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

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Re: SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO (1991)

Postby Krom on 24 Jan 2011, 02:17

Awesome!!
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Re: SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO (1991)

Postby Jox on 18 Feb 2011, 15:21

Listen to audio samples from the soundtrack

http://www.soundtrack.net/albums/database/?id=1285

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Re: SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO (1991)

Postby Jox on 07 Mar 2011, 10:03

Reel Creations was responsible for creating and applying the body tatoos
https://www.reelcreations.com/portfolio ... ortfolio=4
"SHOW DOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO" starring Cary Tagawa was a movie that also incorporated what we call the "wet process." The wet process is used for major sized tattoos that actually circumference the whole body. In this process we print the tattoos and while the ink is still wet, we transfer the patterns on to the body. The principal tattoo make-up artists were Mr. Blau and Mike Hancock.

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Re: SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO (1991)

Postby Jox on 03 Apr 2011, 13:19

SILT has currently been airing in HD on UK Sky Movies Action and Adventure channel, as well as MOTU.

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Re: SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO - Mark L. Lester (1991)

Postby Jox on 05 May 2011, 18:37

http://articles.latimes.com/print/1991- ... -community
Enter the Offspring
March 03, 1991|Kyle Counts | Kyle Counts,
The stream of gangster pictures continues--this time, yakuza style.

Director Mark Lester is currently shooting "Showdown in Little Tokyo," on location in L.A., with Brandon Lee--son of the late martial-arts star Bruce Lee--making his starring debut in an American film.


Lee and Dolph Lundgren play cops--one Caucasian, the other Japanese-American--who team up to close down a drug operation that Japanese gangsters have established in Southern California.

Can Lester avoid the criticism that greeted "Black Rain" (1989) for its alleged racial stereotyping?

He points out that the movie was inspired by a Los Angeles Times article about yakuza involved in the hard-drug trade here. Interviews with a detective on the Los Angeles Police Department's Asian Task Force "verified" that yakuza are busy in L.A. with illegal drug and gambling operations, Lester said.

"We're showing good Japanese as well as Japanese criminals," Lester says, "just as there are good and bad in every race."

Lee, who is half-Chinese, was born in the United States, raised in Hong Kong and now makes his home here. He says he has not given "more than a passing thought" to a possible Asian backlash.

"I don't know much about the Asian community because I'm not really a part of it," he says. "I don't even consider myself part of the American community, honestly speaking."

If his portrayal helps the Asian community gain "a better standing in America, that's great," he adds. "But it's not why I became an actor. . . ."

Lee, 26, has appeared previously in two low-budget foreign features, as well as a couple of American TV roles. He's recently signed multi-picture contracts with 20th Century Fox and Carolco Pictures, and begins shooting "Moving Target" for Fox in May.

As for working in his late father's shadow: "I think that any person who goes to see a martial-arts film compares whoever's in it to my father, because he's the standard. Are they going to compare me? Sure. Even more than somebody else? Sure.

"Do I worry about it? No."



REVIEW
MOVIE REVIEW : 'Showdown in Little Tokyo' a Class Martial-Arts Act
August 26, 1991|KEVIN THOMAS | TIMES STAFF WRITER
"Showdown in Little Tokyo" (citywide) is the smart, fast-moving martial arts action-adventure you would expect from director Mark L. Lester, stylish and witty maestro of exploitation genres. Heroic Dolph Lundgren and humorous Brandon Lee are well-teamed as a pair of L.A. cops zeroing in on the Iron Claw, a Japanese yakuza (gangster) outfit about to flood the area with a lethal methamphetamine while using a local brewery and nightclub as a front for the operation.


