SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO (Mark L. Lester, 1991)

[Jox]

My scan of a German magazine article I got (January 1992):
https://www.instagram.com/p/CSL6kV5If1V/

[alex.sp89]

Happy 30 years anniversary of Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991). Congratulation to all cast and crew who worked on this picture. Masterpiece approved by time and audience. Critics always sucks, ruined so many movies prior their releases and affected box office performances by their big mouth .... For me SILT IS THE MOVIE THAT I CAN WATCH EVERY DAY LIKE FOR THE FIRST TIME (even better than Commando in my opinion). I found a very funny celebrating event podcast

TAE Live: The War Room - Celebrating 30 Years of Showdown in Little Tokyo

Enjoy
Thank u Jox for still working hard on this site and forum. I check it out pretty much every days for updates. RESPECT AND GOOD LUCK

[TEMIRLAN]

Very good movie. Classic.

[alex.sp89]

As I said today is a big event SILT celebrates it's birthday- 30 years. Is it so old ? Like yesterday for me ... era of the best action movies - late '80s early '90s. Time please come back and make more movies like this.

Dolph, Brandon, Cary best action heroes of my childhood

H22358-L218639662_original.jpg (221.69 KiB) Viewed 8954 times

[Jox]

Happy 30th

[alex.sp89]

I really need to print a big poster of this and put it on my wall. One word CLASSIC poster. Even posters today are bad as the most action movies , cheap and unwatchable with small exceptions. I have big expectations from Castle Falls. I hope it is going to be on the same level of Mechanic or Skin Trade

[Jox]

Vern's review
https://outlawvern.com/2021/08/25/showd ... tle-tokyo/




P.S.:

In honor of enjoying this classic again I decided to try to re-create the Red Dragon Draft Beer logo. There are some variations seen on the packaging and the front gate of the brewery, but I was mainly looking at blurry DVD screen caps of the version painted on the back of the delivery truck Dolph and Brandon climb onto and hijack. Now available on t-shirts, beer steins or whatever you want at Zazzle.

[alex.sp89]

I would buy this beer. Cool logo.
In deleted part during post-production there is a reference about Red Dragon beer again. It was during hot tub scene with Kenner and Minako - after she says "u are a rare man" dialogue continued

Minako: What are u thinking ?
Kenner: Beautiful girl, dark night,steaming water...It's like a beer ad

She looks at him confused... He turns to an imaginary camera...

Kenner: (in deep sincere spokeman's voice) Honey, u wanna run into the kitchen and fetch me a cold Red Dragon ?

Half a beet.. it dawns on her. She tilts back her head and laughs...

Kenner: U should try to sleep tonight. It will be OK.

It was initially a real comic book movie. Exaggerated reality - as Mark L Lester said in one interview. WB disliked it and re-edited all over.

[Jox]

Director of photography Mark Irwin (who had previously shot DARK ANGEL / I COME IN PEACE) talks a little bit about SILT at 01:45:20 mark.



Great interview overall if you're interested in cinematography and working with the likes of David Cronenberg, Wes Craven etc...

[alex.sp89]

I am glad that Mark Irvin mentioned the main word about SILT was- a martial art movie. It wasn't a tournament movie about fights, it was an organic blend of a buddy cop movie with heroes who posses martial arts skills during their duty and on the top of it with comedy elements .Mark L Lester was a master of mix genres of this coming from early indie movies from '70s. Nowadays big franchises are trying to do the same things, like Fast and Furious, many Dwayne Johnson movies, Jump Street 1-2, of course Rush Hour.

It means SILT crew touched the right direction but studio interference in post production destroyed their vision and later on the same studio realised that let's make more movies of this type because they are bankable. Who's fault was and who we can blame today I don't even know ? I was thinking what Mark L Lester reflecting today about this experience - WB kind of blame me back then and now they are doing the same movies. It means a I was ahead of it's time and nobody wanted to trust in it's success. Corporate, studio film making is not very good for real directors as Andrey Konchalovsky used to say reflecting on his own experience on Tango and Cash (1989).

[Jox]

This is coming out in Spain on November 22nd
https://diversionyocio.es/en/catalogo/1 ... 07818.html

[JuV]

This is coming out in Spain on November 10th
https://diversionyocio.es/en/catalogo/1 ... 07818.html

Bonus features:
Behind the Scenes (Exclusive)
Featurette (Exclusive)
HD TV-Spot
Spanish and English trailer

They're also doing a release for Masters of the Universe:
https://diversionyocio.es/es/catalogo/12320-masters-del-universo-blu-ray-steelbook-postales-iman-nueva-edicion-limitada-masters-of-the-universe-8435479607337.html

It's always a little hard to verify if Spanish editions are bootlegs or not but a steelbook seems like quite a bit of effort in comparison to a standard amaray case. Then again i have a rather high-end Critters digibook bootleg and they have some Critters Blu-ray's on the site as well while that's not licensed anywhere in Spain last time I heard...

[alex.sp89]

Behind the scenes footage - very interesting. Or just short clips from Hollywood Stuntmakers (1991) and Jimmy Taenaka tape presented by him on his youtube channel from a TV program recorded in 1991. All this Spanish Edition look dubious to me. In Spain they used to release 2 Steven Seagal movies - The Glimmer Man (1996) and Fire Down Below (1997) on Blu ray 2 years ago. I They weren't even released in the US on Blu Ray yet. In result they were just amazon prime Hd version put on disc. Bootleg. Hd TV Spot u can make your own today if u want but if it is from 1991 and never saw before (additional shots deleted from the movie) is a least something new. I doubt that this is a new transfer - old WB Archive Blu ray or HD TV rip with different colors instead of yellow filter used by WB BD. Is this R- rated version or Unrated ?

What is your opinion regarding this Jox ? Maybe Dolph provided something to hem ? He has properties in Spain and selling his Marbella house now and have some connections.

[JuV]

All this Spanish Edition look dubious to me. In Spain they used to release 2 Steven Seagal movies - The Glimmer Man (1996) and Fire Down Below (1997) on Blu ray 2 years ago.

Yeah those 2 are bootlegs and they're being sold on that site as well... I looked a bit more and I'm seeing various (confirmed) bootlegs but also a few releases that might be legit. Unless someone from Spain knows more about them I don't except them to be legit (it doesn't help either that lots of these bootlegs also get sold on legit website like Amazon etc)

[Jox]

It seems this is definitely not legit, as are their so called "exclusive behind the scenes"...