Driver-5

I've read quite a few reviews for this movie, many emphasized that THE PROTECTOR is poor because it's not a Jackie Chan movie since it contains nudity, swearing, little to no humour, a slow pace and (worst of all) sloppy action scenes. Chan's movie are almost always set to a break-neck pace and make anything else seem as slow as paint drying, so I thought that this movie would be pretty good when put up against any other contemporary action flick. Director James Glickenhaus has made a few great action movies, most notably THE EXTERMINATOR (1980), THE SOLDIER (1982)and SHAKEDOWN (1988), so I thought this one would be pretty good. Wrong. The film is awful. Anybody who has seen THE SOLDIER will know that what Glickenhaus lacks in logic he makes up for in style, but this really is bad. Everything is so sloppy and lazy. It's down-right silly and insulting at times. Chan playing a Dirty Harry-type character is good for a giggle, especially the moment where he takes a boat to chase some psycho who killed his partner. The boat owner isn't too enthusiastic on giving it to him, so Chan shoves a gun into his face and (In awkward English) says "Give me the f**king keys!" It might sound like nothing, but if/when you see this movie you'll see what I mean. I have seen the US version, the Asian release was re-filmed and re-edited by Chan and apparently corrects many of the problems I've mentioned. See that instead.

Japan had its Bruce Lee craze just like everywhere else in the early seventies and Sonny Chiba was their answer to Bruce Lee. Along with the vicious action scenes there were some typically Japanese acts of misogyny which seem pretty bizarre to Western audiences when it's the "hero" doing it (When was the last time you saw Chuck Norris or Jackie Chan sell a woman off to a slave ring because she couldn't afford to pay for getting her brother out of jail?). STREET FIGHTER'S LAST REVENGE is somewhat tamer than the first entries into the series. This time around Chiba is more of a James Bond kinda character, donning rubber masks and vampire fangs(!) and is mixed up in a plot involving cassettes with top secret information. There's also some Gong Show-type freak (Who you see a lot of on Japanese TV) who can break chains (He actually uses a laser) who's heard to kill Chiba (Yeah, right!). Along with the awful dubbing there's also the same black and white footage where Chiba, as a kid, sees his father executed to the Chinese which turns up in all the STREET FIGHTER movies.