EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

An American soldier — on his way home from the Vietnam War — is left for dead and is saved by a pair of Japanese stragglers from WWII, who train him in the way of the samurai. This movie is also known as Deadly Force, The Force and The Black Samurai, as well as several other titles. It’s a compound of blaxsploitation and the kung fu genres, with some social commentary mixed in along the way.

I’ve always been fascinated by the Japanese soldiers who didn’t surrender after World War II. Here, they help our hero Doug — James Iglehart, who was Randy Black from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls — learn the ancient fighting skills he’ll never to make it back home.

Turns out that Doug and his buddies —  McGee (Leon Isaac Kennedy, Too Sweet from the Penitentiary) and Morelli (Carmen Argenziano, Grave of the Vampire) —  have stolen gold on the way back from Vietnam for a crime boss. On the way back, they stab our hero, slash his throat and dump him off the boar. Luckily, those aforementioned Japanese soldiers are ready to teach him that violence really does solve issues.

McGee really wants Doug’s wife Maria, who is played by Jayne Kennedy, who appeared on the cover of Playboy and was selected by Coca Cola USA as the Most Admired Black Woman in America. She was married to the actor playing McGee — Leon Isaac Kennedy — in real life. And back in the days before the internet, the two appeared in a sex tape so infamous, it’s referenced in a Mr. Show sketch (it’s at the beginning of the “Show Me Your Weenis!” episode where Wyckyd Sceptre gets caught on tape).

I just posted the screencap so that the review itself doesn’t get flagged on Amazon.

The soldiers that help our hero are played by Joe Mari Avellana, who was the Scourge in Wheels of Fire, and Joonee Gamboa, whose characters constantly bicker back and forth.

This movie has an amazing tagline: “She’s in Playboy. He’s out of Penitentiary. Jayne Kennedy and Leon Isaac in Fighting Mad.” A bit misleading, as he’s the villain, but what can you do?

Cirio H. Santiago is to blame — or praise — for this. He made more movies than we’ve probably reviewed on this site like Wheels of Fire, Demon of Paradise and Stryker.

This was rereleased by 21st Century.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

If you want to see what Donald Pleasence movies I’ve seen, here’s the Letterboxd list. I love him because he was a working actor. Like John Carradine, he was there when you needed him. And at times, he’d show just how good he was. But he’s a workmanlike — in a good way — presence in so many movies.

Directed by Lee Madden (The Night God Screamed, the Alan Smithee who made Ghost Fever) and written by Hugh Smith (second unit director of Abby, writer of The Glove), Night Creature has Pleasence as Axel MacGregor, a writer and big game hunter who has unleashed a deadly black panther and doomed everyone around him which is a real problem as his daughters Leslie (Nancy Kwan, Wonder Women) and Georgia (Jennifer Rhodes) have just come to town along with Ross (Ross Hagen, who also produced this movie), a guide who seems pretty sleazy.

All this movie should be about is Pleasence hunting this animal that has already hurt him and he’s brought it to his turf for one last battle. You have the great thespian monologuing and trying to imitate the big beast and man, his eyes bugging out and him snarling and that’s the best.

At times, I’m given to just yelling out Pleasence line reads, like “The evil is gone” and “I shot him six times.” I celebrate him eating at a salad bar in 90s giallo. I’ve read that he drank through this entire movie and I in no way want to judge him for that. My memories of the actor are always wonderful and he lives again every time someone watches one of his films, whether he’s playing a President, the devil or a preacher who turns into a warthog.

This was released by Dimension Pictures and rereleased by 21st Century.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

You can call this War of the Wizards or The Phoenix but either way, this movie is astounding. It was co-directed by Chang Mei-Chun (Dynasty, Revenge of the Shogun Women) and Sadamasa Arikawa (the director of special effects for films such as Destroy All Monsters; Son of Godzilla and The Mighty Peking Man).

This played in the U.S. with a horrible dub but that doesn’t matter. What does is that this movie has fantastic visuals and seems closer to a fantasy children’s movie. I have no idea why it doesn’t get discussed at all because it’s just stunning.

