Let's talk about Roger Corman, I never quite had the chance
until now. The King of B-Movies, always makes films quick to the point of
shooting any of them in two days, I kid you not. He has directed 50 films and
produced over 300 films and you can attribute that number to his production
company New World Pictures, dating all the way to the 1970's until his regime
finally came to an end in 1983 where he sold it himself and moved on but even
he launched the careers of very successful such as the likes of James Cameron,
Joe Dante, Ron Howard, Jonathan Demme, Jack Nicholson, Sylvester Stallone, even
Martin Scorsese, they all went to the school of Roger Corman by working for New
World Pictures. He's known for two things, at least two elements of his whether
they'd be his own films or not. The action girl and tons of nudity. He's not
the King of B-Movies for nothing people. With the action girl, he never
believed in women who sit around and do nothing while the men kill the monster
or a normal human who happens to be the bad guy.
In other words, the phrase "Stay in the kitchen"
is bullshit. For example, in It Conquered The World, Beverly Garland plays a
character who not only kills the monster but in a way contributed to its design
behind the scenes. In the film, she gives the monster a good verbal thrashing
before killing it with a shotgun while the husband was mesmerized. Now when
Garland herself took a look at the monster she said, "So you're gonna
conquer the world, huh? Ha!" and kicked it.
"He said, 'Well, we figured it comes from a
high-gravity planet, so it ought to be built low to the ground.' I said, 'Not
that low!'"
And the other thing Corman is known for is gratuitous
nudity. It's a common thing of his, but it's not just his films that have
nudity, a lot of B-Movies and that sort of lot have those so the female leads
in his films tend to have topless moments. Curiously, when he wanted Humanoids
of the Deep to have extra nudity after filming was completed, he fired Barbara
Peeters after she refused to shoot it and hired someone else.
What I'm getting at is that FireCracker was made during the
time when Corman was still running New World Pictures but I can't help but feel
that it seemed like it was released during the wrong time period and yet seems
so right given what followed.
Susanne Carter (played by Jillian Kesner), a female martial
arts instructor is looking for her sister in the Philippines upon discovering a
drug cartel. However, not only does she discover what her sister found out, she
finds herself in the heart of the cartel upon entering a martial arts
tournament to the death.
This might be a relatively short review, as I'll be taking a
different approach to the material.
I will mention what the film is good at relatively quickly
on the technical side of things. The acting is okay but some of the line
readings need work as I did notice one or two lines Kesner probably needed
another take. Her character and Rey are the most likeable and funny tidbit, the
guy who plays Rey looks like a dead ringer for Bruce Lee, really. The music for
itself, let's just say every time I think back to it, I keep confusing it for
the background music for Inspector Gadget. And some of the cinematography can
be pretty to look at, particularly when it's outside of the city as I have to
admire the shot of the mountains.
I'll get to the fight scenes in moment so allow me to say
the following.
In the 1980's, there was the rise of the type of action hero
everyone is very familiar with; the muscle bound-hard ass male popularized by
the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger with his roles in Commando and Predator (I
am not counting The Terminator, as, and if you don't know already; he was the
bad guy in the first film), Sylvester Stallone with the likes of Rambo, Cobra and
Rocky Parts III and IV, and Jean Claude Van Damme with Bloodsport. All these
movies have in common is that they all have the manly men fire their guns and
look badass, even action movies with average height males such as Bruce Willis
with Die Hard and the duo of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon. Even
Eon Productions caught on the craze when they made the James Bond film Licence
to Kill in that type of mold.
That's not to say the 80's didn't have female leads, of
course there's always Ellen Ripley in Aliens and Sarah Connor in The
Terminator, the latter where she has the most character development.
Right, where I'm going with this is that those aren't the
only films to have badass female heroes in 80's action films. FireCracker is
one of those, just that not many people know it. Especially since, you know,
it's a B-Movie. Period.
But even so, Suzanne Carter is someone I appreciated every
time I saw her fight. The choreography is fast and she's very flexible, not stuntwomen
were involved whatsoever-really. She's a badass through and through, even when
she gets captured; she doesn't go down without a fight.
Hell, the fight scenes can be spontaneous like for example,
there's a bar fight that came completely out of nowhere and then there's what's
probably the most memorable part of the film is where she's chased by two
drunks who attempt to rape her no doubt and ends up shredding her dress in the
process and has her bra cut off by one of the drunks. At one point, I had to
say something akin to, "Okay, take off the heels and run." But
eventually she did and in an amusing moment, she beckons the two to come after her
with the intention of fighting them off.
After she kills one of them, one the drunks cuts off her top
which brought about an amusing expression on her face that screams to me
"Okay, really? That's a cheap shot!" and basically knocks the crud
out of him even whacking him in the crotch.
That's not to say she's not vulnerable, when she finds out
what happened to her sister, she is immediately distraught and in exploitation
fashion, there is a sex scene but it's weird as Chuck, one of the flunkies who
works for the mafia, rips off her clothes with a knife and she does the same
back. That's not to say she's very forgiving as when it came to the tournament,
she calls him out and his boss agrees. So as such, there is the final fight
between him and her and while she lands plenty of kicks on him, he doesn't
screw around as he brutally punched and kicked her.
And it's intercutted with Rey fighting off the rest of the
thugs and spares the mob boss (who is played Ken Metcalfe, one of the
co-writers of the film) only because the police will take him. But you do root
for Carter to succeed as she does get her revenge and it can be very
satisfying. I won't spoil how she does it but it's a fitting brutal end for
such a butthole as Chuck.
It's a fun martial arts B-Movie, if this is your type of
film, check it out especially if you're looking for feminist cinema. If not and
you want something more of quality, then you won't be looking for it here.
It gets an 8/10
Written By The Movie-Brat
