Showdown in Little Tokyo
by Mark L. Lester
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DVD details
Actor: Brandon Lee, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Dolph Lundgren, Tia Carrere, Toshir? ObataDirector: Mark L. Lester
Brand: Warner Brothers
Cinematographer: Mark Irwin
Producer: Mark L. Lester
Editor: Michael Eliot
Producer: John C. Broderick
Producer: Martin E. Caan
Writer: Caliope Brattlestreet
Writer: Stephen Glantz
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: Pan & Scan, 1.33:1
Running Time: 79 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1998-11-10
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Warner Home Video
DVD Reviews of Showdown in Little Tokyo
DVD Review: Showdown in little tokyo
Summary: 4 Stars
I saw this movie on skinamax and fell asleep before I finshed watching it, so I came on here and picked it up for 60 cents.
I can't complain about it for what I paid. It's basically Drago (Rocky 4) vs Tsung (Mortal Kombat 1). That pretty much sums up the whole plot. It's a typical guy movie and it shows a very nice full frontal of Tia Carrere ;)
It's a good movie, check it out.
DVD Review: Cult classic starring Dolph Lungren and Brandon Lee
Summary: 5 Stars
Macho B-movie madness at its sublime best, this crazy action quickie is about as brain dead as you can get: wooden acting, a terrible story and a script that truly sucks. But with all the mindless violence who really cares. Gun battles, martial arts, Samurai sword slashing and gory deaths are the order of the day, not to mention plenty of beautiful ladies treated like playthings and shedding clothes at every opportunity. Despite the women and guns, there is some kind of story: Kenner (Lundgren) is on a mission of vengeance. His parents were killed when he was little by crazy Yakuza thug Yoshida (Tagawa), an ice-cool super-villain now specializing in drug dealing and generally looking mean. Kenner, adept in the Samurai ways, grows to be a law-abiding copper who's now right on his tail. Male bonding ensues when policeman Johnny Murata (Lee, in his US debut), a hip-talking dude with street credentials, is assigned as Kenner's partner in crime, and all hell simply breaks loose. You could say that there's an artistic angle to all this fighting, shooting and banging, but then that would be a lie - Showdown in Little Tokyo is a classic in a completely different sense of the word.DVD Review: So bad that it's almost good
Summary: 2 Stars
Showdown in Little Tokyo is one of those generic action movies from the early 90's that is so bad that's kind of enjoyable to watch as trashy entertainment. What makes it even more enjoyable is the fact that it stars a young Brandon Lee as a wise-cracking cop who teams up with a tough guy cop (Dolph Lundgren) to take on a Yakuza drug boss (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa). Showdown in Little Tokyo features atrocious (and occasionally funny) dialogue, tons of cliche story elements (the bad guy also killed Lundgren's parents when he was a child), sloppy editing, and a training montage to boot! Tia Carrere has a thankless role as a damsel that gets wooed by Dolph, and the action and fight scenes are a mix of sloppily put together (the concluding fight during the parade) to well choreographed (most of Lee's sequences). All in all, Showdown in Little Tokyo should be unbelievably bad, but it has a sense of charm about it's comic book-style mayhem, and seeing Brandon Lee work his magic (there just isn't enough of him here) is reason enough to see this flick.DVD Review: "You have the right to be dead"
Summary: 5 Stars
Showdown in Little Tokyo is one of those rare early-90's screen gems that is so terribly scripted that, today, it makes for one of the funniest movie going experiences you can have.
Essentially it's a revenge story where Dolph Lundgren plays a cop out for revenge against the yakuza mob boss who murdered his family when he was just a wee little gaijin living in Japan.
And of course, since he was raised in Japan, he knows martial arts, how to weild a sword and even build japanese style houses by hand (I'll get to that later in the review). Seeing as how he posesses all of these great combat skills, it's no wonder that Lundgren's character ended up becoming a cop in Los Angeles.
Soon Lundgren meets up with his new partner, played by Brandon Lee in one of his first major movie roles, the son of a dentist who grew up in "the valley" who also happens to know karate so naturally he became a cop as well.
Together this dynamic duo takes on the yakuza, who all wear great stereotypical early-90's attire that makes them look like they just stepped off the set of a Phil Collins video or the Arsenio Hall Show. Some of them even wear the exact same suits in the same scenes which makes them look like updated versions of the henchmen from the old 60's Batman TV show.
Some of the most fantastically ridiculous action scenes take place from there including Lundgren lifting a car onto its side with his bare hands, a hilarious bathhouse fight scene with a fat japanese guy complete with a Wilhelm scream and of course a scene in which the two heroes fight off 50 bad guys trying to invade Lundgren's japanese style home. That's right, he built it his self, we learn that when Tia Carrere's character says "Nice house," and Lundgren says "I built it," and Tia says "Somehow I knew that."
And that brings me to my next point, the awesomely horrible and incredibly funny dialog that the stars of Showdown in Little Tokyo have to belt out is so head-scratchingly awful that you have to ask yourself questions like "what was the writer thinking? are they for real? are they TRYING to be hilarious?"
I could spout off any of the hundreds of hilarious lines from this movie, but it's so much fun watching it yourself and laughing at them that I won't. Ok, maybe just one. Brandon Lee's character actually says to Lundgren "In case we die, I want you to know that you have the biggest d*** I've ever seen on a man," to which Lundgren says: "I don't know what to say." Well neither do I guys, neither do I.
Showdown in Little Tokyo, whether it was intentional or not, stands as a comedic masterpiece in early-90's cinema. I'm not exaggerating either, it really is freaking hilarous, see for yourself.
DVD Review: Brandon Lee and Dolph Lungren Together!
Summary: 5 Stars
Amazing movie! One of Dolph's greatest roles ever! Brandon Lee brings charisma and humor to his role as well.
This is a five star movie-
Description of Showdown in Little Tokyo
A raised-in-japan supercop kicks into high gear when the mobsters who killed his parents make a play for power. Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 02/03/2004 Starring: Dolph Lundgren Brandon Lee Run time: 78 minutes Rating: R Director: Mark L. LesterShowdown in Little Tokyo is a 1991 martial arts action-comedy that, in pitting Dolph Lundgren and Brandon Lee as L.A. cops against Japanese drug dealers, plays like a B-movie Tango and Cash or Lethal Weapon 2 (both released just two years before). Between career highs in Rocky IV (1985) and Universal Soldier (1992), Lundgren looked as if he might make it big at the box office, and clearly wanting to be the new Schwarzenegger he is here directed by Mark L Lester, who had earlier helmed Ah-nold's Commando (1985). In the event both actor and director headed for straight-to-video territory, while Lee (Bruce's son) went on to The Crow. The 75-minute running time suggests the studio lost confidence and seriously cut the movie though, as the space between the action is filled with nothing but cringe-inducing dialogue, thriller clich?s, and Lundgren "romancing" Tia Carrere, it still makes sense. Basing its title on John Carpenter's 1986 fantasy-comedy Big Trouble in Little China and anticipating Rush Hour (1998), Showdown in Little Tokyo alternates between crude tongue-in-cheek moments and action so ludicrous it's unintentionally hilarious . A camp disaster that simply defies belief, this is so-bad-it's-good entertainment. --Gary S. Dalkin
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