david.thomas41

Painful, self-consciously quirky 'comedy' with no plot, failing to tell the story of several idiotic, unlikeable characters and their attempts to find love. One of the 5 worst films I've been unfortunate enough to encounter, and I've seen Sextette and Terror of Tiny Town (look them up and realise the full depths that Damsels In Distress reaches). This isn't even bad in the sense of The Room, where at least the results are laughable - quite the opposite, despite this allegedly being a comedy. The cast is awful, but special mention must go to Greta Gerwig as Violet. On the strength of this un-performance, we can only hope she's never cast in anything else. Save yourselves! Avoid this movie at all costs! Spend your time and money doing something more pleasant, like having a root canal.

American-born director and FX makeup man Steve Wang hooked up with Power Rangers stunt guru Koichi Sakamoto to make Guyver 2, a Japanese manga-inspired sci-fi movie with martial arts. Their next collaboration was Drive, a low-budget hi-tech action movie that has gained quite a following on DVD.

The movie stars Hawaiian martial arts genius Mark Dacascos as Toby, a guy on the run from the evil corporation that killed his girlfriend and implanted him with a 'Bio-engine', a device that gives Toby superhuman strength and speed. Arriving in America he enlists the reluctant help of Malik (Kadeem Hardison) and the two cross America in Malik's increasingly beat-up hot rod. Along the way there are a few laughs, a touch of romance, the occasional shootout and, oh yes, kung fu. Lots and lots of kung fu.

To be honest the plot is really just a way to get from one action scene to the next, but when the action is as good as this who cares? Wang, Sakamoto and Dacascos (is it me or does that sound like the world's weirdest legal firm?) have come up with some of the finest fight action you'll see in a film made outside Hong Kong. Dacascos proves he is every bit as flexible and forceful as Jet Li, Donnie Yen, Jackie Chan and the rest, while fight master Sakamoto is no less talented than Yuen Woo Ping or Cory Yuen Kuei. It's quite sickening that Dacascos is mostly confined to 10th-rate direct to video movies while overweight personal trainers and ballet dancers like Steven Seagull and Jean Claude Van Donut still manage to get cast in big-budget theatrical releases (well, maybe not Jean Claude anymore).

Fans of The Matrix will no doubt get a kick out of the lightning-fast moves and vaguely sci-fi setting (although it's worth noting that this film predates The Matrix by several years). Anyone looking for no-brainer popcorn entertainment that is actually good will also find much to enjoy.

Note: the US release of this film was cut by about 20 minutes and re-scored with a shockingly bad hip-hop soundtrack. The director's cut, available on UK DVD, is much better and worth seeking out.

In the 1980s big video rental chains like Blockbuster had yet to colonise England. If you wanted to rent a movie you strolled down to your local garage (filling station) or off-license (liquor store) and browsed the small rack of abominable direct-to-video trash that passed for entertainment. Once in a while though, and entirely unintentionally, they'd have a real gem; a low budget, DTV classic that actually had a good plot, decent acting and some production value. This is how I discovered ‘Blind Fury'.

Rutger Hauer plays Nick, a soldier blinded by an explosion in some far-flung jungle hellhole. Wandering through the trees he stumbles into a small village, where a wizened old sword Master teaches him to handle a Katana in spectacular fashion.

Years later, Nick is reluctantly pulled into a seedy drug conspiracy. One of his army buddies is blackmailed into producing narcotics for one of those low budget movie rent-a-mob guys. Nick must protect his friend's son from assorted redneck hoodlums and, most entertainingly, ninja movie stalwart Shô Kosugi.

This is a thoroughly entertaining movie with some solid fights (the action choreographer later did Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story), and director Philip Noyce (Patriot Games, The Bone Collector) knows how to shoot an action scene. Above all this movie has a sense of FUN, which makes it such a guilty pleasure.

Oh, and the kid in the movie was later in Baywatch… but don't hold that against him.