Tai (Hsiu-Shen Liang) is a poor fisherman who reads all he can to become a better person. He finds the Magic Vessel of Plenty and the Bamboo Book of All Knowledge, which allows him to become a rich man, but he shares his wealth by buying his fellow townspeople food. This doesn’t impress the woman he’s in love with, Jasmine (Hoi Si-Man), who wants nothing to do with him even if he is rich and successful now.

One after another killer comes his way to take his life but end up killing one another first. He’s saved by Violet (Terry Hu) and Hyacinth (Chow Chi-Ming), who promise to protect him so he decides to marry them both. That’s stopped by two old wizards who claim that Tai is filled with lust and has no idea that fate is coming for him.

The sisters really work for an evil alien called Flower Fox (Betty Pei Ti) and Tai is going to need to transform into a silver-costumed sword-wielding hero if he hopes to break the sisters away and save his people. Then, he fights a rock monster and Richard Kiel, dressed as if he were in a Sinbad movie, which makes this movie so much better as he battles Tai with giant claws.

There’s also an incredible looking phoenix that yes, is a puppet, but who cares? Perhaps fantasy doesn’t need to look perfect to be perfect. When I read negative reviews of this, it upsets me because the people who feel that way have no joy inside them.

21st Century released this as War of the Wizards.

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

A young boy rises from a lake, fully clothed, and travels to church where a priest delivers a fire and brimstone speech about the sins of the world, in particular, six people.

Afterward, the other choir members bully the boy, even putting a knife to his throat.

Those six people have been invited to a ten-year class reunion: John, a lawyer who doesn’t care if his clients are guilty. Cindy, a promiscuous party girl. Terry, an overweight ne’er-do-well. Jane, a wealthy and immoral heiress. Roger, a vain actor. And Kirsten, a lesbian.

The event will be at their old high school, where a mysterious man arrives to kill the janitor and make a mask of his face.

None of the six people really knew one another. Yet they enjoy a room appointed with plenty of room and drink. It’s all fun and games until they find the dead body of the janitor filled with maggots and that the school is locked.

Am I really spoiling anything if I tell you that everyone dies? Terry gets his crotch set on fire with a flamethrower. Jane meets a hunter in disguise who recites poetry to her before killing her with a shotgun. Roger is killed by a magician and his deadly trick. Cindy is attacked by a clown and drowned in a sink, an attack that seems to take forever.

John meets the killer face to unmasked face. He reveals that he has lured them to the school to punish them for lives of sin, such as John being a criminal lawyer who helps guilty criminals go free. The killer is a Redeemer, one who has decided to rid the world of the wicked starting with a few sinners. They fight and John shoots the killer in the side, but he recovers and graphically shoots John in the head.

Kirsten is chased through the school and even gets the gun, but a giant puppet stabs her.

The Redeemer is revealed to be the priest, who returns to the church to finish his sermon, claiming that the six sinners will be given redemption. He then meets with the boy, who reveals that he has killed one of the boys who bullied him, as well as a Bible salesman. The boy tells him that all will be right.

The priest goes home to tend to his wounds and we notice he has an extra thumb, which disappears. The boy goes back to the lake, where he walks into the water and disappears.

The movie closes with this: “From out of the darkness the hand of the Redeemer shall appear to punish those who have lived in sin… and return to the watery depths of Hell.”

Shot in July 1976 and also known as Class Reunion Massacre, this movie is way ahead of its time. And it also seems like it wasn’t created by human beings. It’s legitimately unsettling at times and raises plenty of questions. Who is behind everything? The kid or the priest? Why are they really doing it? Why pick these exact people and this exact school? Why the masks and deathtraps?

Why ask why? This film is closer to a surrealist art film than a horror movie. Just watch the scene with the Grim Reaper costume and the Redeemer screaming and yelling, but locked outside the gates. It’s just…off. And I loved it.

21st Century licensed this to Continental Video as Class Reunion Massacre.

You can watch this on Tubi.

This is the sequel to Exit the Dragon, Enter the Tiger, stars Bruce Li and is one of the best Brucesploitation films I’ve seen.

