Fatal Blade: Conexão Yakuza

Everyone says this movie is awful. They rightfully say so. Gary Daniel's previous movies do range from terrible to good cheesy fun. (The fight scenes are the best thing about his "good" films.) I knew this movie wasn't gonna be that great, but I never thought it would actually have a worse script than BLOODMOON and COLD HARVEST. (These two are his best films because of their excelent fight coordination.) The film makers didn't even know what was going on. It's like the whole cast and crew was wandering around not knowing what to do in this film. However, the action is great. Akihiro Noguchi of COLD HARVEST returns to direct the fight scenes, and even has help from Koichi Sakamoto of DRIVE. If there was more action though, and if it was longer, (It's not painfully short.) that would have been better. The scenes just seemed too short for their own good. (Similar to the problem in the FATAL FURY anime series which had awesome but short fight scenes) Gary Daniels even gets to exchange a few blows with veteran stuntman James Lew. But after those few kicks and punches, he's down like a sack of potatoes. Even George Cheung was once again wasted. (He's a great martial artist, but his skills are BARELY used in the MARTIAL ARTS films he's in. What exactly is up with that.) THe sound effects weren't the best either. Punches and kicks seemed too quiet. (And I don't think they were going for the same effect like in CROUCHING TIGER) But whoever this Kiyoshi Nakajo is, who makes his US debut as Domoto, he rocks. He has an awesome screen presense, and handles a sword masterfully. He was the best actor in this whole film, and made it worth watching even more. Another intersting aspect of this film is that A great portion of it is in Japanese too. THat was a very good idea to have a film in English and Japanese, as it gave a good mix. The Japanese scenes were better acted than the English ones. I suggest renting this movie on one dollar day when you have nothing better to do, and just skip to the action scenes. I personally can't get enough of martial arts action, and weather the movie is good or not, as long as it features good fight choreography, it's worth watching.

Ok... I know it's with Gary Daniels, but I didn't know it would be THAT bad. It's basically a traditional east-meet-west yakuza crime action stinker set in the US. Sounds interesting? It's not. Gary Daniels "performance" is actually the best about this crap (and I hate him). Lame plotting, dull action and bad acting. Stay away!!!!

Aussie fight performer Gary Daniels has long lived with some form of mental illness that convinced him he could act. Every time I see one of his films (usually by accident, one of those rental-store boxes with only the title on it), I think to myself, "gosh, this guy couldn't have made any movies before, he's such an amateur." But unfortunately, he's made quite a few, and hasn't learned a dam' thing working in any of them.

This is his best film, exactly because he plays a character somewhat peripheral to the real protagonist, a Japanese hit-man out to clean up a renegade band of Yakusa operating in the US. He's played by Kiyoshi Nakajo who, surprisingly, almost never made a movie before. His performance is superb; precisely, his performance IS the film.

I ask all Gary-Daniels-haters to set aside their (entirely justified) animosity for the Aussie wannabe, long enough to watch the performance by Kiyoshi Nakajo. He makes his character believable, which adds credibility to a sometimes silly - but sometimes surprisingly suspenseful - crime story.

Not only have I enjoyed the movie on that basis alone, but now two or three times. Not a classic, but not your typical Gary Daniels disaster either. Definitely Kiyoshi Nakajo's film - and he earns it.

Fatal Blade has some of the best fights, Than Most of the other Gary Daniels films I've Seen Besides (Black Friday, and Bloodmoon). I like the idea of Making a little war to where east meets west, With china and the local crime lords of L.A., and having The LAPD put right in the middle. This is not the best Daniels film. However any Gary Daniels film that has been made, is alot better than any s*** that you see on the big sceen. This means that people should start putting his movies on the big sceen, and not wasting time with Action Stars who don't show what action is about.

This film falls into the Action Channel late night "guilty Pleasure" zone.

It's derivative in many ways, but I agree with another reviewer here that what made it sort of interesting is that more than half of it was subtitled in Japanese.

What separated it from the norm a little was the impressive screen presence of Kiyoshi Nakajo, as a mysterious Yakuza swordsman, who helps a woman find her sister's killer (played in a nasty but quasi-comical manner by Victor Rivers, the smarmy guy with the thin moustache who was part of Eddie Murphy's con artist posse in "The Distinguished Gentleman"). There's also Martial Artist Gary Daniels, not the best actor around (I sort of lump him into the Daniel Bernhardt category) but has great fight moves. I agree the fight sound was muted for my tastes. I had never heard of or seen Kiyoshi Nakajo prior to this film. He is apparently very popular in Japan. He sort of emanates that conflicted "brooding" Chow Yun Fat thingie (think "The Replacement Killers") which says a lot because his dialogue was all in Japanese. But I found him very intriguing to watch. Think of a Japanese Lee Van Cleef. Stern, quiet, face says it all. Senses his LA Yakuza brother is up to no good.

Kiyoshi is a bit older than the rest of the actors, one who has left a lot of dead bodies in his wake, especially with that sword. You just don't play around with this guy.

Other than Daniel's avenging cop, Kiyoshi and two others, it's hard to tell who is who.

Just get some Kettle Korn, check it out for the fight sequences, don't try to figure it all out. It has a certain style. There's far worse stuff out there than this.