Kattiera Nana I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

VividSimon Simply Perfect

ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Red-Barracuda Cirio H. Santiago seems to have been a bit of a legendary Filipino director from the period when many cheap and cheerful genre flicks were being knocked out in the Philippines. From the little that I have seen, his output seems to be a guarantee of a good time on at least some level. One thing I have noticed is that he is fond of throwing everything at the screen no matter how disparate, with Future Hunters (1986) for instance he combined a post-apocalypse, time-travel, religious artefacts, Shaolin monks, neo-Nazis, dwarfs and Amazonian women. With the earlier TNT Jackson (1974) he simply combined martial arts with Blaxploitation, which was a tactic he returned to with Fighting Mad, with the added bonus of a vigilante revenge story and Hell in the Pacific thrown into the mix as well. The story itself has a lot going on in it. Three Vietnam veterans steal a cache of gold and then two of them double-cross the third by killing him and throwing him in the sea. Trouble is he doesn't die and winds up on a tropical island inhabited by two Japanese soldiers who are still fighting World War II in the late 70's. They nurse him back to health and train him to be a martial arts expert and samurai sword master. He eventually ends up back home in L.A. and seeks out his ex-buddies - who are now crime lords - for a slice of violent revenge.It would be churlish to complain too much against a movie which has a synopsis like the above. In true Santiago style its attempt to mash genres up does result in something a little bit different for sure. It's full to the brim with fighting, training montages, heads and ears being lopped off, soul singing, 70's hats and Afros. So while it's not always entirely engaging stuff it tries its best to deliver a bit of stupid fun and you really can't argue with that too much.

Darkling_Zeist With the belated rise in popularity of Asian exploitation; towering grindhouse icon, Cirio H. Santiago has become somewhat of a bona fide underground cinematic hero; this is due in no small part to his series of low-budget, high-octane, post Apocalyptic actioners, and ribald entertainments that so did exceptionally well during home video boom of the 80's. The doyen of post holocaust automotive Armageddon, Santiago perfected the machismo-soaked iconography of swarthy, leather-clad heroics where dusty, embattled muscle cars, festooned with gaudy Motley Crue accouterments blazed a furious trail of carnage across a noxious, corrupted landscape, where brutality and automotive prowess were the only viable remaining currency. Santiago directed these dystopian vistas with their crimson-hued skyline, mottled by the choking dust of deathly radioactivity with great gusto; so it came as no great surprise to discover that his earlier title, and wildly entertaining revenger, 'Fighting Mad' (aka) 'Death Force' was by no means an impoverished backwoods cousin to his better known PA extravaganza's. Brawny, James Inglehart is part of a roguish trio of opportunistic thugs and after a particularly frantic blag upon a yacht, things go south, he is left to rot in the midst of the briny sea. Being a purebred Grindhouse classic, the film's unerring goal is unrelenting revenge; and after washing up on a deserted island he is trained by two Japanese soldiers stranded there since the end of WW2; naturally we have to endure a little ham-fisted cross cultural observations pre-chop sock, but swiftly, Santiago constructs some amusing training vignettes, while not on par with '36 chambers of shaolin' they prove to be an excellent aperitif before our vengeful black samurai (fortunately not the dire Al Adamson interpretation) replete with diamond-edged Katana blade proceeds to exact a most furious and dreadful revenge. Ostensibly 'Fighting Mad' is the timeless fable of a muscular, super-irked black man decapitating dumbbell Mafiosi with a diamond edged katana blade..so what's not to like?

HaemovoreRex Now this is more like it! When two crooks decide to bump off their partner and pocket all the loot from a profitable crime, little do they suspect that our man not only survives their murderous attempt, but is washed ashore an island where he is nursed back to health by two Japanese soldiers who have been stranded there since the second world war and who in addition, don't even know that the war has ended! In fact not only do they nurse his wounds, but one of them additionally teaches him the way of the samurai thus paving the way for our man to return to the states and take a bloody revenge! This is a great little film and very much a product of its time featuring cool seventies fashions, proud looking afros, some soppy romantic scenes (in glorious seventies slow motion obviously!), a groovy seventies soundtrack and last but not least some cool and gory action throughout including our hero cutting off one of his enemies ears, and later sending the same guy his crime lord associates head in a box! Highly entertaining stuff and it even has a happy ending! What more could you possibly want?

rabiddog67 Leon Isaac Kennedy is Doug Russell, an American who steals a shipment of gold in the Phillippines with two Vietnam War buddies, who cut his throat and throw him overboard. Russell washes ashore an island inhabited by two Japanese soldiers stranded there since World War II. They nurse him back to health and he is taught martial arts and the art of the samurai. Back in the States, his treacherous pals, Marelli and Maghee, use their loot and viciousness to muscle their way into Los Angels mafia turf. Maghee sets his sights on Russell's wife, Maria (Leon's real-life spouse at the time Jayne Kennedy), a lounge singer who can't get a gig because Maghee has her blackballed all over LA in his scheme to make her come crawling to him. Russell, samurai sword in hand, hitches a ride on a boat back to America and begins his search for his wife and son; he learns that Marelli and Maghee are the top men in town and he begins slaughtering their cohorts, working his way up the hoodlum food chain. Plenty of action and yucks, including a "touching" montage when Russell is reunited with his wife and son. FIGHTING MAD, not to be confused with the Peter Fonda revenge flick of the same name, is entertaining in a MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 kind of way.