I guess it’s a spiritual sequel as Li plays a totally different character, Chang Hung. He and his partner (Angela Mao, Lady Whirlwind) are busting up a crime empire run by Paul (Paul Smith!), taking out most of his army early and even suggesting that he just kill himself. Of course, being a gigantic evil man, Paul decides to go on the offensive and battle back. There’s also a Chinese gang that Paul is fighting for control of the heroin business, which means that our heroes are going to go all Yojimbo or A Fistful of Dollars and play them all off one another.

This movie would be incredible if all it did was steal Wild Cherry’s “Play That Funky Music” and most of the score from Live and Let Die, but it goes all the way to have an incredible ending fight with Smith remembering when he was playing a Bud Spencer ripoff along with Michael Coby as his Terence Hill in movies like Convoy Buddies. He’s a monster compared to the kung fu guys throwing flying kicks at him and it’s amazing to watch him throw them around. The way he’s finally defeated is even more amazing.

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

Directed by Romolo Guerrieri (The Sweet Body of Deborah, Ten Thousand Dollars for a Massacre, Detective Belli, The Final Executioner), who wrote this with Nico Ducci, Mino Roli and Vittorio Schiraldi, Covert Action was known in Italy as Sono Stato un Agente C.I.A. It’s based on former C.I.A. agent Philip Agee’s book Inside the Company: CIA Diary. He eventually became disillusioned with the U.S. government’s support for authoritarian governments across Latin America and that they worked for multinational corporations and not for the good of the world. He did work with the producers, but by the end of the movie sued them over his fees and expenses.

Lester Horton (David Janssen) is really Agee, a man who has left the C.I.A. and wants to write about his time with them again, after a first book that put him on their hit list. There’s also a tape that has dirt on the commander of the Athens C.I.A. station (Arthur Kennedy), which is being kept by John Florio (Maurizio Merli), who is married to Horton’s ex-girlfriend Anna (Corinne Cléry).

The C.I.A. commits Horton to a mental ward to get rid of him, giving him shock therapy — this scene is pretty intense — while a Greek inspector (Phillip Leroy) works to discover the truth of what is happening. The spies also want to take out Florio, as his heroin addiction has led to him becoming a liability. To take him out, they send their killer, known as The Silent (Ivan Rassimov) who cooly takes the man out.

This has a great Stelvio Cipriani score, a super dark feel throughout and was Janssen’s last film, released four months after he died by 21st Century. Catherine Bach was the original lead, but was replaced with Cléry.

Released in the U.S. as Mortal Combat and The Return of the 5 Deadly Venoms, this is the story of how Chu Twin and his son Chu Cho Chang have started a reign of terror. It all begins when Chu Twin returns home to find his wife murdered and his son critically injured, with his arms amputated from the elbows down. Making him iron arms and training him in kung fu, the two find that revenge is not enough and now they have become the villains, crippling four men who get in their way.

The town’s blacksmith is forced to drink a burning liquid that takes his voice whole a ear clap from Chu Twin makes him deaf as well. A travelling salesman is blinded by Chu Cho Chang and another has his legs torn off just for bumping into Chu Cho Chang. When kung fu Yuan Yi, he attempts to make the evil doers pay for this damage, but instead finds his head crushed inside a vice, reducing his intelligence to that of an idiot.

As they escape to the temple of Yuan Yi’s master, they each find ways to use their injuries to their advantage, with the blacksmith increasing his vision, the salesman being able to hear a leaf hit the ground and the legless man gains iron legs and feet. As for Yuan Yi, he now sees fighting as a child’s game, happily laughing even in the face of death.

The four men return on Chu Twin’s 45th birthday and exact their revenge, battling a series of kung fu experts before challenging the evil master and his iron fisted son.

Four of the Venoms — Kuo Chui, Lu Feng, Sun Chien and Lo Meng — show up in this film and it’s quite literally a living and breathing cartoon. Movies like this are why you seek out the films of Shaw Brothers and director Chang Cheh.

If American audiences know director Lau Kar-leung and star Gordon Liu for anything, it would be this movie. A lot of credit for that goes to the Wu-Tang Clan, who referenced it in an album title and have as many alternate names for one another as audiences do for this movie (The Master Killer, Shaolin Master Killer and Shao Lin San Shi Liu Fang).

Liu Yude (Liu) has been radicalized into the rebellion against the Manchu government, which ends when General Tien Ta destroys his school and then kills not just the students, but their friends and family as well. On the run, he goes to the Shaolin temple in the hopes of learning the fighting skills he’ll need for revenge.

