It's All In the Name: DEVIL’S EXPRESS

Sure, some movies may have a bigger budget.  Some movies may have better dialog and a lucid script.  Some might have much, much better acting.  Better everything, really.  But do they have an actor named Warhawk Tanzania?  1976’s DEVIL’S EXPRESS does.

The Capsule:

Kung Fu master Luke (Warhawk Tanzania) and his shifty student Rodan (Wilfredo Roldan) go to China for physical and spiritual training.  While Luke is meditating, Rodan gets bored and swipes an amulet from a nearby cursed cave.  The cave turns out to be the tomb of an ancient demon that has been trapped there for over 2000 years.  Now freed, the demon follows Luke and Rodan back to New York City in search of the amulet.  Being a simple country demon, it is not used to life in the big city and takes refuge in the subway.  Meanwhile, Rodan's gang, the Blackjacks, are having a beef with the Chinese Tongs gang.  The police think the mutilated bodies they keep finding in the subway tunnels are related to the gang war, despite the fact that gangs rarely tear people open from the inside out.  Luke tries to de-escalate the gang tension and uncovers the truth of the demon under the streets.  New York’s only hope lies with Luke’s badass skills as he challenges the demon to a Kung Fu battle to the death.  Note: this was the original ending for THE EXORCIST, but they decided to go high brow at the last minute.

Technically speaking, DEVIL’S EXPRESS is a bottom of the barrel Blaxploitation/Kung Fu movie.  It did have a full crew (including 5 screenwriters!), which is more than some of these movies can say, but that didn’t do it any favors.  Dialog fades in and out almost arbitrarily, even though the actors are clearly speaking.  It’s always covered by music, so maybe it was an artistic choice, though it seems more like the audio guy forgot to press record on the sound equipment.  Sometimes the camera can’t keep track of the actors during sudden movements.  The focus puller can be more of a focus guesser.  And while their Kung Fu is strong, their choreography isn’t.  Punches and kicks often come nowhere close to the actors, who react to them all the same.  I guess it’s the thought that counts.  It’s pretty close to DOLEMITE levels of rudimentary filmmaking, but without the charisma of Rudy Ray Moore.  

Instead, it has Warhawk Tanzania.  He might not have the moves of Jim Kelly, the cockiness of Fred Williamson, or the style of Richard Roundtree, but he does have the name Warhawk Tanzania.  A name like that gives you a badass pass for life.  I’m guessing it’s a stage name (I don’t know the Tanzania family personally, so I can’t be sure), but even so, it takes balls to carry that title.  Comparatively, his character’s name of Luke is pretty boring.  Perhaps he feared his role of the smooth talking, demon hunting, cop dissing Kung Fu master would be too over the top awesome for the average moviegoer if he used his real name.  

Unfortunately, he’s not in the movie that much.  He’s there in the beginning and the end, but disappears during the middle (after a weird, wordless montage of him hanging out with his wife or girlfriend and playing stickball with the adoring neighborhood kids).  He does show up for a great “telling off the cops” moment, even if the dialog is kind of odd.  “Look, Jim [note: the character’s name is not Jim], you don’t come on to my turf talking about busting ass.  You got to bring some to get some.”  Um…bring some ass?  How do you respond to that statement?

In Warhawk’s absence, the movie primarily follows his shady pal Rodan and his gang and their tension with the rival Tongs gang.  Thankfully, it’s not really about racial tensions.  The problems all stem from a dice game disagreement/hold-up that Rodan and one of the Tongs were a part of.    Then the Tongs rip off Rodan in a drug deal (see, shady).  After that it’s on.  Full scale gang battles ensue, complete with classic foley effects (each punch sounds like someone hitting a phone book).  Even with the less than convincing fight choreography, there is some decent mayhem on display.  There are rumbles in alleys and basketball courts.  No throwing stars involved, but there are nunchucks, and one of the Blackjacks pulls a full sized katana from his jean jacket.  A gang member spits blood like a fountain.  It’s got so much gang warfare, in fact, that following the success of THE WARRIORS a few years later, it was re-released as GANG WARS.  From what I can tell, it’s exactly the same cut of the film, but the trailer takes out all references to the supernatural or horror.  I imagine anyone going in expecting a straight forward gritty urban tussle left a bit confused.  I don’t think THE WARRIORS opened in China, 200 BC.  

