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Plot: disgraced janitor is the only one who can thwart a terrorist plot.

There was more to Hawaiian low budget trash specialist Albert Pyun than cyberpunk, chop sockey martial arts, and post-apocalyptic nonsense. he never shied away from occasionally trying to do something topical and timey. He was early to the virtual reality craze of the early 1990s with Arcade (1993) and, for example, the 1997 Handover of Hong Kong in Hong Kong 97 (1994). Blast was his woefully underwhelming contribution to the cycle of Die Hard (1988) plagiates that was winding down by that point. To give on idea of just how dour and dire the American low budget action filmmaking scene was around this time Andy Sidaris was making far better, or least nominally more fun, romps with Day Of the Warrior (1996) and Return to Savage Beach (1998), respectively. Old Andy could always be counted upon to hire a spate of beautiful women and his movies were set on sunny Hawaii, also not important. We have spilled a lot of blood on Pyun’s most enduring properties and some select titles here and there over the years but we were nevertheless saddened to hear of his passing on November 26, 2022, age 69, after many years of suffering from dementia and multiple sclerosis. While Pyun actively stopped filming in 2018 due to debilitating health the throne he vacated was usurped by Rene Perez and Neil Johnson, specialists in the kind of stuff he used to excel at.

There are those things that are better avoided. Like things that could potentially damage or ruin your career. One of these things was Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997). When offered the role Bridgette Wilson kindly declined to return and played a supporting role in I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) instead. Linden Ashby and Christopher Lambert were given copies of the script as well and refused to return as well. While Wilson actually went up a rung on the Hollywood ladder Ashby and Lambert found themselves in a different kind of hell, the one called Albert Pyun. Of the two Christopher Lambert ended up in the much better Mean Guns (1997) whereas Linden Ashby supposedly landed here to consolidate his status as upcoming action star. Unbelievable as it may sound, Ashby was at one point during the latter half of the nineties poised as the next big action star. Admittedly, he was very good in Mortal Kombat (1995) and Pyun used a torn-from-the-headlines real-life event as the basis of his script for Blast.

Which event? The 1996 Centennial Olympic Park terrorist bombing. To call something as unabashedly drab as this speculative fiction is far too generous. Besides the always charming Ashby regular Pyun warm bodies Andrew Divoff, Tim Thomerson, Thom Matthews, Norbert Weisser, and Yuji Okumoto do their usual spiel, which is really filling up space. Divoff, to his credit, would play a similar role in Air Force One (1997) later that year. Kimberly Warren, Jill Pierce, and Tina Cote were put to much better use, and actually given something to do, in the thriller Mean Guns (1997). Oh yeah, and 23-year-old Shannon Elizabeth – just two years before her big break in American Pie (1999) – stars as one of the hostages. Blast was filmed over a quick twelve days in April 1996 at the state-of-the-art Twin Towers Correctional Facility for around $700,000 and it looks like it too. Famous former and current inmates of Twin Towers include The Game, Paris Hilton, Steve-O, adult performer Ron Jeremy, and predatory film producer Harvey Weinstein. Mean Guns (1997) definitely is the better of the two. Which, while saying not much, unfortunately, says more than enough.

The 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. At a pre-Olympic event which the President is scheduled to attend the women’s swimming team is preparing. A group of terrorist headed up Kalal Omodo (Andrew Divoff) infiltrate and seize control of the Aquatic Center with help from a mole and Omodo’s head of security Moses (Jill Pierce). The cell sends a broadcast across the globe that bombs have been planted all over the Olympic buildings, that they hold the US swim team hostage at gunpoint and, in an ultimatum, they vow to start killing hostages one by one if their demands aren’t met. Remaining somehow out of bounds is Jack Bryant (Linden Ashby). Since sustaining debilitating injuries the former Olympic Taekwondo champion has fallen on hard times and is now a recovering alcoholic. He’s currently slumming it up as a janitor but is hired as a last-minute staffer. Once informed of the hostage situation the Mayor (Barbara Roberts) throws together an improved crisis management meeting with help of an FBI agent (Yuji Okumoto), the police commissioner (Tim Thomerson) and a city aide (Tina Cote). Also sitting in is paraplegic wheelchair-bound Native American Interpol counter-terrorist specialist Leo (Rutger Hauer). From a distance the panel tries to assess and diffuse the situation. Only after his black co-worker Bena (Sonya Eddy) is killed and team trainer Bill (Thom Mathews) tries to strike a deal with terrorist leader Omodo does Bryant realize the building has been taken over by hostile armed forces. Things take a turn for the personal when he learns that his ex-wife Diane Colton (Kimberly Warren) is among the hostages. Will Bryant be able to thwart the terrorist plot?

