Review: The Perfect Weapon

Real-life black belt Ken Po karate expert Jeff Speakman stars as Jeff, a rebellious sort who left home as a teenager in anger at his father. Years later, his brother (John Dye) is a cop, whilst their father (Beau Starr) is the police captain and there has been no contact between Jeff and his dad since. He comes back home to his mentor/sensei and father figure Mako, a Korean-American who is killed by Korean mobsters when store owner Mako refuses to keep paying them protection money. This crime reunites the estranged brothers, though Dye warns Jeff to stay away from the case. Yeah, Jeff’s not good with that. Backed up by a plucky young orphan (Dante Basco), he aims to seek revenge on those who have wronged him and his sensei. James Hong plays a powerful Korean gangster, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa and Prof. Toru Tanaka play henchmen, and Clyde Kusatsu plays a cop.

 

In the 80s and 90s, you had Schwarzenegger, Stallone, and to an extent Mel Gibson sitting atop the blockbuster action movie totem pole. But you also had guys like Steven Seagal, Chuck Norris, and Jean-Claude Van Damme adding a martial arts flavour as the next in line to those guys. They never quite made it as big as an Arnie or a Sly, but they certainly occupied a decent hunk (no pun intended) of the action movie market, even if their acting skills were even lesser than their forefathers (Norris in particular is an appalling actor, Seagal simply lazy for the most part). In the 90s in particular it seemed like any martial artist with a decent look to them was trying their hand at acting to become the next breakout martial arts action star. The majority of them were pretty crummy (as were the films, often straight-to-video), whether it was Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson, Olivier Gruner, Gary Daniels, or countless other forgettable names I could mention if I could be bothered (Marc Dacascos is pretty underrated, though). Jeff Speakman in 1991 put his hand up to try and assume the throne with this low-budget Mark DiSalle (director of “Kickboxer”, producer of “Bloodsport” and “Death Warrant”) flick, showing off Speakman’s supposed Kenpo karate skills. He sure as shit doesn’t show any acting skills, in fact, he is like a cross between Don Johnson and Chuck Norris, with the charisma of a David Bradley or Michael Dudikoff. And he’s worse than all of them. Did I mention he plays a character named Jeff? Well, he does. He does get one good line, though, after beating a guy for information: ‘Who said it’d never hurt to ask?’, but overall the guy’s got the charisma of beige wallpaper.

 

It also has to be said that the martial arts displayed in this film – Kenpo and Tae Kwon Do – aren’t remotely interesting on screen like Aikido, for instance. Seagal’s impactful, wrist-snapping, momentum-based martial art of choice, Aikido frankly plays better on film than it likely would in real-life. Having Speakman’s opening training montage be accompanied by Snap’s awful Techno/House song ‘The Power’ is good for a few laughs, though. After this film, both Speakman and Snap would never be heard of much again, or at least have such exposure. Speakman made a couple more films that only the desperate saw.

 

The film itself doesn’t exactly suck, it’s too bland to be memorably bad, and is also far too tame and bloodless for this kind of thing. Just like a Chuck Norris film, now that I think of it. Speakman even has Norris’ checked-shirt, woodsman wardrobe too. Plot-wise the David C. Wilson (his only other credit being the sci-fi dud “Supernova”) script has elements of an early JCVD film from The Cannon Group, right down to the flashbacks of a rebellious teenage Jeff Speakman (or his character at least) straight out of “Bloodsport”. The only new (well, kinda) wrinkle here is that Speakman’s brother (played by the late John Dye, who has one funny scene at a Korean food store) is a cop here instead of having to die early in order to inspire Speakman’s thirst for revenge. Why the hell would Paramount Pictures start ripping off Cannon?

 

Perhaps as an attempt to hide (or compensate for) Speakman’s dullness in the lead, he’s been surrounded by every working Asian-looking character actor not named Pat Morita or Keye Luke. I guess that makes them the only MIAAA’s (Missing in Action Asian Actors). You’ve got Mako, James Hong, the ubiquitous Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (who is in almost all of these C-grade martial arts films, usually as a villain), Clyde Kusatsu, Dante Basco, and all-purpose hulking henchman (and former wrestler) Prof. Toru Tanaka, in addition to fellow perennial henchmen Al Leong and Branscombe Richmond doing stunt work on the film. Those two can also be seen on camera getting their arses handed to them by Speakman at a bar called The Croc Pit. I mean, look at that list, people. Sadly, most of them are wasted, Mako especially. Along with the versatile Hong, he’s probably the best actor of the bunch, but as the standard martial arts sensei, his role is somewhat diminished by another guy sharing the training duties with him, which I found odd.  Toru Tanaka is terrific in his standard ‘heavy’ (in all senses of the term) role, and Dante Basco impresses a lot more in this than he did as one of the Lost Boys in “Hook”. Mariska Hargitay’s role is barely existent and has no depth whatsoever. It’s practically just a walk-on (I couldn’t even describe her character), though I hear there’s an alternate version where she at least gets to kiss Speakman. There’s a decent fight scene in a Korean Tae Kwon Do dojo, but there wasn’t much that set that style apart from Ken Po, and it’s also a bit over-edited. If I have any praise for this film at all it’s the lighting by cinematographer Russell Carpenter (“Death Warrant”, “Hard Target”, “True Lies”, “Titanic”), full of lovely neon and shadows.

 

Sorry, but this is just an ordinary flick all round, and Speakman is utterly forgettable in the lead, with the solid cast unable to compensate.

 

Rating: C-