Firecracker AKA Naked Fist (Cirio H. Santiago, 1981)
An undercover
martial artist finds herself in deep with a far East drugs ring
operating out of a martial arts tournament. It's cheap but fun and
the lead (Jillian Kesner) and her co-stars show enough pugilistic
flair to make the fight scenes cinematically satisfying. It's also worth mentioning that very little of what is on the poster happens in the movie.
For a while
I was also certain this might be a slightly progressive female led
action flick. Okay, the first time we see our hero fight is in her
underwear, but since this was at night in her hotel room I'll give it
a pass for contextual reasons. And for the next twenty minutes or so she
is dressed in sensible, practical clothes, is not sexualised and is
pretty much accepted into the male-orientated tournament without any
bullshit "but she's only a woman" crap.
And then the
'chased by two assailants and her clothes keep getting caught on
things and being torn off until she has to fight them topless' scene
occurs. It's playful, yeah, but also feels like Benny Hill was behind
the camera that day. In fact, rumour has it this scene was shot later
and by a different Director in order to up the movie's nudity quota.
I'd barely
processed this sequence when I was then hit by the really weird sex
scene that occur two thirds in. Kesner is carried into a bedroom by
her furry love interest while bathed in soft coloured light. He
gently rests her on the bed and pulls out his... wait for it...
butterfly knives. Knives that he uses to cut open her clothing in an
unsettling passive-aggressive way. To be fair, she looks just as
confused as we the audience feel. Once the bra comes off that
confusion turns to, well, a punch in the guy's face. Not a playful
slap, or a flirty jab but a full, hard Bruce Lee backhand to the
mush. So hard is it the guy flies off the bed and across the room.
She then allows him back on the bed and sets about using a knife of
her own to cut off his pants. From that point on the sex is
relatively straight forward.
I like this
scene. Granted, the production of the knife did threaten to turn the
sequence down a murky and unpleasant alley and it is constructed for
us to ogle her naked body far more than his. It's her reaction,
however, that declares she is in control and will not have anything
done to her that she won't be able to do to him. Plus, it's just
weird enough to make what might have been a fairly cliche beat a
little more memorable.
The film will
make a nice double bill with Santiago's T.N.T. Jackson, a fun
blaxploitation movie about a female martial artist hunting down her
brother's killer. It too features a number off fun fights, a nicely executed gore moment (T.N.T. Jackson features an arm
being broken in two, complete with blood spurt, while Firecracker
features a face to a rotary blade kill) and both compete to win the
coveted weird topless fight scene award. T.N.T. Jackson just
about wins because that scene involves her stripping down to her
pants and turning the light off so she appears invisible and is
therefore ill-advised on not just a gender level but on a racial one
as well.
Even these
moments of shameless exploitation are ultimately harmless and to a
degree oddly badass. Certainly nothing to leave you feeling grimy.
Both movies are fun, short (always a bonus) and full of back-to-back
marital arts action of a pretty good standard.
Unfortunately, despite being Directed by Cirio H. Santiago neither movie adds any more to the Slade mythology.
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