time dealing with endemic street crime in San Francisco. While he's out kicking the heads in of two bag snatchers, he's spotted and hired by businessman John Templeton, in order to rescue his daughter from a cheesy new age cult (led by Mitchell (who played a crap cop in The Demon), but run with an iron fist by his daughter/wife!). Mitchell (who was a slick businessman in Memorial Valley Massacre), who wears sunglasses, a hooded robe, and a star on his cheek, seems oblivious to all the armed guards and beating and rambles on about the meek and says 'Blessed' a lot.

Fong pays a visit to the cult's plantation and immediately gets into bother with hired goons hanging around the place. He ends up rescuing a dude but reckons he's gonna need back up to get the businessman's daughter back, and you know what that means, right? Correct: A fairly pointless fighting competition, complete with Stack Pierce, ninjas, and a strong woman. Gang assembled, they all head off for a final showdown at the plantation (which involves needlessly killing hired goons whom, up until that point, had hardly hurt anyone.

You won't get much in the way of gore in this film (except for the bit where Fong stamps his foot right through a guy's face!) as Low Blow is played more for laughs than anything. This is just as well, as some of the acting is dodgy to say the least (especially Fong's secretary). Mitchell as usual just falls into the roll smoothly (he always seems to be enjoying himself, which is why I enjoy most films he's in), put I wouldn't put this high up on your list of films to see. It's good enough, but no classic, that Low Brow film.