Screenwriters Stephen Glantz and Caliope Brattlestreet clearly know their way around martial-arts territory. They write tightly yet inject some substance and even some comedy along with the requisite mayhem. In an amusing twist, it is Lundgren's Chris Kenner, an American raised in Japan, who's steeped in Japanese culture, while Lee's Johnny Murata, a Japanese-American, is a self-described Valley boy who knows only "malls, MTV and driving dad's car on Mulholland." However, he was trained in Japanese martial arts from the age of 4 (which to Kenner makes him a late starter). Kenner has a highly personal reason for wanting to nail Iron Claw chieftain Yoshida (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa): He executed his parents, his father having been with the U.S. Army of Occupation.

In short, Lester has plenty to run with, and the result should please action fans. Considerable care has been expended to evoke the yakuza culture with its rigid samurai clan structure, whose members customarily cover their bodies with magnificent uniform tattoo designs (which in this instance were provided by Reel Creations, originators of realistic yet removable tattoos). Indeed, Lester drew his inspiration for the film from a Times account of the discovery of a pair of yakuza corpses in the Los Angeles River.

There's been no corner-cutting right down the line: Craig Stearns' production design is handsome, resourceful and carefully detailed, Mark Irwin's camera work clean and first-rate, and David Michael Frank's electronic score properly pulsating. Lundgren is more at ease with each new film; Lee, son of the late Bruce Lee, handles comedy with the ease of his kung-fu moves, and Tagawa has lots of fun with his hissable villain. Tia Carrere is the film's intelligent and lovely leading lady.

"Showdown in Little Tokyo" (rated R for language, standard exploitation film violence, some sex and nudity) is a class act.

'Showdown in Little Tokyo'

Dolph Lundgren: Chris Kenner

Brandon Lee: Johnny Murata

Tia Carrere: Minako Okeya

Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa: Funekei Yoshida

A Warner Bros. presentation. Director Mark L. Lester. Producers Lester, Martin E. Caan. Screenplay Stephen Glantz & Caliope Brattlestreet. Cinematographer Mark Irwin. Editors Steven Kemper, Robert A. Ferretti. Costumes Robyn Smith. Music David Michael Frank. Production design Craig Stearns. Running time:: 1 hour, 18 minutes.

MPAA-rated R (strong violence, language, sensuality and drug use).
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Re: SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO - Mark L. Lester (1991)

Postby Jox on 23 Aug 2011, 14:17

Opened 20 years ago today in US theaters (limited)!

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Re: SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO - Mark L. Lester (1991)

Postby Travis on 24 Aug 2011, 03:46

I think this is easily his best film.
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Re: SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO (Mark L. Lester, 1991)

Postby Jox on 08 Dec 2011, 22:50

In this week's retrospective/analysis/interview about his films, director/producer Mark L. Lester doesn't comment much on SHOWDOWN but says what probably sums it all:
"After Showdown in Little Tokyo, I wanted control of my movies because it was finally taken over and edited by the studio and I wanted to have more control over my own movies

http://thepinksmoke.com/markllester.htm
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Re: SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO

Postby Jox on 13 Jan 2012, 12:57

Jox wrote:rare quick behind the scenes footage and Brandon Lee interview from SILT in the "Hollywood Stuntmakers" show (on VHS in the UK)



(turn the sound down or off because the Italian dub is loud)

Here is the clip IN ENGLISH!
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Re: SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO (Mark L. Lester, 1991)

Postby Jox on 25 Feb 2012, 22:59

Rare pic from the set found in a Japanese magazine article on Sensei Toshishiro Obata, on the set

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

Postby viendammage on 27 Feb 2012, 07:23

Jox wrote:In this week's retrospective/analysis/interview about his films, director/producer Mark L. Lester doesn't comment much on SHOWDOWN but says what probably sums it all:
"After Showdown in Little Tokyo, I wanted control of my movies because it was finally taken over and edited by the studio and I wanted to have more control over my own movies

http://thepinksmoke.com/markllester.htm


Would love to see an Extended Cut of this flick. Definitely one of Dolph's best movies and one of his great cinematic team ups with the late Brandon Lee. I wonder what Lester's vision of the film was originally?
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