Another slice of Japanese cinematic insanity, starring the entertaining tag-team of Hiroyuki Sanada and Sonny Chiba, who appeared in lots of decent flicks during the early '80s. ROARING FIRE dispenses with the period setting, instead offering a modern-day thriller with an international storyline concerning an orphaned Japanese guy who must battle his evil drug-dealing uncle. Really, the preposterous storyline simply serves as a backbone on which to hang a series of increasingly crazed action sequences, delivered by a Japanese crew who must have really been in a party mood when they made this.
Sanada acquits himself well as the hero, dressed as a cowboy and whupping backside all around. He gets to take part in plenty of exciting action sequences, some of which come out of nowhere and seem to have been dropped into the film on a whim. The cross-town chase between Sanada and a group of monk-ninjas is just one example of the insanity on display here, and things are further muddled with the inclusion of real-life wrestler Abdullah the Butcher, a massive, massive black guy who has some fun in a swimming pool before kicking a load of ninja backside in a fight sequence that must be seen to be believed. That he disappears from the film after this fight is a real shame.
The film contains numerous little flourishes that will appeal to the cult movie fan: the evil uncle bad guy has a Nazi henchwoman and sits in front of a Hitler portrait; Sanada has a cheeky pet monkey that tears off a girl's bikini top, the director revelling in the gratuitous nudity as he shoots her running into the camera in slow motion. Other scenes seem to be inspired by RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, a massive hit in Japan the previous year; our hero is trapped in an underground room and must use a whip to climb out, and at the film's climax, he chases a jeep on horseback whilst avoiding bombs being chucked out of a toy helicopter above.
The action scenes are actually great, including a terrific battle against multiple opponents at the climax, including a massive wrestler guy (not Abdullah, worse luck) and my favourite moment when Sanada leaps across between two moving buses in a Jackie Chan-esque piece of stuntwork. Cult film fans should keep their eyes peeled for the ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST film poster, whilst fans of THE STREET FIGHTER movies will see no less than three cast members reuniting from those films; Etsuko Shihomi (SISTER STREET FIGHTER herself) as the blind sister, Masashi Ishibashi (villain Junjo from the first two STREET FIGHTER movies) as Sanada's adoptive dad, and Sonny Chiba himself, playing a minor and bizarre role, an Interpol inspector who moonlights as Mr. Magic, a ventriloquist with a creepy dummy! Action fans will be whooping at the screen when Chiba gets to briefly relive his STREET FIGHTER glory days, breaking the bones of a gang of thugs in a corridor.
To make things even more confusing, about ten minutes seem to be cut out of the old print I saw, as it cuts from Sanada just about to abseil down a skyscraper to his blind sister battling bad guys, then afterwards we see him sitting in a prison cell. Huh? The music is all over the place as you might imagine and most of the crew must have been high on drugs when shooting this. If I've made it sound like a barrel of laughs, that's because it truly is, one of those bizarre, hilarious cult movies that remain mostly undiscovered in the bargain bins of our world.
Sanada acquits himself well as the hero, dressed as a cowboy and whupping backside all around. He gets to take part in plenty of exciting action sequences, some of which come out of nowhere and seem to have been dropped into the film on a whim. The cross-town chase between Sanada and a group of monk-ninjas is just one example of the insanity on display here, and things are further muddled with the inclusion of real-life wrestler Abdullah the Butcher, a massive, massive black guy who has some fun in a swimming pool before kicking a load of ninja backside in a fight sequence that must be seen to be believed. That he disappears from the film after this fight is a real shame.
The film contains numerous little flourishes that will appeal to the cult movie fan: the evil uncle bad guy has a Nazi henchwoman and sits in front of a Hitler portrait; Sanada has a cheeky pet monkey that tears off a girl's bikini top, the director revelling in the gratuitous nudity as he shoots her running into the camera in slow motion. Other scenes seem to be inspired by RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, a massive hit in Japan the previous year; our hero is trapped in an underground room and must use a whip to climb out, and at the film's climax, he chases a jeep on horseback whilst avoiding bombs being chucked out of a toy helicopter above.
The action scenes are actually great, including a terrific battle against multiple opponents at the climax, including a massive wrestler guy (not Abdullah, worse luck) and my favourite moment when Sanada leaps across between two moving buses in a Jackie Chan-esque piece of stuntwork. Cult film fans should keep their eyes peeled for the ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST film poster, whilst fans of THE STREET FIGHTER movies will see no less than three cast members reuniting from those films; Etsuko Shihomi (SISTER STREET FIGHTER herself) as the blind sister, Masashi Ishibashi (villain Junjo from the first two STREET FIGHTER movies) as Sanada's adoptive dad, and Sonny Chiba himself, playing a minor and bizarre role, an Interpol inspector who moonlights as Mr. Magic, a ventriloquist with a creepy dummy! Action fans will be whooping at the screen when Chiba gets to briefly relive his STREET FIGHTER glory days, breaking the bones of a gang of thugs in a corridor.
To make things even more confusing, about ten minutes seem to be cut out of the old print I saw, as it cuts from Sanada just about to abseil down a skyscraper to his blind sister battling bad guys, then afterwards we see him sitting in a prison cell. Huh? The music is all over the place as you might imagine and most of the crew must have been high on drugs when shooting this. If I've made it sound like a barrel of laughs, that's because it truly is, one of those bizarre, hilarious cult movies that remain mostly undiscovered in the bargain bins of our world.