Another delightfully cheesy action movie from the guy who brought us COMMANDO and CLASS OF 1999. SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO is full of clichés from start to finish, contains an incredibly poor script, bad acting, and tons of gratuitous sex and violence. It's the classic action B-movie, absolutely hilarious in places without meaning to be, and a lot of fun with it because it's just so bad. There is no plot to this film. Lundgren and Lee are two nominal policeman, partnered up in a fight against a Japanese drug lord. The whole film consists of them battling the Japanese in one way or another. There is no police presence in this film, no other characters apart from the bad guys, the good guys, and the love interest. The script is full of dumb, occasionally offensive one-liners which nevertheless add up to make this an entertaining experience.
Lester goes out of his way to deliver as much adult entertainment as he possibly can. Thus we get naked hookers being beheaded, tons of naked women around at every possible moment, Tia Carrera's body double being brought out at every opportunity. The violence is just as extreme, with people getting impaled, slashed, stabbed, gutted, having their little finger cut off, plus tons of shooting and the like. The destruction level is high. Buildings explode and burn to the ground, people are thrown through tables and windows. There's a ton of heavy weaponry and plenty of exciting martial arts fight sequences, with all the violent neck-breaking you could ever want.
One of the fun things about this film is watching all the mistakes and inconsistencies play out. My favourite scenes are the dummy in the car crusher and the fight at the end, where Lundgren gets shot through the heart and shrugs off the bullet. Acting-wise, Lundgren and Lee put in extremely poor performances. Yet they kick a lot of ass all the way through the film, which is the main thing. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa has a ball as the slimy, reptilian villain Yoshida – in fact he did so well in it he spent a career copying this character in many straight-to-video movies throughout the '90s. Tia Carrera is hopeless in her debut. Generally, this film is a lot of fun, despite it being shallow, brainless, clichéd, and unsurprising. Yet once in a while it's nice to sit back and chill out in front of a guy film like this.
Lester goes out of his way to deliver as much adult entertainment as he possibly can. Thus we get naked hookers being beheaded, tons of naked women around at every possible moment, Tia Carrera's body double being brought out at every opportunity. The violence is just as extreme, with people getting impaled, slashed, stabbed, gutted, having their little finger cut off, plus tons of shooting and the like. The destruction level is high. Buildings explode and burn to the ground, people are thrown through tables and windows. There's a ton of heavy weaponry and plenty of exciting martial arts fight sequences, with all the violent neck-breaking you could ever want.
One of the fun things about this film is watching all the mistakes and inconsistencies play out. My favourite scenes are the dummy in the car crusher and the fight at the end, where Lundgren gets shot through the heart and shrugs off the bullet. Acting-wise, Lundgren and Lee put in extremely poor performances. Yet they kick a lot of ass all the way through the film, which is the main thing. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa has a ball as the slimy, reptilian villain Yoshida – in fact he did so well in it he spent a career copying this character in many straight-to-video movies throughout the '90s. Tia Carrera is hopeless in her debut. Generally, this film is a lot of fun, despite it being shallow, brainless, clichéd, and unsurprising. Yet once in a while it's nice to sit back and chill out in front of a guy film like this.