There’s even a little bit of a police procedural rolled in as the cops try to figure out who or what is responsible for all the mangled corpses in the subway tunnels.  In this kind of movie, the cop parts are usually a slog to get through since the cops are either complete morons, or racists, or both.  The detectives in this one are a delight.  Cris is a street-smart veteran and a student of Luke’s dojo.  Sam is a smiling doofus who looks fresh from the country club (he’s shocked that Cris doesn’t play tennis).  Cris’ theory is that the bodies are due to the gang war.  Sam, who has a degree in criminology, thinks it is all due to mutant animals from the sewer.  There is a great scene where they go to a bar in Luke’s neighborhood for information.  Cris goes into the back room to talk with Luke, leaving Sam to order a Coca-Cola with a squeeze of lime from the bar and flash his “hi fellas!” smile.  Everyone stares at him like he’s a honkey from outer space.   You expect terrible things to happen while Cris is away, but when he comes back, everyone in the bar is sitting around captivated by Sam’s hypothesis about monster alligators and giant rats.  He has cut through the racial tension by being a totally oblivious goof ball.

The movie is full of quirky characters like this.  A put upon waitress turns out to be a karate expert and wipes the floor with two belligerent drunks. Speaking of the belligerent drunks, one minute they are trying to kill each other for some unspecified debt, and in the very next scene they are best pals again.  It could be a continuity error (one of countless), but I prefer to think this is just how these guys roll.  This happens every week with them.  Probably the most random thing in the movie is the sudden appearance by German comedic weirdo Brother Theodor.  He’s sort of the less violent Klaus Kinski.  I’m not sure if someone persuaded him to be in the movie or if he just showed up and started doing his thing because he saw a camera.

Then there's the unnamed, vaguely defined demon.  Obviously none of the five writers could agree on the exact nature of this creature, so it changes scene by scene.  In the beginning, it’s something like a mummy.  In order to get to New York, it possesses the body of a Chinese businessman.  You can tell he’s possessed because he stumbles around and has gigantic eyeballs.  The effect is super cheap, just painting big white eyes over the actor’s eyelids.  It’s silly, but surprisingly effective and even creepy when the guy flexes his eyelids.  Mostly silly, though.  When it first senses the amulet, the demon messily tears itself out of its host.   Then it seems to forget about the amulet and just kill random people, including one it lures into the tunnel with a distressed voice that sounds like Siri.  There is a nice scene where a crazy bag lady walks through the subway car loudly complaining to herself and hissing at passengers until the sight of a headless lineman shuts her up.      

It’s actually the Tongs who figure out what is going on once they snatch the amulet from Rodan.  They broker a peace with Luke (after he kicks most of their asses) and take him to their ancient leader, who like all elderly Asian characters in cheap exploitation movies, is a young guy in unconvincing old man makeup.  He actually looks a bit like a hairier version of Lando Calrissian's copilot from RETURN OF THE JEDI.  This unnamed old guy describes the myth of the unnamed demon.  If it can destroy the amulet, it will be unstoppable, free to cause havoc in underground mass transit stations all over the world.  Luke will have to fight the demon and force it back into the amulet (or something like that, he’s vague with the details).  Even though he can’t physically help Luke, the old guy says he will join minds with him.  I think this is just his mystic bullshit way of saying “my thoughts are with you,” while he stays safe in his apartment.  

The Demon V. Warhawk fight is the film’s biggest moment, of course.  There is little doubt who the victor will be once Warhawk shows up wearing form fitting, gold crushed velvet overalls.  The demon should have just crawled into the amulet at the sight of such glory.  Luckily for the audience, the demon evils up and we get our epic Kung Fu against Magic (and editing tricks) finale.  Just as the old man warned, the demon can take the form of people Luke cares about.  This means Luke has to fight against his wife/girlfriend/woman he had sex with in a montage, twin brothers from his Army unit in ‘Nam (totally made up that backstory for two random guys we’ve never seen before), and Rodan.  The old guy failed to mention that the demon can also stop time, become invisible, and throw ghost trains at Luke.  Add all that up with the completely different lighting in each shot and you have the most baffling yet awesome fight sequence ever.  