With Chad Stahelski only netting a “special thanks” credit the action direction and choreography is nothing to get particularly excited about. Linden Ashby acquits himself well enough, but imagine what this could have been with an actual action director on board. In recent years Stahelski has risen to fame as a director on his own with the very lucrative (and ongoing) John Wick (2014-) franchise. Not only is the action direction and choreography on the lame side of terrible, none of the kills really mean anything. In Die Hard (1988) every character had a function, was given enough background, and every kill represented a milestone in the trajectory of the main character. Here none of the goons can be told apart and since the villains wear the same blue uniform as the main character at times it’s hard to tell exactly who did what to whom. Divoff plays the bad guy well enough, Ashby has charisma to spare, and the women are uniformly beautiful – but Pyun’s script (under his usual Hannah Blue alias) is skeletal, to say the least. None of the emergency committee members are given so much as a name (“the mayor”, “the police commissioner”, “FBI agent”, “city aide”, etc) which seems pretty… basic?

Pyun always had a bunch of pretty women in his stock company and here Jill Pierce, Tina Cote, and Kimberly Warren embody the 90s definition of hot. Only Warren has a role with some weight whereas Pierce and Cote are stuck in thankless decorative parts. You’d imagine that Pyun would put more focus on either Jill Pierce or Tina Cote but no such thing ever really materializes. For shame, Al, for shame. Tina Cote, whose presence usually lights up any of Pyun's more banal output, has a part so insignificant that it's easy to forget that she's in this at all. Kimberly Warren was the greatest Pyun babe to never go anywhere. Warren is given little more to do than standing around, and occasionally looking misty-eyed. At least Pyun was wise enough to get her white T-shirt wet. Jill Pierce was the reason to see Mean Guns (1997) even if she was only in there for a brief second or two here she has a slightly bigger role. Why Pyun never made her, Cote, or Pierce into his action muse as he did with Kristie Phillips in Spitfire (1995) is a question for the ages. Why we never got a The Doll Squad (1973) or Charlie's Angels (1976-1981) imitation with these three ladies boggles the mind. In retrospect the biggest star here is probably Shannon Elizabeth who was a two years away from making it big and would become a pillar on American television afterwards.

For the most part Blast is a case of wasted (or at least unfulfilled) potential. Nemesis (1992) was the perfect storm and Albert Pyun was never able to recreate that magic. If Blast is shorn of anything it’s Pyun’s usual style and swagger. The Hong Kong aspirations of Nemesis (1992) are nowhere to be found. The gun pyrotechnics are disappointingly flat lacking in both urgency and impact. None of the individual fights carry any weight and have something of an underrehearsed feel. The Twin Towers Correctional Facility was an incredible location but it isn’t used to maximum effect. Say what you will about former Pyun alum Jean-Claude Van Damme but he was at the height of his success and power by 1997, Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995) was two years old by this point – and even though Steven Seagal begun his decline he still considered a legitimate action star. Albert Pyun was in the habit of making stars out of the unknown and rehabilitating disgraced (and fallen) action stars but he himself never ascended (or transcended) his low budget roots. Nor was he able to legitimize himself with a big budget production. Blast is emblemic of Pyun as a director and at every point effortlessly fails to deliver that what its title would have you believe. Under Siege (1992), Speed (1994), or Con Air (1997) this most certainly is not. Hell, it doesn’t even come within an inch of Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995). Had it been half as cartoony as Air Force One (1997) then at least it had been fun. Alas, it is not.

