Duo pour une vengeance

Cop Bud McCall (Ted Prior) is framed for selling drugs and sent to the big house. Once inside he befriends cell mate Eddy Lee (Carter Wong) - another man doing time for being principled - and they watch each others backs. McCall has a price on his head since he is going to testify against a mob boss. But when a hit attempt takes place during a prison transfer, he finds an unlikely ally in Tony Marino (writer-producer-director Tony Zarindast), a hitman who he served with in Vietnam (weird since the age difference between Prior and Zarindast is 148 years).

This is my fourth viewing from the Iranian born auteur Zarindast and might be the most memorable. That is probably due to the fact it has Prior, Wong and explosions. Oh my. This feels like an Action International flick, but that is probably due to the casting of AIP mainstay Prior. It is rare to see Wong in a leading role in an American made action flick and I'll admit I couldn't understand half of what he was saying (you will now understand why he had five words of dialogue in Big Trouble in Little China). Of course, it is his flying fists that got him the gig and he excels there. It is one of those movies where five guys with shotguns will suddenly surround him and then attack one by one. Also featuring the aptly named Beano as a chubby hitman.

My review was written in June 1989 after watching the film on Forum video cassette.

Routine action pic has its moments, making for a decent video title pitting mafia against two cons (the title combo).

Ted Prior is an L. A. cop framed by the mob but ordered rubbed out in prison so as not to spill the beans to the FBI about a mafia chieftain. His old Vietnam vet buddy Teddy (played by the filmmaker Tony Zarindast) is ordered to carry out the hit, but decides to help Prior and his martial arts expert cellmate Carter Wong escape instead.

Film loses credibility as Zarindast and his girlfriend Maureen Lavette tag along with the cons as Good Samaritans until gettig conveninetly wiped out in a siege by gangsters.

In addition to good stuntwork, best thing about the film is Zarindast's canny casting of beautiful women, especially Christina Lunde as Prior's girlfriend. Plotting is too loose to be riveting, notably the cavalier treatment of Wong's wife, Debra Lamb, who is talked about a lot, finally shown doing a striptease in a nightclub and cryptically dropped from the story.

Tech credits are up to par except variable sound.

This film is atrocious, even by the abysmal standards of Tony Zarindast. Hardcase and Fist are two crimefighters with very different styles - Hardcase is a gun-toting, maverick-yet-somehow-by-the-book white cop, while Fist is an enigmatic, inscrutable Chinese martial arts expert who eschews the use of firearms in line with the best traditions of movie cliche. They learn to respect each other's strength and virtue after the usual initial mutual suspicion. The two team up to defeat some implausibly incompetent, classically Zarindastesque bad guys who have kidnapped somebody, or something like that.

Watch out for the brilliantly choreographed gunfight towards the end of the movie when our heroes attack the bad guys' "base" (a bunch of rundown shacks in the middle of some waste ground). It runs thus: Hardcase walks along blithely, gun in hand; single bad guy jumps out from behind a building and shoots twice; misses; Hardcase shoots once; kills bad guy; repeat about 15 times as Hardcase draws closer to whatever the hell it is he's looking for. Best moment: the climactic car chase, which begins with Hardcase in a small car pursuing the chief bad guy, who is driving a station wagon. In the middle of the action, with no explanation offered, the bad guy is suddenly in the small car, and Hardcase is in the station wagon. The chase ends with the bad guy crashing his car into a small river. He emerges from the car on fire, wades through the water to the shore, and promptly burns to death (in slow motion). The awfulness of this movie is so complete, so perfect in every respect, that Tony Zarindast may well be the greatest comedic genius of our time.

Once again Director/ Producer/ Actor/ Writer/ Editor/ Cinematographer Tony Zarindast has shown us the depths of his movie making skills in this Action Movie Classic. Hardcase and Fist has everything a hardcore action movie fan craves for; Good Guys you cheer for (Bud McCall and Eddy Lee) and Bad Guys you despise (Vincent and his cronies), exotic beauties (Maureen LaVette, Christina Lunde, Debra Lamb), a captivating story written by Tony Zarindast which has so many twists and turns that you'll be at the edge of your seat for the full 90 minutes, non-stop heart pounding ACTION!! Action sequences that never seem to end, and of course a terrific acting performance by Tony Zarindast who co-stars as Bud McCall's Lovable Vietnam War Veteran buddy `Tony Marino' he brings us maybe one of the best acting performances of ALL TIME. I give this movie a 10/10. So if there is one movie you must see make it Hardcase and Fist. Thank you TONY ZARINDAST for making this action movie classic you truly are a movie making LEGEND.

In 1976, while in a drama academy in Los Angeles, I had the misfortune to be chosen by Mr. Zarindast to act in the film (and I use the term loosely) Kill Alex, Kill. Mr. Zarindast is not one to be stopped by minor details, such as substituting me with someone who had no resemblance whatsoever with me or my character(?). I was never given a script o read, not even the page with the scene in which I was about to appear. My character kills "Alex" in the end of the story an drives away. All this substitution took place while I was in South America and was recalled to film additional scenes, after shooting had ended. I could not help Mr. Zarindast finance his own movie when I was never paid one dime, so I declined to come. I had never seen the film until, in 2003, browsing the internet I found a copy of it in a movie warehouse in Conroe, Texas. I am sure that I purchased the only copy of this disaster ever sold. While filming I thought that my acting was terrible ad unworthy of participating in any home production, let alone a real one. After seeing the tape in 2003, I realized that I was not the worst actor... Mr. Zarindast was. That being said, why would I be surprised at any negative comment towards any of his productions/directions/acting/screen-writings/etc.