It is with great sadness that I report this was Warhawk’s last film.  His first film, BLACK FORCE, was released one year prior.  It is reported to be even worse than DEVIL’S EXPRESS, which means I have to see it.  Warhawk Tanzania did put out some ambient/noise recordings on Bandcamp in 2010, though I can’t confirm whether this was the man himself or just some guy who thought Warhawk Tanzania was an incredible name for a band (it is).  He was not, contrary to Rotten Tomatoes, in the 1994 documentary GANG WAR: RUMBLE IN LITTLE ROCK, proving that Rotten Tomatoes is, in fact, worthless.  Barry Rosen turned out to be a terrible director (he only did this one and THE YUM YUM GIRLS, made in the same year), but a fairly successful TV producer.  Some of his work includes such low shelf syndicated series like Highlander, Zorro (which I didn’t know was a thing), and Police Academy (which I really didn’t know was a thing).  He’s still working today on things I’ve never heard of.  

Even though is time in cinema was brief, the world should feel blessed to have witnessed Warhawk Tanzania face kicking a demon while wearing gold velvet overalls.  I certainly do.

Warhawk Chaka

More Than a Mouthful of Action: RAW FORCE

I love an ambitious failure. I love when someone's vision far exceeds their capabilities.  More importantly, I love it when that person realizes this, but pushes ahead valiantly anyway. Sometimes, the ambition overcomes the failure.  Sometimes there is so much heart and passion poured into a project that you have to overlook the obvious shortcomings.  Other times you get a glorious mess that leaves you dumbfounded.  On the rarest occasions, you get Hitler jumping up from behind a tombstone with a rocket launcher.  This and so much more awaits you in 1982’s kung fu/zombie/booze cruise adventure RAW FORCE.

Capsule:

A gang of leering creeps transports a plane full of kidnapped women to a mysterious island. You know these creeps are bad news because their boss is a chubby Hitler in a white suit. He's going by the name Mr. Speer and wearing Clark Kent style glasses, but who is he kidding?  They sell the women to a bunch of weirdo monks for chunks of raw jade, which look a lot like green painted styrofoam, but what do I know about geology. Cut to a cruise liner captained by a perpetually drunk Cameron Mitchell. Three members of the Burbank Karate Club (most likely the only members of the Burbank Karate Club) want to sail to the mysterious Warriors Island.  According to legend (documented on the forbidden island’s travel brochure), disgraced martial artists from around the world go there to die in the hopes of being resurrected.  It’s a long journey, so that leaves them plenty of time to pal around with a sleazy middle-aged horndog, attend drunken parties, and find romance.  Their fun is interrupted when Chubby Hitler’s goons attack their cruise ship to keep them from the island.  They manage to escape, along with a tough SWAT policewoman, a kung fu fighting steward, and a few others, only to wash up on Warriors Island, where the real action is about to begin.  

I so want a Burbank Karate Club tee shirt.  It has to be the dorkiest name ever for a martial arts school, and it fits these guys perfectly.  I’ve seen this movie a few times now, and I still can’t remember any of their names.  The IMDB page doesn’t help much (67 roles listed, four with photos).  I just know them as the stoic romantic, the hothead, and the worthless guy with the mustache who has to be rescued by the other two.  They are competent if unspectacular fighters, though the hothead does a dramatic, slow motion flying kick into a truck.  SWAT Lady is much more impressive, since she’s played by Jillian Kesner, star of the thoroughly entertaining exploitation kung fu flick, FIRECRACKER.  All the other female characters in the movie are pretty stereotypical, but Kesner is a serious ass kicker.  She gets the best kill in the film, or at least the most technically impressive. If I was stuck on a zombie filled island, I'd stick by her. 

