Friday, August 28, 2020

Movie review - "Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects" (1989) **

 Historic in a way - the last feature from J. Lee Thompson and the last feature lead from Charles Bronson. This was his contribution to Hollywood's late 1980s in Japan - and it does provide a point of difference.

There's memorable bits - Peggy Lipton is his wife, Nicole Eggert is his daughter, Bronson forces a baddy to eat a watch, Bronson and a fellow cop hold another baddy over a ledge to get him to talk and accidentally drop him.

The villains are Latino and black, with Japanese sort of half and half. Bronson goes on a racist rant but the film doesn't seem to endorse it. A Japanese character (James Pax, quite a large role) thinks it's okay to grope women on public transport because he sees it done in Japan so he tries it on Eggert, and she goes him - which is nice character stuff (Eggert is very good actually - fresh faced, strong actor).

The movie never seems to quite get its groove. Really it should be about tough cop Bronson whose daughter is sold into sex slavery a la George C Scott in Hardcore and Bronson blows away everyone. That feels like where it wants to go.

But instead Bronson divides up protagonist duties with James Pax and the Pax storyline is bitsy.

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