Movie Review: Showdown in Little Tokyo
Showdown in Little Tokyo is the ultimate movie for thirteen year old boys.
I mean this as a compliment. Starring Dolph Lundgren and Brandon Lee, the film was released in 1991 and has aged like a fine wine. In the vein of other descriptive title films like Big Trouble in Little China, Showdown is basically an action movie playing off of the American perspective of “exotic” Asian culture. In classic buddy cop movie fashion we get two mismatched bickering partners with the Dolph playing an American raised in Japan and Brandon Lee playing a half-Japanese cop raised in America. This setup with the massive blonde-haired blue-eyed American serving as the expert on Asian culture lecturing other Asian characters in horribly broken Japanese is deliciously anachronistic. It could only be done ironically today and that’s kind of a shame because it is amazing in its way if only for its audacity.
To call the movie “dumb” would be missing the point. The 79 minute runtime and inclusion of the fetching Tia Carrere as the damsel in distress ought to be enough of a clue as to what you’re in for with Showdown. This is a straightforward film filled with karate fights and cartoonish shootouts where the two heroes gun down dozens of bad guys without getting hit once and suffer zero consequences from law enforcement. Watching Dolph one-hand a Desert Eagle and kill ten bad guys without reloading is bound to put a smile on your face. Another element that appeals to my inner middle-schooler is the gratuitous female nudity. Aggressively failing the Bechdel Test the film, to the joy of many an adolescent boy, uses a plethora of strip clubs and sex parties for its locales. Funner still, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Shang Tsung from the first Mortal Kombat film) hams it up as the evil Yakuza boss who killed Dolph’s parents (naturally). He provides the heroes with an endless army of goons for them to gun down like they’re at an arcade. In truth Showdown really feels like it was meant to be a videogame.
Thank you Showdown for taking me back to a simpler time in my life. Thank you Dolph Lundgren and Brandon Lee, two actors who should have been bigger stars, one tragically taken from us too soon (it was bittersweet seeing how cool Brandon looked throwing down like his old man). I had fun with Showdown and you will too if you understand what you’re getting into. This one is for the boys.
Grade: B+