The real star of the movie, though, is Cameron Mitchell.  He was slightly past his prime in 1982 (by about 20 years), but you wouldn’t be able to tell from his performance.  Actually, you can instantly tell, but Cameron Mitchell certainly can’t.  He plays Captain Dodds with such gusto that you have to love him.  I’m just not sure what movie he thought he was making.  All the rest of the cast might be hopping around with their high kicks and their fancy stunts and what not, but all Mitchell needs is a revolver and a (off camera) bottle of booze.   He lumbers around like a dangerous grandpa.  While taking cover with the others during a shootout, he tells them, “I saw Clint Eastwood do this in a movie once.”  Then he just stands up and starts firing randomly.  Right, he must have been thinking of that one movie where Clint shoots a gun at something.  I’m betting he improv’d that line.  And his entire part.  You don’t direct Cameron Mitchell, you just roll camera and let him go.

The best (and worst) part of the movie is undeniably the boat party raid.  There are so many things astonishingly wrong with this section.  One of them is that the director apparently decided to film a college frat movie in the middle of his kung fu action movie.  Our BKC heroes go to a boozy social held in the cruise ship’s wood paneled rec room (not someone’s basement, honestly).  There they party down with the sleazy horndog,  his clueless wife, SWAT Lady,  her sister, tipsy Cameron Mitchel and the horrible cruise director all arguing like the Lockhorns.  Oh, and about 20 people we’ve never seen before.  These aren’t just background extras, these people have multiple, unrelated scenes with full dialogue.  There’s the remarkably average guy who is somehow a chick magnet.  He’s also a devout Christian, or possibly a Satanist, not entirely sure where they were going with that.  There’s the bartender who looks like a human troll doll and smashes blocks of ice with his forehead for no reason.  There’s the gangster’s kinky ex-girlfriend seducing an oblivious square.  There’s the knucklehead in the bathroom who doesn’t understand how pants work attempting to undress the woman from I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE while she stands on the toilet drinking a beer.  That was weird.  It’s seriously like two completely unrelated movies accidentally intersected.  

At least they had an exit strategy for getting out of the spontaneous frat movie.  A boat full of Chubby Hitler’s goons sneaks onto the ship and brutally slaughters every extraneous character.  But even this is incredibly bizarre because all of the creeps are dressed like they are infiltrating a Halloween party.  We have a swordsman in a silver Ziggy Stardust vest three sizes too small.  There’s a guy in Kabuki face paint and a balaclava.  A dude dressed like the Village People construction worker.  One of them is wearing a Superman shirt (most likely not endorsed by DC Comics).  One is in ski goggles and bumblebee pants.  It's all pretty amazing.  I’m fairly sure the Costume Designer was the director’s 8 year old niece.  I’m amazed no one was wearing fairy wings or tutus.  

The best part is that this section is played entirely straight.  These are serious criminals.

The survivors of the doomed frat ship eventually wash ashore on Warriors Island.  After a firefight in a graveyard with the remnants of Chubby Hitler’s men, our heroes (plus the horndog) meet the monks and learn the truth of the island.  It’s the same truth that was spelled out in the travel brochure, except that it turns out the monks get the power of resurrection from eating people.  Mostly women, so maybe it has something to do with estrogen.  Either that or they are just sexist cannibals.  On a side note, this may be the only movie where the zombies don’t try to eat you, but the living do.  Also, it’s never explained why the monks are resurrecting the dead martial arts warriors anyway, since they never do anything with them.  The zombies just shuffle around the island, slashing the occasional undeserving victim or very deserving horndog [SPOILER FOR SOMETHING YOU WERE WAITING FOR THE WHOLE MOVIE].  I don’t see why any martial arts warrior would bother coming there to die in the first place, disgraced or not.  It’s not a thrilling afterlife.  They don’t even get a training montage.

The last part of the movie is a long fight against blue skinned ninjas and samurai zombies as our heroes make their way to Chubby Hitler’s plane.  The cannibal monks don’t fight, by the way.  They just walk around laughing and looking way too pleased with themselves.  Seriously, they stop just short of high-fiving each other.  They get no comeuppance at all, other than having to live on a boring island with a bunch of zombies.  At least their supply line of tasty prostitutes has dried up, so that sort of sucks for them.  


Chubby Hitler, on the other hand, gets a much more satisfying end.  [SPOILER]  He jumps into a lake while trying to escape, despite the clear warnings over and over during the movie that it is filled with ferocious Asian Piranha.  It’s even mentioned in the travel brochure.  Just to make sure you know what’s happening, he actually says “I’m being eaten by piranha!”  Cue the piranha stock footage, some bloody makeup, and a few plastic fish pinned to his suit, and Chubby Hitler gets his just dessert.  Or just becomes dessert.

