Espionage In Tangier 1965 Story by Herbert Curiel, screenplay by R Belgrozo, directed by Gregg C Tallas. A Spanish Italian production.
A mad scientist has invented a disintegrator pistol. Agent S 077 is assigned to the case. We follow him around as he annoys everyone. There's some baddies and some pretty ladies. The dialog makes little sense at times and the fights are often poor. It's a bit of a loser. I wouldn't need to see it again.
Drive 1997 Written by Scott Phillips and directed by Steve Wang. We watched the MVD Director's Cut Blu-ray of the movie, it's got restored scenes and plenty of new extras. When I saw Drive back in 1999 I thought it was a highly entertaining action driven chase film. I watched it several times with other people but hadn't seen it for several years.
Mark Dacascos is an augmented special agent from Hong Kong. He's got a special device in his chest that makes him stronger and quicker than your average martial arts expert. He has decided to leave Hong Kong, he's going to sell the device to a company in Los Angeles for $5,000,000. James Shigeta plays the boss of the company that makes the device, he wants to keep the device from getting into other people's hands.
The baddies catch up to Mark in San Francisco, he's crossed the ocean by stowing away on a ship. He manages to escape and after kidnapping Kadeem Hardison in a bar they race across California. John Pyper-Ferguson and his toady Tracey Walter lead the gang that's chasing them. The pair get a room in a motel that Brittany Murphy is managing for her parents. She helps the guys out and the baddies blow up her motel. It was a darn good explosion. There was nothing left of the motel.
It's got a great script with a great sense of humor. The action, martial arts and stunt work are the equal of any top notch Hong Kong action film. Mark kicks the crap out of a horde of baddies in some entertaining fights. There's some nice scenery as the guys travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles. There's a big ending fight in a NASA themed restaurant. It doesn't survive the fight too well, neither do the baddies. Mark and Kadeem head for LA without anyone on their trail.
Why this movie isn't more popular beats me. It doesn't seem to make any of those best martial arts movie lists I see once in a while. It scores a 6.6 on the IMDb, I gave it a 7, it's easily that good or better.
I liked the director's cut so much I ordered one as soon as I got home. I would have ordered it on my tablet during the movie but I couldn't remember my Amazon password. I'm curious about the commentary and extras, the earlier DVD I have has no special features.
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