Massacre à San Francisco

Slaughter in San Francisco is a different film. Don't let the box of the film or anything fool you because even though the film stars Chuck Norris he is barley in it! The movie really focuses on Don Wong most of the time. What does Norris do in the film being the crime boss? He eats, smokes, practices the martial arts on boards and at all different times of the film all of this only takes a couple minutes. At the end he finally fights Don Wong and the star of the film gets beat up! Also Chuck's voice is dubbed and speaking of dubbed. It seemed like the entire cast was dubbed! Even the police dog! The dog was barking while you saw him panting! It was crazy! The fighting however is really great and the sound effects used was funny! One thing I wanted to point out is when Wong's partner gets out of the bar and he and Wong are both drunk they fight each other and the punching sounds sound really loud but it looks like they are just easily throwing punches instead of aggressively doing so and after this they split up and Wong's partner is stumbling around very drunk on the street and several seconds later he is ambushed by a bunch of Norris' henchmen and he fights like a sober miracle happened! It was hilarious! The quality of the movie isn't too good but it really makes the nature of the film like the dubbing and sounds even better! Fans of Chuck Norris will probably be disappointed due to his small part and the lack of his real voice but fans of martial arts films in general will think of this as a special treat!

That's what it was called when I saw it sometime around 1982. It was playing in a rundown theater in Denton, TX with my then boyfriend. We were in college in Denton and were huge Chuck Norris fans. We'd seen every 1 of his movies up to that point and the theater was advertising this 1. It was so bad that it played like a comedy. The dubbing was so awful that the dog physically barked and then you heard it 5 seconds later. Aside from this 1, I still like his movies.

****SPOILERS*** A blond beach-boy looking Chuck Norris playing top San Francisco mob drug kingpin Chuckie Slaughter does his best to keep a straight face in this movie that if anything should have earned him the top acting Academy Award honors for 1974. Norris in his first staring role plays the baddest of bad guys, having a gangster-like voice dubbed in, who not only runs the city's top drug operation but is as crude and uncouth towards the ladies in the movie as Jack the Ripper or Ted Bundy. It's Chuckie's attempt to rape his kid brother Paul's fiancée Sylvia Chu that in the end did him in and put him under. With former SFDP cop, and now restaurant waiter, Wong in taking him as his gang out and making chop suey out of them.

Wong who was framed by Chuckie's under-link Capt. Newman in a bank robbery that Chuckie and his boys pulled off that ended up killing Wong's police partner Robert Jones. As for the robbery it was blamed, with planted false evidence, on Mr. & Mrs. Chu, Sylvia's parents, who just happened to live next door to the bank that was held up. With Wong determined to find those that murdered his partner he discovers that his former boss Captain Newman was behind it. After kidnapping Newman and with a little friendly persuasion, like hanging him by his you know what, Wong finds out that Chuckie was the master mind behind this entire crime wave, as well as police and political pay-offs, that's sweeping the city.

***SPOILERS*** The final showdown has Wong take on Chuckie and his gang on their own turf with Chickie & Co. getting the worst of it. It was when Wong dumped Chuckie in the duck pond and his his yellow hair dye bleach started to run he finally called it quits. It was far more humiliating to Chuckie Slaughter to end up not being blond, since in his mind blonds have more fun, then taking a whopping from Wong whom at the time, before being dunked, he was more then holding his own against.

I must of been despondent after watching this, or in complete stupefaction. I didn't find one thing about this dull action film or it's lead, entertaining, except bad arse drug kingpin, Chuck Norris being dubbed with an evil voice that actually boosts his performance if taking it from a 7 to a 200. You truly expect much more from this dull cheapie, and judging by the faded shot of Chuck, looking completely serious, sporting his moustache with a thinner face, you automatically assume, he's a good guy. If one can only wish. I'd know the end result would be much better than this waste of time, I had seen this tape looming on the shelves in the 80's and wondered what it would be like. If only it could of lived up to my expectations. Well, I might just get my cheap laughs from Chuckie, play bad, of course with a lot of help from some dubbed voice. Dubbed films are funny though, and it's kind of cool when you see people's lips move differently to the words that are uttered. This film isn't cool. It's a shame as it doesn't have a bad plot. It's just a "go nowhere" film that's unequivocally dull.

Yes it's a low budget martial art film, but the fight scenes, particularly the big boss finale with Chuck and the hero aren't bad with acrobatic moves a plenty. Also of note are the many driving scenes in Daly City specifically Westlake including DC City Hall (the main characters are DCPD not SF), Westlake Shopping Center, Marjorie Tobias Elementary, Southgate Ave, and other locations just outside SF including local residences. Additionally, movie was obviously making a point about racist cops which was ahead of its time. Nice work featuring the Great Highway, and Twin Peaks. (Notice the poor air quality over SF at the time in that scene)