This was director Edward D. Murphy’s first film, and he jam packed it with as much awesome as he could fit into one movie.  Then he stuffed about three more movies into it.  He wound up with the most demented episode of Fantasy Island ever.  It is literally an embarrassment of riches.  Very, very cheap riches.  And in the enthusiastic spirit of the movie, it ends with TO BE CONTINUED…  Only in our hearts, Edward D. Murphy, only in our hearts.

C Chaka  

99% Kicking Ass: DEATH PROMISE

The disparity between the ultra-wealthy and the poor in this country has never been more apparent than now, unless of course you are actually poor, in which case it’s always been pretty apparent.  The same kind of thing was going on in the 1970’s, but instead of the 99% protesting by milling around aimlessly in large ruly mobs like these days, their blue collar heroes fought against corruption and economic inequality with blood, sweat, and throwing stars.  At least they did in 1977’s no-budget grindhouse firecracker DEATH PROMISE.          

   

Capsule:
In the seedy slums of New York, a cabal of slimeball landlords are trying every dirty trick in the book to force the tenants of Charlie Roman’s apartment building to move out, including cutting the gas and water, dumping garbage and live rats in the apartments, and attempted arson.  But they are thwarted at every turn by Charlie’s ex-boxer dad rallying the tenants and by Charlie’s sweet karate skills sending the slumlords' goons packing.  Impatient with their low to mid-level evil tactics, the landlords step over the line and kill Charlie’s dad.  Charlie promises to make the slumlords pay with their lives, a death promise, if you will.  With the help of his fight brothers Speedy and Sup Kim, they unleash ridiculously concocted vengeance against the greedy fat cats, leading up to a rooftop showdown with the Landlord Syndicate’s mysterious mastermind.  Will they finally be able to stick it to the man?  That’s not a euphemism, there’s a sword involved.

This movie makes me so, so very happy.  For one thing, it’s called DEATH PROMISE.  It sounds like a fake title, like DEATH BLOW from SEINFELD, but it’s no joke.  Not intentionally, anyway.  Mind you, no one actually says the words “death promise” in the movie, but the theme song sure as hell does.  This alone justifies the movie’s existence.

It is a movie that runs on pure heart, unhindered by lack of budget, script, or recognizable/legitimate actors. Dialogue may not always match the actors’ mouth movements, or even sound like the same person.  Store signs may be hand written on white paper.  Obvious dummies may be thrown from roofs.  This is all part of the charm.  With its theme of social justice (by way of murdering rich people), it has a classic Blaxploitation feel, but emphasizing class over race.  The Landlord Syndicate, as it is actually called in the movie, is a fantastic collection of evil stereotypes.  There’s the banker, the Italian mob guy, the corrupt judge, the drug dealing pimp, and, um, the guy with the beard who I think is in the hotel business or something.  Charlie’s building is the last obstacle to an unspecified real estate venture that will, in the bankers words, “make us all rich men [evil chuckle], I mean richer men.”  The judge whines that the laws today are all twisted to accommodate “those welfare people.”  If any of them had a Snidely Whiplash mustache, there would be copious twirling.  It’s funny that there is no real animosity between the members of the five person syndicate, even with their ethnic differences.  As long as you are rich, greedy, and immoral, it’s all good.

By comparison, the good guys are a lot less flashy.  Charlie is pretty bland for the main character, a standard karate guy out for vengeance.  I do like that he makes an impassioned prayer to God to help him kill these bastards.  I don't think that's a Sunday School approved prayer.  But what he lacks in charisma, he makes up for in fearless wardrobe choices.  Even for the Seventies, it is impressive.  Who wears white denim pants to a street brawl?  This guy does.  He’s the Shaolin Monk of paisley.  