Plot: They robbed her of her innocence. They will pay.

Thanh Sói - Cúc dại trong đêm (or Thanh Wolf - Wild Daisies in the Night, released internationally simply as Furies) is the long-awaited follow-up to Furie (2019). There always has existed a great synergy between the regional cinematic traditions of the more liberated (and Western inclined) Hong Kong, the isolationist Chinese mainland, the nearby Taiwan, and to a degree even the Philippines. Vietnam remains largely untrodden territory for us (unlike, say, Indonesia and Malaysia) but if Furies is any indication, it can easily compete with its Southasian counterparts. Furies is, for the lack of a better descriptor, a female-centric (and feminist) martial arts action movie on the model of Teresa Woo San’s classic Iron Angels (1987-1989) trilogy. Furies is to Furie (2019) what Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) was to The Terminator (1984). That is to say, it’s a thematic follow-up largely cut from the same cloth as the original that expands just enough upon the established formula to justify the retread. Furies knows its strengths and improves upon them with bigger production values and scope.

Let’s not mince words. Furie (2019) was one of the best martial arts movies that year and forever etched Veronica Ngo in our heart. Lê Văn Kiệt had made a modern classic but curiously he’s nowhere to be found here. You’d imagine that Văn Kiệt went back to the drawingboard as soon as Furie (2019) smashed its way to international fame. No such things seems to have happened. The creative force behind Furies is Ngô Thanh Vân (or Veronica Ngo as us Westerners know her). Ngo is known in the West mostly for her roles in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny (2016) and Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) and remains mostly active in Vietnam. Ngo not only stars, but also produced, co-wrote, and directs. Where a good deal of direct sequels fail is that they insist upon not deviating from the established formula or format sometimes forcing beloved characters from previous installments into unlikely scenarios eventhough their story was either self-contained and already told. Furies shows its intelligence by realizing that Furie (2019) told the story of Hai Phượng and needed not to be told again. Instead Furies focuses upon expanding on the backstory of the villain and details the ascension of Thanh Sói to the throne of the Nam Ro cartel in Ho Chi Minh City.

Living on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City Bi (Đồng Ánh Quỳnh) was the victim of both a violent childhood and sexual assault. As a stray she survives by pickpocketing and life on the streets her made her tough. One day she runs into Jacqueline Hoang (Ngô Thanh Vân) who sees potential in Bi’s violent outbursts and penchant for casual destruction. Bi reluctantly agrees to live at her halfway house after hearing they share a common enemy, the Nam Ro cartel that operates every major crime branch in the city. At the house she lives with level-headed rock chick Thanh (Tóc Tiên) and sparkly party girl Hong (Rima Thanh Vy). They too are survivors of sexual assault and victims of a violent childhood. Aunt Lin considers her latest recruit a vital addition to her all-girl vigilante group The Wild Daisies and she teaches all three the ancient art of Vovinam and a regiment of special weapons training and infiltration techniques. Lin’s goal? To dismantle the Nam Ro cartel from the bottom up. The Wild Daisies are ordered to eliminate The Big Four at the New Century club: Long 'bồ đà' or "The Dealer" Long (Song Luân) who controls their narcotics distribution and has caused untold misery to so many, Tèo 'mặt sẹo' or "Scarface" Teo (Phan Thanh Hiền) who runs the cartel’s prostitution ring and their associated brothels, Sơn 'Lai' or "Half-Blood" Son (Gi A Nguyễn), personal bodyguard of "Mad Dog" Hai – and, finally, Hải 'Chó điên' or "Mad Dog" Hai (Thuận Nguyễn), head of the cartel. In the explosive finale the loyalties of The Wild Daisies are tested when it is revealed that not everybody’s motives are pure.

