Machines à tuer

They don't really make films like Death Machines anymore and that's a bit of a shame. It seems to have a bit of a mixed reputation if the reviews on here are anything to go by but for me this is an unqualified success on account of just how entertaining it all is. Its story centres on three fighters – the death machines - who are directed by a female crime boss by way of a mind control drug. She then uses them to carry out a series of hit jobs on her enemies. For reasons that remain unexplained, the death machines are bullet proof.

From the outset, you have to give some credit to a film whose three central characters are named in the credits as White Death Machine, Black Death Machine and Asian Death Machine. And you also have to give plus points to a film whose master criminal is an East Asian lady with huge hair. She directs proceedings that amount to a series of scenes of the death machines taking out a variety of shady rival criminals. These set-pieces are connected together, often without much of an explanation. But sometimes sense can be over-rated and sheer nonsense can be so much more fun. I find it hard to understand how so many people can have found this movie boring. As far as I'm concerned, it moved along at a cracking pace and threw plenty of action and insanity at us from start to finish. There are lots of martial arts fights; heads and arms are chopped off; a truck is driven through restaurant window and a bulldozer flattens a man in a phone booth; an aeroplane is taken out by a bazooka; a banker is blown up by a time-bomb and a professional hit-man is thrown off a roof; an assault on a karate school is attempted with predictably action-packed results; there's a biker bar-room brawl; we have a shouting police captain and a 'hero' who is beaten up easily by an angry pensioner. I'm pretty sure there was a lot more than that as well. This is great fun basically.

A friend of mine bought this film for 25 pence and always said it was the worst film ever made. I didn't think it could be that bad. It is. In England it's on video as The Ninja Murders. There's a Chinese woman with a small mouth who seems to be up to something. Lots of ninjas who don't seem to know kung fu from ballroom dancing go around "attacking" other people who seem to have no purpose in the plot. That is if there is a plot. I'm not convinced.

There's one bit where some ninjas attack a fisherman and he disables them by gently pushing them to one side. We see lots of stock footage of a propellor plane landing. I never knew who was on the plane or why. Or what film this footage came from as I'm sure the production team couldn't afford the hire charge on a plane. The last time we see the plane land there is a blond man hiding. At the end of the film he is revealed as Frank. Well, a woman calls him Frank. I assume he was the hero. I don't recall seeing him do anything during the film and I certainly had no idea he was called Frank.

The most interesting thing about the whole movie is the plot summary on the back of the video casing. It says that a new warlord is gaining power and the old warlord is struggling for survival. Apparently they must "fight to the death before the MAIN BATTLE!!". Well i don't recall any warlords, though I suspect the chinese small-mouthed woman may be the new warlord. And don't bother sitting in great gaping-jawed anticipation for any fight to the death or main battle. What fight to the death? What main battle? The film ends with two men at an airport and then the height of all camera tricks is used to show they are a group of three men not two!! Maybe a great twist ending but as these men were about as familiar to me as Frank I had no idea what it all meant. Actually I have no idea what any of it meant or what was going on. I'm still baffled.

The great thing about this film is that you couldn't possibly make a worse film. Even if you tried so hard to make a film on a shoestring budget that was so bad it was unwatchable it would be like The Godfather in comparison to this pile of pants. I would conclude my review with words representing such abominable appallingness that I won't even bother. Avoid at all costs

If you remember the great Lee Marvin movie "Point Blank" you'll recognize the "pipe-smoking assassin" character originally played by James B. Sikking. As you watch "Death Machines" you find yourself constantly reminded of some of the great scenes or clichés you've seen in other movies. It's almost as if the makers just grabbed a handful of as much fun stuff as they could remember from other movies and tossed it all into one. Of course it makes for one very silly and (in that context) very entertaining movie. Can you see actress Mari Honjo actually biting the blood capsule after she is shot? Clearly this is one of the reasons she has never been seen on the screen again. Or anywhere else, at least lately. C'mon, how can you not appreciate a movie with a one-armed bartender?

Hi, Everyone, Oh, Boy... This one is a lulu. It has really bad background music whenever they can squeeze it in. There are three bad guys who, I guess, are the stars of this. They beat people up and chop people up and crash trucks and bulldozers into people. Usual stuff.

The woman who is sending them on their missions is unable to move her mouth when she speaks. It's sort of like watching a bad ventriloquist who is her own dummy. She walks like she is balancing an egg on her head.

The wardrobe is 70s leisure style for the men and blah for the female lead who is supposed to be a good nurse. The bad novocain mouth woman wears red. A silk frock perhaps, or maybe just a poplin windbreaker that is too big.

I actually liked the ending even though it did not make a lot of sense. It lets us in on what happened earlier in the film.

The police officers are OK. Some bad, some good, all stupid except two. The two bright ones could have worked again in Hollywood.

The movie starts interestingly enough and ends with a surprise. The middle sucks. The guy in the diner who gives a free hamburger to the star does a good job. He is like a 1940s character actor. Great voice.

This one is a bit too long. The lady with marbles in her mouth could have had just a couple of lines and the rest could have been said by a parrot. It would have been easier to understand a bird.

Her scene with a sword could have been handled by a trained woodpecker.

Tom Willett

Death Machines. This old classic action film in a kind of tale of a difference...

This movie asks us what the plot is all about? Well basically, it's all to do with these highly trained assassins who work for some mysterious chinese woman who sends them out to terminate anyone who stands in her way...

Have you got it..? Well, to me that film was dull in some parts especially those "machines" that don't even say a word in this film. Yep! They just basically going round killing people left, right and centre..

Another thing that bothers me was that when the film finished, the three men just stood there as they're making their way off somewhere.. I don't know where.. But, as me the viewer, it didn't say "The End" to say that the film has finished. It just plays the music and the men are just standing there like a bunch of bananas..

Well, if you ever see that film, see what you think..? You may the plot but you'll never know the ending...