Steele Justice

Beefcake actor Martin Kove joined the ranks of action genre stars with this routinely plotted but fairly amusing vehicle. Kove plays genial Vietnam veteran John Steele, who goes into action when his wartime comrade Lee Van Minh (Robert Kim), now a police detective, is assassinated along with most of his family. Helped and hindered by former colleagues like Bennett (Ronny Cox) and Tom Reese (Bernie Casey), John goes up against a wartime associate named Bon Soong Kwan (Soon-Tek Oh), who's now a drug lord in America masquerading as a crusading businessman.

I'm going to give the filmmakers (led by writer & director Robert Boris) the benefit of the doubt here, and say that the amount of laughs to be had from watching this are intentional. If one does see it as tongue in cheek, it may yield greater entertainment than if they take it seriously. "Steele Justice" does have its moments. For one thing, it stops cold for a rock video that is eventually interrupted by the ongoing battles between Steele and Kwans' minions. But the unqualified highlight occurs when Steele is shot with a poison dart, and almost nonchalantly, he removes the offending dart, sucks up and spits out the poison, and does a fine job of improvising when it comes to cauterizing the wound. The action sequences are all reasonably well done.

Kove is engaging as our sardonic hero, often to be seen with a smile on his face. Oh is an enjoyably hammy villain in the action movie tradition. Sela Ward is a lovely woman, but as the heros' ex-wife, she offers a pretty insipid performance. Ditto for Jan Gan Boyd (the young lady who was hot for Bronson in the movie "Assassination"), cast as Van Minhs' supposedly teen aged daughter. Watch this and you'll see why she never had much of a career. There's a pleasingly large amount of familiar faces in the supporting cast, although some of them have no more than cameos or walk ons: Joseph Campanella, Sarah Douglas, Peter Kwong, Al Leong, Shannon Tweed, Irene Tsu, David L. Lander, Asher Brauner, Phil Fondacaro, Kevin Gage.

Any completist of 1980s action movies should have a pretty good time with this.

Six out of 10.

Well i'm surprised there aren't more comments for this film, seems that most people on here are bothered by the fact that's not particularly original, so what? Being unoriginal does not automatically make a film bad, and for the person who was bothered by the racist undertones, no offense pal but you're taking the film WAAAYYYY too seriously, this is the type of film were you don't think about logic and you just lay back and enjoy the mindless action. Kove is pretty bad ass in his role and i'm disappointed he didn't get the chance to star in more of these types of films then he did, though he did eventually end up in one of the Project:Shadowchaser films which i'll try and check out in the future, as it stands this film is pretty mindless and forgettable, but for people like me who couldn't care less about intelligence in films, that's hardly a bad thing.

Martin Kove vehicle in which our starring called John Steele decides to deal out justice in his own hands against maniacal killers. Steele (Martin Kove) is ex-cop and Vietnam vet who is determined to bring down Kwan, former South Vietnamese general. Steele suspects Kwan is involved with Lee's (Robert Kim) death but unfortunately Kwan's (Soon-Tek Oh) now respected and wealthy member of the community, but he's actually a powerful drug lord. Then, a massacre takes place. John cares vital witness (Jan Gan Boyd) and then has to protect her from the efforts of the bad guys. Former boss Bennett (Ronni Cox) is not in a rush to find the killers cause investigation reveals that Lee may have been dirty which Steele knows is not true. When the police needed someone to stop the Vietnamese Mafia, there was only one choice...Only law is the Black Tiger's !. The only justice is John Steele's !. You don't recruit John Steele !. You unleash him!.

This comic-book stuff contains suspense, thrills, chills, noisy action-packed, gun-play and lots of violence. Here Martin Kove is a lone-wolf ex-cop who with his usual stoic acting displays amount of weapons arsenal, track down and exterminates nasty psycho killers. The villiains are encouraged to overact, which they carry out without much flair. This was the highlight of Kove, being an usual secondary actor who first appeared in bit parts in films like ¨Karate Kid¨ saga and ¨Rambo: First Blood Part II¨ . Trying to make a new action hero imitating to ¨Commando's Arnold Schwarzenegger¨, ¨Invasion USA's Chuck Norris¨, ¨Cobra's Sylvester Stallone¨; however, this project failed at the boxoffice, continuing a second-class career in B films and in increasingly insignificant roles. In Steel Justice , the long list of secondary characters that have long and well-known careers in cinema stands out, such as: Sela Ward, Ronny Cox, Bernie Casey, Joseph Campanella, Sarah Douglas, Shannon Tweed, Kevin Gage and oriental actors as Soon-Tek Oh, Jan Gan Boyd , Eric Lee, Peter Kwong of 'Big trouble in Little China' and the prolific secondary that even has a cult status, Al Leong, featured by long wavy black hair and Fu Manchu mustache, who frequently plays mercenaries who are killed by Hollywood's biggest stars.

The motion picture was mediocrely directed by Rober Boris. He is an artisan who has written, produced or directed a few films with not much success, such as: ¨Backyard dogs, Marilyn and Me, Extreme Justice, Buy & Cell, Frank and Jessie, and Oxford Blues¨ with Rob Lowe. Rating: 4.5/10, only for hardcore action movie lovers .

I didn't realize Martin Kove, the leader of the Cobra Kai dojo in the Karate Kid movies played John Steele in this movie until I read somebody else's review.Steele Justice was an awesome movie that is way overlooked & should be more well known then what it is.The whole time I watched it, I couldn't believe nobody turned it into a TV show back then or at least spun off a couple sequels.That would've been genius I think.I'm not going to spoil the movie for anybody else but there are a lot of things that will make you either laugh (even though it's probably not meant to) go WOW or WTF.You'll just have to watch for yourself.Watch for the music video though.It seemed like right in the middle of an action flick, they stopped to make a music video.After reading a few other Steele Justice reviews I seemed to have missed out on a few things the 1st time I watched it so now I feel the need to go back & watch it all over again.If you're an action movie fan, go watch Steele Justice.If you're not an action movie fan, go watch Steele Justice

Martin Kove stars as Steele, Vietnam vet, ex-cop turned Rambo meets Death Wish-esque avenger who declares a one man war on the Vietnamese mafia to avenge one his Vietnam War Buddy's family and protect said buddy's daughter. Along the way police detective (Ronny Cox), Military personnel (Joseph Campanella) and head cheese of the Vietnamese Mafia (Soon Tek-Oh) all acquire the wrath of steele vengeance. Bad Movie charm goes a long way with Steele Justice because if you're not a fan of the genre, this flick is going to be rough going. For me, I grew up with these movies and there's nostalgia involved. I don't think beyond that there's much else to the film. The action sequences are entertaining (as opposed to well-staged), Kove makes for a surprisingly likable if bumbling hero. There is a lot of Bad Movie charm to enjoy about Steele Justice, there is the infamous poison dart and frying pan scene, the fact that Kove has a poisonous snake as a pet that he deploys and the fact that the film is often funnier than most comedies, as the humor is so broad as to somehow be so stupid it's funny. Once again, it's a tough call as, quality wise it's sort of indifferently made, the bad guys don't really make sense and the way everyone seems to know everyone in what appears to be a big city draws attention to how bad the script is. That said, Rambo rip offs work in the same way Bruce Li films as simple absurd escapism. You know what type of person you are and whether you would watch such or not. I was not disappointed or bored watch Steele Justice.

* * out of 4-(Fair)