[yasr_overall_rating]
A Japanese cop, Shiro, and his partner Ray are after a bunch of drug dealers. But they are betrayed by an insider and Ray is killed. Shiro follows the murderer, a sadistic drug lord, up to Singapore.
In the late 1980s, when I was little, my dad used to come home from work on Saturday afternoons. We had a big empty living room in those days and would spend the afternoon collapsed on the floor watching action movies. “Missing in Action” with Chuck Norris was one of my favorites. I knew it was cheesy. I knew it was over the top. I liked the part where Chuck Norris bit into a rat. I have not liked an action movie as much as I like “Rage of Honor” since I first watched “Missing in Action.”
The poster for “Rage of Honor” might look shlocky and the film’s star, Shô Kosugi, is best remembered as a proficient martial artist and skilled weapons performer, but this film is the epitome of 1980s ninja cinema with explosions, head-kicking, knife fights, and big goofy stereotypical characters. The film grabs you right from the start and then drives like a demon through most of the tropes found in 1980s action movies. How do you feel about an opening with a drug bust on a Buenos Aires party boat loaded with Miami Vice styled bad guys and bimbos? Here’s what “Rage of Honor” will give you:
- 1 gun stuck up a bad guy’s butt
- 2 prison ninjas
- 1 scantily clad, big-haired 80’s girlfriend
- 1 tree trap impalement
- 2 tortured cop partners
- 3 handfuls of ninja stars
- 1 special agent hiding in ashes
- 1 use of ’80s computer technology that seems ridiculous now
- 1 man jumping between hotel balconies
- 1 man tortured with a red hot poker
- 1 building explosion
- 1 speed boat explosion
- 1 village explosion, and
- far too many kicks to bad guy face than I bothered to count
In the film, Shiro Tanaka (Shô Kosugi) is a police officer (or an FBI agent or some other type of law authority, it’s never really explained) working in Buenos Aires. (It’s also not really explained what country Tanaka is working for, and while at first I was tempted to say awesome, it just occurred to me that’s not a country.) Tanaka is in trouble with his boss Sterling (Gerry Gibson) because Tanaka is a bit of a rule bender. Tanaka’s girlfriend, Jennifer Lane (Robin Evans), is frustrated in her relationship with Tanaka because he is married to his job. Tanaka’s partner Ray Jones (Richard Wiley), follows a lead and ends up tortured by the bad guy Havlock (Lewis Van Bergen). Tanaka rescues Ray, but it is too late so Tanaka ends up vowing to seek revenge against Havlock.
I’ve seen the story of this film before. Maybe not in the same place, but I’m certainly familiar and could probably name you a film in which each event has occurred. But that’s okay. “Rage of Honor” is a film that thrives off cardboard cliches. There’s a little bit of heart here too, but that’s mostly because the actors do such a fine job finding small moments in a stock storyline.
Shiro and Jennifer travel to meet Shiro’s partner, Dick (Charles Lucia). At the hotel, Jennifer changes outfits and is attacked by a group of killers but saved by Shiro. (I’m really curious why the film went so far as to feature Jennifer getting changed, but did not include anything that was in the least way sexually explicit.) In a scene that reeks of trying to up the dramatic ante, Jennifer tells Shiro that he must make a choice between either his job or her. Obviously, Shiro chooses his job. Obviously, Shiro and Jennifer end up back together. Somehow, the film does not seem tired in these moments.
I’m not sure if it’s the small glimpses of good acting, the cultural artifact of the late ’80s that “Rage of Honor” is, or all of the action sequences crammed into the movie that make this film so fun to watch.
Separated from Shiro, Jennifer and Dick are attacked while traveling to Rio while Shiro sneaks into one of the bad guy’s drug operations, kicks butt, and ends up in jail. Still trying to get the bad guys, Shiro ends up dropped into a camp. Armed with a crossbow, Shiro fights a native tribe. Meanwhile, Dick and Jennifer run through the jungle.
There’s a scene in “Rage of Honor” that might be my favorite. It also might be a pretty good metaphor for life. Shiro emerges from a river, scales a mountain, shoots a bow-and-arrow with rope attached to the opposite side of the mountain, climbs across the rope, is attacked by bad guys, the rope breaks, and Shiro ends up just barely able to make it by swinging to the other side. Why Shiro even needed to get to the other side of the mountain is never explained. It’s also never explained why, if getting to the other side of the mountain was important, Shiro did not just scale this side of the mountain to start with because Shiro started off in the middle of the river.
By the time Shiro finds them, Havlock has captured and is in the process of torturing Dick and Jennifer. Shiro saves Dick and Jennifer, fights off a dozen more bad guys, survives a village explosion, and ends up in a helicopter.
The final sequence of “Rage of Honor” is not to be missed. The sequence involves assault weapons, a rocket launcher, and a final sword fight between Havlock and Shiro.
I love Shô Kosugi. He resembles Clint Eastwood in his insistence on the barest minimum of dialogue. There are scenes where Kosugi tries to say lines and ends up stumbling over the dialogue. We get the impression that Kosugi does not want to say much and is almost mad that he has to say anything at all. If it was up to Kosugi, I bet he would have just featured him kicking bad guys butt for 90 minutes.
I’ve done a little bit of research on “Rage of Honor.” The film was based on a story by Robert Short, who was in the special effects department for “E.T. The Extra Terrsitrial” and “Star Trek: The Motion Picture.” The screenplay was then written by Wallace Bennett who was a script supervisor on two of my favorite films of the late 1970s, Terrence Malick’s “Days of Heaven” and Paul Schrader’s “Blue Collar.” The film was ultimately directed by German Gordon Hessler who had previously worked with Kosugi on 1985s “Pray for Death.” “Rage of Honor” is a ninja film so professional that it has the confidence to go for drama and sincerity as well as thrills. “Rage of Honor” should have been the film that made Kosugi a star.
Available now on Blu-ray and DVD
