Review: Blind Fury

Blind, sword-wielding Vietnam war veteran Rutger Hauer comes to visit old war buddy Terry O’Quinn, who has gone AWOL after some bad dealings with drug-dealing casino owner Noble Willingham (perfectly cast). Just as he is becoming acquainted with O’Quinn’s estranged wife Meg Foster and her smart-arse kid Brandon Call, cigar-chomping Randall ‘Tex’ Cobb, Willingham’s chief enforcer comes along to try and kidnap the kid. Hauer manages to save the day, but now he and the boy are on the run as they try and locate O’Quinn whilst dodging Willingham, Cobb and his other goons. Lisa Blount (wooden and annoying) plays the current girlfriend of O’Quinn, whilst Nick Cassavetes and Rick Overton play The Pike brothers, buffoonish Hillbilly goons whose names are inspired by a certain Peckinpah film. Wrestling nerds need to look out for perennial WWF/E ‘jobber’ Tiger Chung Lee as one of Willingham’s henchmen.

 

Underrated, 1990 Phillip Noyce (“Dead Calm”) Americanised Zatoichi film was, like “Big Trouble in Little China”, a bit ahead of its time in blending Asian-influenced action with tongue-in-cheek humour. Today the critical derision and lukewarm box-office of both seems rather strange, actually. It’s damn good fun. Hauer has one of his best-ever roles and is not only fairly convincing as a blind man, he seems to be having a ball in one of his more light-hearted performances. The prickly relationship with Call’s incredibly bratty kid is actually pretty hilarious, and there’s very little in the way of softening throughout.

 

Also fun is the casting of former boxer Cobb (who was known for an ability to take a beating) as a seemingly immortal henchman named Slag. Like Cobb himself perhaps, just when you think he’s dead, up he pops again just to take another pounding. Amusing but pointlessly short guest appearance by martial arts legend Kosugi as well as ‘Bruce Lee’s brother. Never mind that Kosugi was Japanese and Lee was Chinese, of course Kosugi was still a good choice for the part.

 

An enjoyable B-grade action flick with a welcome sense of humour and a great lead in Rutger Hauer. The screenplay is by Charles Robert Carner, the guy responsible for scripting the gymnastically-oriented martial arts crapfest “Gymkata”.

 

Rating: B

 

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