TNT Jackson

Movies from the 1970's were different and much not to the norm and true they had plenty of action and the skin scenes and nudity combined with violence made most of them a real eye candy treat to watch. This low budget 1974 film "TNT Jackson" fits all of those themes. It featured "Playboy" playmate Jeanne Bell as TNT Jackson in this blaxploitation take which has her to travel from Harlem to Hong Kong to look for her missing brother who has gotten himself in trouble with the mob and this world involves the mob and plenty of violence. Miss Jackson poses and goes undercover as a prostitute in order to find out some information along the way this film is a fun eye candy treat of sex, nudity and action which includes topless karate. Good watch to pass a little time a nice fun independent film that gets right into it and doesn't take itself to serious.

Now any Blaxploiation fan will recognise the ingredients: big Afros, topless babes, surreally bad fashions and some 'jive' talk. In this case add in a lead who can't act, a plot that makes little sense, editing by someone with no hands who has been blindfolded and the most god-awful fight scenes and you have 'TNT Jackson'. Not quite bad enough to be good, but not good enough to be bad, this is a wonderful mess from start to finish. I especially loved the endless continuity errors and the lead's white stunt double.

This is so '70s bad Far Eastern martial arts meets black power that it hurts, but boy it hurts so good! I am ashamed to admit that I almost enjoyed it.

I managed to pick this up in a sale for one pound; thought it looked like a laugh and bought it.

Just finished watching it and would thoroughly recommend it to blaxploitation/kung fu/trash movie fans. The dialogue is frequently laughable, the plot is predictable, and there are some bad editing and post-production flaws in dubbing. Effects are generally pants, except for one slow motion sequence with butterfly knives; which I particularly liked. You also have a dodgy sex scene.

But on the other hand, the action scenes are pretty good with some innovative sequences and 'special moves'. The music is also great especially for fans of groove/funk.

This movie has everything you'd expect from a trashy kung fu movie- crime lords, Afros, revenge, flares and of course EVERYONE knows a bit of kung fu. It's only about 60 minutes long and if you can pick it up on the cheap then do so!

In a giant sea of blaxploitation films, "TNT Jackson" doesn't stand out from the crowd other than its setting and gender of the protagonist..and its copious nudity. Otherwise, it's a standard cheap action film of the 70s and not a lot more.

Ex-playboy model Jeannie Bell stars as TNT Jackson, a lovely lady from Harlem who has ventured to the worst part of Hong Kong in order to discover what's happened to her brother. Apparently, he got on the bad side of a organized drug ring...and she soon gets their attention. To help her is a local Chinese man as well as an undercover federal agent.

The martial arts are spotty...though the double who does all the acrobatics for TNT was very good and it's very hard to tell that a double was used...so kudos for the director for this. Unfortunately, in the close combat scenes, they are spotty...from pretty good to pretty bad. As for the story...it's all pretty tandard stuff apart from the setting (Hong Kong). For fans of the genre, this one in't bad but it certainly won't convert anyone to the genres of blaxploitation or martial arts.

A young woman nicknamed "T.N.T." for being virtual dynamite in a fight and a knockout in terms of looks to boot, goes to the most lawless part of Hong Kong in search of her missing brother Stag Jackson. When she learns he has been murdered, she decides she will bring the killer to justice in a fashion only she can.

Sounds good, doesn't it. Well, there's really nothing wrong with the basic premise as a starting base for a martial arts/blaxploitation action thriller, which is what this aims to be. The leads actually prove pretty good too with Jeanne Bell fitting nicely into the role of "T.N.T." and Stan Shaw doing well as the ambitious, power-hungry Charlie. Where this fails miserably is in terms of the fighting action it offers up. The fight scenes are totally and completely unconvincing and/or sometimes so completely over the top it reaches the point of ridiculousness which doesn't at all help when the basic focus of your movie is a Kung Fu action heroine. Also the poor lighting, actors sporting accents making them hard to understand, the confusing camera-work and the sometimes poor sound doesn't help this obvious low budget effort out either any. This does deliver in one area which may delight some fans, it does offer up plenty of the T in "T & A", in fact practically every fight scene in the film is proceeded by some type of nude scene and Jeanne Bell actually does have one extended fight scene in which she is completely topless.

In the end, this fails to be something you want to revisit because the fight scenes are so pathetically, laughingly bad.