V-Cinema Essentials 1: Crime Hunter: Bullets of Rage

The number of films piling up can be overwhelming, the to-watch piles having reached a level whereby I need to retire now and binge every day for decade (I wish). Add to that the kind of hot muggy night when you just want to sit under a cold shower and leaves you needing a short sharp shock. So I finally dipped my toe into Arrow’s V-Cinema (V for Victory, not for Video, the intro assures us) Essentials boxset, in part because the first film in the set was mere 58-minutes and my brain was mulch after a two-day migraine, so would Crime Hunter: Bullets of Rage be just what the action doctor ordered? 

Welcome to Little Tokyo. Shoot first, die last. A police officer known as Joker (Masanori Sera) loses his partner who is killed trying to catch a big time thief named Bruce (Seiji Matano). Joker quits the police to pursue Bruce. Unwittingly saddled with a nun (Minako Tanaka) whose church Bruce robbed, Joker finds himself fighting unexpected enemies. 

There is something utterly unapologetic about Crime Hunter: Bullets of Rage – it's totally out there to be an action flick. The introduction notes how two years before the film was released, so too was John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow and in the same year as Bullets of Rage, John McTiernan’s Die Hard hit our screens. There was a desire for action in the young and in young actors who came together with a producer to make made for home viewing films. Arguably what seems the bigger influence is John Carpenter. The introduction notes how our two police officers are working in Little Tokyo, and how the arena is a strangely non-real, near-future place that one assumes is the US and is evocative of Escape from New York; then as the film progresses, with the good and bad coming together and it's tight plot is screamingly reminiscent of Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13. Of course Carpenter is also very influenced by Hong Kong kung-fu movies and Crime Hunter: Bullets of Rage also draws heavily on the influence of late 1980s Hong Kong action. 

Does any of this matter? 

Arguably not really very much at all, because this is not an original movie by any stretch of the imagination, nor is it trying to be. In it’s short 58-minutes its a calling card to do something new and arguably also a gateway to much later cheap-as-you-like movies-made-with-verve like Versus. It’s unabashed in aiming to be fun and entirely entrenched in the 1980s, but without the bloat that can creep in. I do admire a film that doesn’t outlive its usefulness, which is maybe why I love 1930s/1940s Hollywood serials, because they know they are second features and get a good story in within an hour – and at their best they are fascinating but at their worst never grow tiresome.  

Crime Hunter: Bullets of Rage never becomes tiresome for a moment and if anything it enjoys the tropes of the time. Somehow our cop drives a sportscar where no-one ever opens the door, not even our nun, instead they dive in through the window. Yeah, we always find a way to grab the biggest gun and blow shit up. Yet at its heart it does lack some of what the best of the 80s action movies had to offer, as would those that appear in the 90's; the human element. Unlike Die Hard's everyman John McClane, there’s no humanising of Joker. Sure, he has a reason for his revenge in the death of his partner, but he's not a rounded character. Then again, nuance is not the order of the day here, and the film nails the action while keeping the pace a mile a minute - there is something to be admired in that. 

OK, the scenery may be chewed but the director makes good use of low angles to hide that they are shooting God-knows where. There are no airs and graces, just good honest action. Arguably, more could have been made of our nun, not that she is window-dressing exactly, at best she gets to roll down a fishnet stocking, but she seems to be there because of the money and also to get to see a good(ish) side of Bruce. She moves the story along even if, out of the entire cast, she seems the least capable in the acting department.

The story is not going to leave you with your mouth agape, but for 60-minutes you’ll find a punch-packed spectacle that doesn't waste a moment. This is the action you ordered with no unnecessary ingredients - it's everything you need and nothing more.

Oh, and remember, when action calls, bandanas come as standard.

 Join us again soon for the second film in the set...