If you couldn’t tell from the plot summary above Furies is part of a decades-old cinematic tradition in Asia, the female-centric martial arts movie. Sure, it’s derivative, but its constituent parts are borrowed from some of the finest vintage 1980s Hong Kong Girls with Guns and wider Asian martial arts movies from back then and now. For starters it has the three-girl wrecking crew from Iron Angels (1987-1989). There’s the semi-mute stray that happens to be a savant martial artist from Chocolate (2008), the mainplot is lifted almost verbatim from Jing Wong’s Naked Weapon (2002) and Naked Soldier (2012) with a dash of Kick Ass Girls (2013) and some Vietnamese flavor. The Hong Kong and John Woo influence of Naked Killer (1992) is almost completely absent. Furies has that feminist undertone of Mistress Killer (2016) and Husband Killers (2017) (but is thankfully less blunt/obtuse about its political affiliation). Just like Extra Service (2017) this one prides itself on its retro 90s aesthetic of bright neon and pastel colors. As before Furies bathes in hues of green, blue, and red (somebody clearly knew their Mario Bava and Dario Argento, or simply continued what Lê Văn Kiệt started) and the 90s throwback is a good excuse to fill it with V-pop from back in the day. Thanh is the obligatory depressed grunge girl, Hong is the crazy rave chick prone to wearing outrageously revealing PG-13 outfits and bouncing off the walls, and Bi wears the expected tracksuits. Any movie that blasts 2 Unlimited’s ‘No Limit’ during a club scene always gets good points in our book. Paradisio’s ‘Bailando’ or the Vengaboys’ ‘Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!!’ would’ve probably been too cheery for something this dark.

As always, less is usually more in these type of movies. Furie (2019) was minimal, calculated, and efficient and its story served largely as a preamble to get in as much high-octane action scenes as possible. Back once again is Arab-Frenchman Kefi Abrikh and his choreography and action direction continue to echo The Raid (2011) in sheer brutality and stark utilitarianism and the girls’ routines are in the Angela Mao tradition in that they are hard-hitting, versatile, and athletic. Đồng Ánh Quỳnh, Tóc Tiên, and Rima Thanh Vy underwent a year of rigorous martial arts training in preparation for their roles and it shows. Perhaps the best thing Veronica Ngo did was casting herself in the role of Aunt Lin in a twist straight out of the Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) playbook. It also changes the location from rickety shacks in backwater villages in the Vietnamese jungles to the neon-lit sidewalks of Ho Chi Minh City (Sài Gòn or Saigon as we know it). As a throwback to the Category III genre of old Furies has enough sex to please anyone yet Đồng Ánh Quỳnh, Tóc Tiên, and Rima Thanh Vy are never really sexualized or objectified. To her everlasting credit, Ngo herself takes more of a backseat here acting as a mentor both in front as well as behind the camera. Tóc Tiên is probably the best known of the three (or the most easily marketable) as she’s a former teen idol that turned to modeling and singing before becoming a television personality as a judge on The Voice of Vietnam and Vietnam Idol Kids. Rima Thanh Vy is the most conventionally beautiful of the three and in Western hands she would’ve been the central character. Some of the visual effects are a bit iffy, the bike chase is the most egregious and downright videogamey in part, especially in HD and 4k resolution. Other than that Furies looks and sounds spectacular and the increased budget clearly helped.

In the day and age of franchises, spin-offs, and series Furies is that rarest of sequels. It’s not so much a retread of an established formula but an expansion upon concepts of the original. Furie (2019) was a strong stand-alone feature and any sequels were not really expected (or even necessary). Regardless, Furies defies expectations by doing the same but doing it different enough to justify its existence. The retro 90s aesthetic is better realized than most of these throwbacks but it is, and remains, a gimmick. If Netflix decides to greenlight another sequel it’s time to look at how the events of Furie (2019) shaped Mai and the relation with her mother. In an ideal world mother and daughter would bundle forces to defeat a common enemy or a larger threat looming over them. Preferably without any aesthetic gimmicks. Let’s hope Maria (2019) and BuyBust (2018) eventually receive a similar treatment. Furie (2019) killed and Furies, simply put, effortlessly and elegantly kills again.