Showdown in Little Tokyo ** (1991, Dolph Lundgren, Brandon Lee, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) – Classic Movie Review 11,340

Dolph Lundgren and Brandon Lee form a good screen partnership in the 1991 crime film Showdown in Little Tokyo.

Producer-director Mark L Lester’s 1991 crime film Showdown in Little Tokyo is an extremely crude and basic revenge action thriller, with LA police detectives Sgt Chris Kenner (Dolph Lundgren) and Johnny Murata (Brandon Lee) taking on Japan’s Yakuza crooks, and especially ruthless Yakuza leader Funekei Yoshida (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), now running a drug ring.

The two personable stars Lundgren and Lee form a good screen partnership, and deserve better than this disposable story, feebly constructed and (apart from the stars) only moderately performed.

However, there is plenty of strongly delivered action, even if it is over-familiar and often incoherent, and some entertaining dialogue.

Also in the cast are Tia Carrere, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Toshiro Obata, Philip Tan, Ernie Lively and Renee Griffin.

Writers: Stephen Glantz and Caliope Brattlestreet.

Brattlestreet later complained that her script with Glantz ended up being misogynistic and overly violent, with their crime drama turned into a gratuitously violent action film.

Weirdly, it didn’t do that well. Costing $8,000,000, it grossed $2,275,557.

Lee followed it with Rapid Fire (1992) his penultimate, last fully completed film. In 1993 Lee was killed in a weapons accident towards the end of filming his next movie The Crow.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,340

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