As an outsider, he is turned away until the chief abbott has mercy on him. Yet a year later, Yude is now San Te and begins working his way through the 35 training chambers that each monk must complete. The top chamber is too much for our hero, where he must recite Buddhist philosophy from memory, so he begins on the bottom, amazing everyone at becoming the master of 35 of the chambers in just six years.

After numerous battles, he finally defeats one of the elders and announces that his goal is to create the new 36th chamber, one in which ordinary people will be given the skills to defend themselves. The temple officially banishes him but only does so to allow him to go back into the ordinary world and continue the revolution and stopping Tien Ta.

“The wall may be low, but the Buddha is high.” With dialogue like this, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin shows that the journey to master oneself through fighting skill is not even about the actual fighting. It is mastering emotion and going inward to better oneself. The war is often with ourselves.

There was a time — let’s call it 1978 — when HBO first entered my life. Unlike predictably scheduled network television, many of the movies ended at odd times. In between, there were all kinds of unplanned content, like Video Jukebox, Arcade Attack, Bambi vs. Godzilla, The Mild Ones and Hardware Wars. As a kid who couldn’t get enough Jedi content in 1978, the fact that this aired every few days on our TV made me overjoyed. Every time it came on, whoever had on HBO would yell for everyone to run into the TV room and watch.

It’s a treasured memory.

I’d like to tell six year old me that I now own a copy of it and can watch it any time that I want. This is a magical feeling, the kind of power that young me never guessed would ever be my reality.

Hardware Wars — and another HBO favorite Porklips Now — came from animator Ernie Fosselius. After making twenty shorts for Sesame Street, he wrote several screenplays that never got filmed, including a Zippy the Pinhead movie. In his career, he’s done everything from foley work on Ed Wood, Serial Mom and The Unbearable Lightness of Being to making props for RoboCop 2, being a founding member of The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo and providing the voices for the pilots in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Poggle the Lesser in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, the Rancor Keeper in Return of the Jedi, writing the song that “Lapti Nek” that the Max Rebo Band performs, contributing one of the voices of the arcade game Gauntlet, doing the “Ack! Ack!” Martian voices in Mars Attacks! and performing the voice of Trantor the Troll in Ernest Scared Stupid.

Shot in four days for $8,000, this is George Lucas’ favorite parody of his film. When it was re-released in 1997, Fosselius didn’t take part, as he didn’t see the need to add in digital effects. He was also unhappy with the 2002 re-release that saw animators take out the strings on the puppets, which was intentional.

This movie was obviously made by a fan of the source material, as even Paul Frees — who voiced the Star Wars trailer — is used, making this feel real. His voice warmly reads “Hardware Wars! A spectacle light years ahead of its time! Starring: Fluke Starbucker, intergalactic boy wonder. Augie “Ben” Doggie, venerable member of the Redeye Knights. Princess Anne-Droid, interstellar damsel in distress. Ham Salad, ace mercenary pilot and intergalactic wise guy. Darph Nader, villain.”

Yes, Fluke Starbucker (Scott Mathews) must learn to master The Farce with help from Augue “Ben” Doggie (Jeff Hale, an animator on Sesame Street and Heavy Metal), Artie Deco, 4-Q-2 (Frank Robertson), Princess Anne-Droid (Cindy Furgatch), Ham Salad (Bob Knickerbocker) and Chewchilla the Wookie Monster.

If this line doesn’t make you laugh, this isn’t for you.

Fluke Starbucker: Jeepers! What is it, Augie Ben Doggie? Did you feel a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced?

Auggie Ben Doggie: No, just a little headache.

Being a grown up is not the fun that I hoped that it would be when I was six. At least having this helps.

The MVD release of Hardware Wars has a brand new 2K HD transfer from the only known surviving element, a 16mm Reversal Release print. There’s commentary by Ernie Fosselius, a director’s cut, a prequel featurette, a foreign version, an interview and three other movies: Hardware Wars Saves Christmas, Porklips Now and Plan 9.1 From Outer Space. It has a limited edition slipcover and a collectible mini-poster. You can get it from MVD.