Movies Seen Recently: Blastfighter, Clan of the White Lotus, Dimension 5

Blastfighter (1984) – Lamberto Bava gives us an action-adventure which is mostly First Blood (1982) with a little bit of Mad Max (1979) mixed in (not The Road Warrior (1981), mind — that’s an entirely different ripoff lineage).  Flash-in-the-pan action star Michael Sopkiw is a former cop who spent time in prison for killing a deserving suspect; now he just wants to live at the old family cabin, but his old friend played by George Eastman now runs a huge poaching operation in this little town, and their depredations run afoul of Sopkiw’s sensibilities.  Also, Sopkiw’s daughter that he hasn’t seen in fifteen years shows up and annoys the bejeezus out of Sopkiw, the poachers, and the entire audience.

Fun fact: Michael Sopkiw was 30 years when this came out.  With the dozen years he was supposed to have been in prison, added to the five years he had been a police detective before that, he must have been made a detective when he was twelve or thirteen.

Clan of the White Lotus (1980) – Gordon Liu (actually Chia-Hui Liu, but I love the chosen-at-random first names of Hong Kong movie stars) really wants revenge on Priest White Lotus (Lieh Lo) for killing various people close to him, desecrating the last remnants of Shaolin, etc.  Unfortunately, White Lotus’ kung fu renders him so light and nimble that he literally wafts out of harm’s way from an opponent’s attempted strikes.  So Liu ends up learning a feminine style of kung fu from his sister-in-law, one with sinuous and gentle movements, trained for by embroidery, laundry, etc.  So whenever Liu breaks into his new fu style, he acts all effeminate and generally weirds out his opponents.  Then he adds a knowledge of acupuncture to it, meaning that the final fight against Priest White Lotus is really, really strange.

Dimension 5 (1966) – When Jeffrey Hunter declined to return for a second Star Trek pilot in order to concentrate on his movie career, this probably wasn’t the kind of respectable project he was hoping for. Hunter works for a private espionage firm that the government turns to for sensitive missions, armed with a super-scientific time-travel belt which rarely affects the plot and would be overly glitzy around the hips of a Las Vegas dancer.  You know to dial down your expectations when the opening “action” sequence takes place in Bronson Canyon — showcasing both sides of Bronson Cave!  His mission is to stop a Red Chinese plot to ship the components of an atomic bomb to L.A. to be assembled. 

Everything I can find says that this was a for-real feature film, although it seems like an overgrown TV pilot. And just because you know the Trek connections are going to be strong, his opposite number from Hong Kong, assigned to help him, is played by France Nuyen, who went on to kiss the other captain of the Enterprise as Elaan of Troyius. (Also watch for Jon Lormer, who played an old geezer three times on the original series — including in “The Cage,” opposite Jeff Hunter!)