Pact of Vengeance

While we lost Leo Fong in early 2022, the martial artist/actor was still working in 2021 and his final gig, Pact of Vengeance (2022), showed up on Tubi yesterday. Damn you, Tubi! Zian (Fong) is a retired special forces colonel who seeks revenge after his granddaughter is attacked at her automobile repair shop by the local gang called The Black Roses (looking straight out of a Troma or 80s Hong Kong film). He recruits old underling Jan Nowalski (Len Kabasinski) and they soon unleash the titular pact.

WOW! Before it gets twisted, let me say Leo Fong is a legend and his indie action flicks from the '70s and '80s rule. And while this tries to emulate those, it does not rule. Writer-producer-director Kabasinski is apparently a big fan of leading man Kabasinski and he is the main character, making one think this is Fong's Henry Fonda/Tentacles (1977) moment as he is initially shot apart from everyone else. However, Fong later joins the leads and seeing the 92-year-old literally still kicking as he whoops punks ¼ his age is...something. Imagine bullet time without using slow motion. Kabasinski is obviously trying to ape exploitation films from yesteryear and you just knoooooow in a production meeting he said he wanted it in the "grindhouse style" at some point. I will give credit to cinematographer and editor Stephen Steinbacher for trying to give the film some style including some stylish lighting, a day-glo drug lab (filled with every stripper Kabasinski could corral), and creative editing. However, Kabasinski squanders any positives by staging terrible fights and showing a plodding day-glo drug lab montage three separate times. As my folks would say, you can only see neon naked ladies so much. Tonally, it is a total mess. It is the kind of film where the gang viciously kills people, but decorates their day-glo drug lab with innocuous grafitti saying "F. U." and "Eat me!" on the walls. The kind of film where the set dressing at a nurse's station is a blood pressure cuff and a tiny First Aid kit. Supporting players in Zian's special forces unit dubbed "The Obliterators" include professional wrestlers Priscilla Zuniga and Peter Hernandez, who get to show off some of the moves I'm sure their fans came to see. And as if having Fong didn't fill the '80s cult actor cred quota, we also heavy metal singer Jon Mikel Thor, who is having a Henry Ford/Tentacles (1977) moment as his three scenes are filmed solo in front of a computer. And, probably per his contract, his band provides three songs on the soundtrack. Amazingly, this is Kabasinski's seventeenth feature, so I guess that means I have one down and sixteen to avoid.

A team of super ultra commando types is called to action to get revenge for a brutal attack on a service station employee by a gang of baddies.

Len Kabasinkski deserves all the love and support you can give for going out there and making movies again and again, even if a lot of them are... of questionable quality. He's walking the walk and doing the work and should be an inspiration to everyone.

Here's the thing though... this movie just didn't work. It can't hold a candle to his previous one "Challenge of the 5 Gauntlets" in almost any way, which is too bad because that one showed real growth and promise.

Unfortunately here, I'm going to have to assume that Len ran up against Covid rules because the disjointed nature of the editing ruined whatever he was after. Too many times editing tricks were added for no real reason and they distracted HUGELY from the narrative (ie-split screen, time and place jumping, what looked like green screen backgrounds ?). The lighting wasn't consistent from shot to shot and I get the look that was being attempted but it wasn't executed right at all.

The cast of old timers was nice but they did not mesh with the wrestlers who looked way too young and out of place. I'm sorry Peter Avalon doesn't look tough at all and ruined the movie. Thor was barely in it, which I assume was due to COVID and his scenes felt tacked on.. But mostly the whole thing was just constructed badly. I don't know what was shot but I have to place all the blame on the editor (unless what was shot was so bad that this was the only way to save it?).

The lead punk didn't have any edge or threat to him and needed to have some scenes of him being cruel and murderous to get over the look of being just a dork. In fact all the gang bangers were way too easily dispatched that left no drama at all. There needed to be some scenes of them actually doing bad things to sell their threat.

The endless repetition of the drug house scene was an odd choice. Time filler? Hey, at least there were boobs. Kudos on that!

Some of the outdoor stuff was fine, but that garage set was so small that the whole thing seemed like it was filmed in Len's actual garage?

I know this review sounds negative but I think there was a core here that was okay, just a poor execution that probably had a lot to do with how the world was at the time (COVID).

One thing though, NEVER stop Len. You're awesome and with every attempt you learn and improve so keep it up!

Saw this at Buffalo Dreams Fantastic Film Festival - it's a fun throwback action movie with some great visuals and a pulsating score. Well directed, nicely acted and great colour composition.

Really,Really enjoyed this film.

Len does a great job with script and direction.

Having AEW stars like Diamante and one of the Wingmen added so much action and they actually can act too, Best shape of their lives in movie.

Len gives everyone else a moment to shine.

Leo hasn't looked this good since his films with Adam James.

Lisa Neeld is always Len's go-to for nudity and a real trooper with violent scenes.

Not a big fan of bad guys gang makeups,But big fan of their deaths at the hands of good guys.

So ,Great action cast, scenes with weapons usage, Thor The Rock legend has such wonderful toys.

Full disclosure: I am a member of Len Kabasinki's patreon and contributed, in a very small way, to the funding of this movie.

This is something of a throwback to the B action movies of the 80s and early 90s. There is a lot of B movie craziness and frenetic nonsense going on. The movie starts with some thugs showing up at a garage to try to shake it down. They all get their butts kicked by one of the people there. Instead of writing this off as not worth whatever small amount of money they would get, they decide to escalate things. That's basically the plot of the movie. The bad guys get their butts kicked and, instead of cutting their losses and backing off, they escalate the situation. They are really dumb.

The action scenes vary from not very convincing to really fun. Priscilla Zuniga's fight scenes are all really good. I guess she is a famous wrestler but I don't follow wrestling and didn't recognize her at all. The bad guys don't really seem to pose much of a threat though. Most of them are easily dispatched. Most of them don't really put up a fight at all. There are multiple fat guys with goatees who are more comic relief than threatening. The main bad guy isn't threatening at all. There are some fun fight scenes though.

I was a bit afraid that they would pull a Seagal with Leo Fong and that he would barely be in the movie. That wasn't the case though. He is in the movie quite a lot. Arguably, he is the main character since he is calling the shots the entire time. He has multiple action scenes and is pretty badass. On the other hand, Jon Mikl Thor is barely in the movie and has no scenes with the other actors at all. It seems like he was physically too far from the rest of the cast to shoot scenes with them so all of his scenes are just him in a room by himself.

This is entertaining 80s style B movie action cheese. For fans of that sort of thing, it's fun, entertaining and well worth watching. The 8/10 score is for that audience.