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.

This extremely bargain-basement Blaxploitation/Kung-Fu hybrid was in my country released by a questionable DVD label that usually speaking just occupies with the transfer of pure crap onto disc, so that wasn't exactly a favorable herald. Several other titles were released in the same series, like "The Black Six", "The Black Gestapo" and "The Black Godfather" and judging by all their low ratings and negative reviews none of these belong to the elite of the 70's Blaxploitation hype, neither. "TNT Jackson" is a pretty lousy film, completely lacking a significant plot but featuring far too many laughable fighting scenes and horrible acting to compensate. Apparently Roger Corman – never too embarrassed to make some easy money – assigned two of his most loyal acolytes to rapidly invent a simplistic story that would appeal to fans of both oriental Kung-Fu movies and contemporary trendy Blaxploitation flicks. The result Cirio H. Santiago and Dick Miller came up with was "TNT Jackson"; the tale of an arse-whooping black babe traveling to Hong Kong in search of her missing brother. She quickly discovers he was killed by a criminal network of drug-smugglers and swears to avenge him. Mrs. Jackson smoothly infiltrates into the underground and encounters macho pimps, helpful undercover agents, loads of vicious Kung-Fu fighters. Only one thing's for sure; they all want a piece of TNT's ravishing body in one way or another. I sincerely doubt movie concepts get any more elementary than this, but – unfortunately - all the other aspects suck too. The battle scenes are overlong and moreover pathetically staged. Jeannie Bell and the other poor suckers try really hard to stare menacingly and assume a tough position, but eventually all they ever do is kick in the air and stupidly leap across rooms. The cinematography is horrid, the soundtrack is vastly disappointing (whatever happened to soul music?), the few dialogs are poorly written and the acting performances are inferior. Speaking of which, Jeannie Bell is undeniably a beautiful woman, but still she can't hold a candle to Tamara Dobson or Pam Grier. There's only one really good and memorable scene in "TNT Jackson", namely the famous hotel room battle where Bell, entirely naked except for panties, repeatedly switches the light on and off whilst kicking the hell out of some goons. Amusing scene ... I just haven't figured out yet whether it's thanks to the light switch ingenuity or Bell's perfectly shaped breasts.

The stimulating concepts: T.N.T fights 10 men in the streets of Hong Kong; 4 men in her room while she is topless; an attractive blonde woman (Pat Anderson, who is a major hottie and kicks a lot of butt herself). The poor execution: the (occasionally sped-up) fight scenes range from clumsy to REALLY clumsy. Sometimes they look more like playfights; you can HEAR the sound of a hit but you don't SEE any contact. For a former Playboy Playmate, Jeanne Bell is an average-looking woman and her acting is stiff. But at least she's tall, she looks fit and she has the right attitude for this role down pat. As her love interest / main target, Stan Shaw adds the only touch of class to the film, and has all the best lines as well. The production values are dreadful, and the DVD picture quality is on the level of a bad VHS. For a better execution of the same story, I suggest you seek out the same director's "Naked Fist" / "Firecracker", made in 1981. The female lead in that one, Jillian Kesner, actually has some real-life martial arts background, so the fight scenes are much better. (**)

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.