Of course, he’s really only bland compared to his cohort in kung fu, Speedy Leacock, played with low rent Jim Kelly panache by an actor named Speedy Leacock.  If your name is Speedy Leacock, the script changes to accommodate you.  And this is a script with some pretty outstanding names already.  The banker’s name is E. Bartley Aldan, which sounds like either a robber baron or a STAR WARS villain (Grand Moff Aldan would totally work).  In any case, Speedy is one cool motherfucker.  He sports both an afro and cornrows in the movie (though not at the same time).  When he finds Charlie’s dead dad, after Charlie runs from the building in tears, all Speedy says is “aw damn.”  As Charlie trains in the art of killing with Master Ying in the exotic lands of a farm just outside of New York, Speedy plays Shaft and discovers the identity of the slumlord pentaverate.  He spies on them from the middle of the street, just daring a punk to give him shit.  He doesn’t need to go undercover, the brother is overcover.

Not that our heroes really have their work cut out for them, owing to the Syndicate’s exclusive use of utter morons as henchmen.  With the exception of killing Charlie’s dad (which happens off screen), they fail spectacularly at every task they are given.  After dumping a box of rats in the apartment hall (white lab rats covered in soot to give them the city rat look), they pause their quick getaway to gently harass an old guy at the door, giving Charlie the opportunity to beat them up.  When ordered to burn down the apartment building, another set of goons just set fire to cardboard piled up next to a decidedly non-flammable brick wall in the alley.  The mob guy’s henchman is actually tricked into killing his boss.  These are terrible, terrible employees.  No vetting at all.  Even the impressive lead goon, who looks like a skinnier, scuzzier version of Captain Kangaroo, only gets a few rounds with Speedy before being taken out by a sneaker to the throat.

One thing I’ve noticed, no one makes those great Bruce Lee vocalizations when doing martial arts anymore.  This movie is filled with ahwaas and hohies and whahaas.  When Charlie meets Master Ling, with his awesome frosted hair and old man make up, his first lesson is how to make a really ferocious hocking a loogie sound. 

The landlord deaths are pretty imaginative and all unnecessarily intricate.  The Beard guy is punched to death through the window of a moving car after a slow speed chase through a multi-story building composed entirely of basements (don’t question it).  Speedy dresses up like a mailman and gives the pimp a special delivery (a sack full of hungry rats over his head).  Charlie goes after the judge Bond villain style and drips poison down a string into his open mouth while he sleeps.   He handles the poison without gloves, so I really hope he washed his hands well afterwards.  My favorite death, or death reaction, to be specific, is the banker.  When he takes a shuriken to the back of the neck, he screams out “Oh my god!”  Not like a person who just received a mortal wound, but in a completely whiny way, like he just saw his car being towed.  He’s having such a rotten day.  To add to the hassle, after a few more steps, someone pops up and stabs him with a sword.  That scream is even whinier and more put upon.  The movie doesn’t state what day this occurred, but I bet it was a Monday.

The mysterious mastermind behind the whole thing, seen stroking a cat as all masterminds should, turns out to be (SPOILER!) Charlie’s old sensei Shibata.  This comes as a complete surprise, as long as you missed all those times they show him slightly out of focus in the back of the banker’s office, or sitting just inside of the frame as the banker talks on the phone.  Honestly, it could have been any one of the two old Asian characters in the movie.  This leads to the rooftop showdown between Shibata and Charlie, Speedy, and their new pal Sup Kim, who makes “whoosh whoosh” sounds while spinning his nunchucks.  Charlie and Shibata exchange Leone style close up stares as Speedy and Sup Kim look like they are trying to remember their grocery lists.  It’s very cinematic.

DEATH PROMISE is one of those movies that won’t come up in the suggestion list when you start typing it into the search on IMDB.  Or when you finish typing it.  Did you mean DEATH PROOF?  Are you sure?  Its page has no cast pictures, not even a poster thumbnail, despite there being an existing, (incredibly awesome) poster.   It stars a cast of unknowns who went on to be just as unknown.  The director, Robert Warmflash, never made another movie, though continues to have a busy career as a post-production supervisor to this day.   He actually worked on several award winning and respected documentaries like CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS and THE COVE.  That’s fine, some people peak early.  But a lifetime of reputable work cannot outshine the accomplishment of giving the world DEATH PROMISE, a humble story of the little guy sticking it to the man, and then throwing him off a building.

C Chaka