Force Four

VERY obscure blaxploitation exercise that makes up in funky spirit and do-it-yourself enthusiasm what it lacks in studio polish. I'd love to know the story behind it--did a karate studio raise funds to make its own action movie? Nearly every single actor is listed with their black-belt rating attribution, both at the beginning AND end of the movie! The plot revolves around a priceless African statue sought after by various underworld figures, unscrupulous collectors, evil honkies, and the titular three-guys-one-girl foursome. The latter are a ghetto quartet of freelance detectives who invariably get to demonstrate their karate skills--amazingly, almost none of the criminals they face ever seem to be carrying guns!

There's a whole lotta fighting here, as well as post-synch dialogue dubbing, vintage funk & tribal sounds (performed by "Life, U.S.A."), wild 70s fashion, amusingly amateurish acting, and so on. This movie is not to be confused with the following year's "Gang Wars" aka "Devil's Express," another blaxploitation cheapie which also features toughguy Warhawk Tanzania, and which occasionally has been called (mistakenly?) "Black Force" as well. Throwing a monster into the equation, it's a little slicker than "Black Force," and perhaps even sillier.

This movie is a lot of fun. AQ bunch of brothers running around doing kung-fu on each other. The box shows a couple of guys with guns but I don't recall any weapons being used in the movie. The production is horrible and the story is really bad but if you drink or smoke enough, this movie is wonderful! The sound effects make the movie. Imagine getting kicked in the stomach and it sounding like someone chopping wood! The dialog is funny and the fight scenes are choreographed like an 8th grade production of "West Side Story". This movie is easy to find on the auction sites and can be had for under $1. You can also pick up Black Force 2 for a few pennies if you really have the urge to waste away a Friday night. Don't watch this while sober.

This is so bad, half of the movie is a driving scene where the camera focuses on trees and voice over explains the plot. The title fighting there is, is alright, but there's very little of it. Most of the movie is bad dubbing and nothing happening, including a LONG musical number. Stay away from this little seen (for a reason) lame movie.

Worst movie I've ever seen. The production values on this movie are almost non existent. Everything looks to have been shot in one or two takes, and all the dialogue is dubbed...badly. At one point two men were talking to each other, but one had the voice of a woman. Not that it matters though, because the porno music soundtrack is turned up so high, you can't make out what anyone is saying.

Watching this movie gave me a headache.

WOW! They don't come more incompetent than this. A Blaxploitation flick where four karate experts are hired to retrieve a stolen African witchdoctor fetish doll. The entire movie consists of them getting the job, asking people where it is, kicking people when they don't know, locating it at crime boss Z's house, Z getting away, them finding Z at his other house and taking it back. This is absolutely amazing film-making because nearly every scene is dubbed with actors just laying down the lines regardless of whether their mouths are moving or not. The film features real martial artists with credits stating their black belt degree. It boasts that no effects outside of slow motion were used but this looks like something Rudy Ray Moore choreographed. Fans of Warhawk Tanzania (DEVIL'S EXPRESS) might want to check this out because he is the second lead Adam. He delivers the film's one (yes, one!) awesome slo-mo kick. Tanzania's EXPRESS co-star Wilfredo Roldan also appears sporting the same Rodan moniker but this time he is a thug. Amazingly, director Michael Fink got one more film out the following year called VELVET SMOOTH. Even more amazing, he went on to become a top of the line visual effects supervisor on films such as TANGO & CASH, BRAVEHEART, X2 and CONSTANTINE (I am not kidding!). Platinum Pictures' VHS release has a guy on the front holding a machine gun and the back claims a team "armed to the teeth" recover the idol. Not a single gun is in film. Such a scrupulous company they then released the unrelated BROTHER ON THE RUN (1973) as BLACK FORCE 2!