Midweek Mention... Blind Fury

Blind Fury

Dan: I feel

like my feet have been cut off from the knee and I have been defeated by the previous unrecording recorded.

Sidey: Wow.

Dan: Yeah, yeah you

see that sir. There were so many excellent puns in the first edition but we're back again with this Blind Fury

Sidey: Yeah,

it's an

80s movie, it's got loads of 80s tropes, it's got Rutger Hauer, and it's got several other, well, I'm thinking of

Tex

Reegs: Tex Cobb.

Previously speaking about

Sidey: Oh, I was gonna get to that when we were previously speaking about it, it also has, and this is what I hadn't remembered, Because I saw this a long, long time ago. A child actor in it, my least favorite thing. Cole. And he is like, crucially beautiful.

Dan: He's

Cris: got a mullet.

Sidey: He's got an all time mullet. That's his saving grace in this film.

Dan: He's got an all time mullet. That's a

saving

Sidey: of some battle.

Dan: It's the aftermath of some battle. Nick, our hero, blind and, and reaching around

Sidey: he makes sure that we know that?

By stumbling around saying, I can't.

Dan: yeah, yeah.

Sidey: Which is what you do when you're injured. Don't You

point out to

Dan: yeah, exactly. And, and because he did that, he was helped by some, I don't know, some natives that, that, Pull him, put some mud in his eyes and wrap

Sidey: Yeah, no prisoner of war camp for him.

Dan: No.

Sidey: rehab. It's rehab.

Like

Reegs: like a stray dog and teach him their local tricks.

Dan: Yeah. And after what must be years, because now he's got a beard he's a ninja.

Sidey: Is that I mean, is that strong in vietnam the whole

Reegs: cutting cutting fruit

Dan: I, I, I

Sidey: think.

the geography of this is

slightly

Dan: well, you know, we don't know. I mean, Vietnam right next to China who knows where he was situated along that, that border, it was a crazy time side. And, you know, it's,

Sidey: anyway, it's a it's a montage

training,

which

I love the training montage and this one happens and his whole training, you know, is

Reegs: story is done before the credits that come up and tell you that this is a Philip Noyce movie noise that we've reviewed a few of his bits and pieces salt most recently.

And it's going to tell you that show Kosugi is in this movie, which is really cool. If you're a fan of the old Canon films, enter the ninja and all that sort of stuff. But the bad news is he's only in it for about three and a half minutes.

Sidey: Terrible death

Reegs: We'll find that out as we get to it. So anyway, it's not long before you're back in America using your cane to pick up litter as you move along the highway and

Dan: cain is also a samurai sword. Once it's unsheathed and he is, you know, discreet about that. Yeah, it's, it's kind of like.

Batman going away a little bit and coming back to be a ninja. He's just learned the way of the samurai and You can tell that because before when they first met him the natives that saved him and saved his his life I guess he couldn't cut fruit With a sword but when they left him if they lobbed it up in the air, he could give them all a portion and and that signaled his His kind of skill

Sidey: He's ready to go together.

Yeah

Dan: And then so he gets back to America, doesn't he? As you say, he's strolling the streets, avoiding dog shit on the road and

Reegs: And

alligators.

and Alligators,

Sidey: Good dog.

Reegs: And then yeah, like I said the first time around, the problem is in the 80s, when you're blind, or visually impaired at least, is everybody wants to, like, rip you off, or try to kill you, or

Dan: helping you across the road without kind of seeing if you've got a wallet to steal.

Reegs: Yeah, or hot sauce to put in your burrito when you ask for the mild one, they give you the really hot one.

And then you have to kick some locals asses just to show that you've got some moves.

Dan: rocks instead of candy.

that was another mean trick

Reegs: That was another mean trick. So anyway, Nick is in town because he's trying to find his old army buddy who turns out to be the guy from Lost who was in the wheelchair and then could suddenly walk at the beginning of episode one.

Spoiler alert.

Sidey: beginning

Reegs: Terry O'Quinn, did you watch that

show?

Sidey: one, spoiler alert.

Terry O'Quinn, did you watch that show? two or three series. And then watch the second half of the penultimate one and the last one it's utter nonsense. Yeah Anyway, so

Reegs: last one is utter nonsense.

Still injected, they were injecting them, weren't they? They

Sidey: but they still injected. they were injecting them, weren't they?

Reegs: them

Sidey: that's a, they had to dilute them or something. Yeah. I dunno. It's weird. Anyway, that was it.

Dan: You can snort a blue crystal, you can do what you like, you know. Stick them in your eyes. Yeah.

Reegs: there's a, Frank is in Frank Devereux is his name. That's a good name. He's initially reluctant to do it and they threaten his family and that.

It sort of comes to fruition when Nick is, perchance, going to the Devereaux house, where he's going to meet Brandon Corr, Billy, I think you mentioned earlier, this horrible little shit who's going to be in the movie for the, for the, you know, for the middle stretch of it, and his mother, who I recognised, did anybody else recognise her?

I couldn't place her it's probably there in the credits if I looked.

Sidey: But

She's killed.

Reegs: She's killed, yeah, when Tex Cobb from Raising Arizona and his two police accomplices turn up and,

Sidey: We get to see some cool

fighting now because

during

the altercation,

Nick,

Yeah,

He does some really cool samurai sword stuff.

Reegs: based stuff.

Sidey: And this is The first time we really see him chopping up something other than fruit. One of the policemen loses his hand, the other one I think just gets skewered

Reegs: the hand like it, it goes in slow

Sidey: It's a bit like when Luke loses his.

Reegs: but then the, I think it's like it, the nerve twitches or whatever makes the finger twitch afterwards and it shoots afterwards as it's dropped.

It's great.

Sidey: Yeah.

Dan: He made some excellent points with his sword and it was cutting edge.

Reegs: It was.

Dan: Really the way they went about it.

Reegs: it. So yeah, the two fake coppers are dispatched pretty quickly. Tex Cobb is let off with a

Sidey: you see what his character's name was?

Yeah.

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah. Slag is let off with like, shaved eyebrows or

Dan: You slag. So

Sidey: throughout the film, he has multiple chances to kill him.

Yes. And constantly leaves him alone. Like, everyone else

all

the henchmen get skewered and like brutally killed. But no, keeps letting him go.

Reegs: He has guns to the gut. And he comforts

Sidey: she gets shotguns to the gut and he comforts her while she, dies. And she's like, promises, makes him promise to look after the Billy. So he has to then

take,

Because Billy's been knocked out, he hasn't seen all the carnage, and he doesn't know what's happened to his mother, and he doesn't know why he's being escorted away.

And when they get to the station,

Nick

has

to explain to him because he's understandably confused and being a spoiled little cunt as well. But he has to explain to him that his mother's died, and they do that by,

It's

like quite a far away shot.

like up high I

thought that that

was because he was a shit actor and they couldn't get him to convey any emotion.

But actually works quite well in the film. I mean he runs off into the

there's a cornfield next to them.

we

Reegs: get an action sequence with these, like, there's a bunch of cartoon, like, rednecks patrolling this place and Nick's in there and he, like, makes two shoot each other and stuff. Some of the level that this is on is, like, you've got a character who's eating popcorn all the time.

He was credited as popcorn. So he's, he's shot. The kid is abducted, set free. And then abducted again or something in this part. There's the, they get, they put him in the shed and then slags on top with some like guns and shit firing it in and Nick's holding up a scarecrow and then eventually takes down the shack and all that shit.

They get away, they get away, something, something, something. And then they're off to Reno to go and find Frank, right?

Dan: Yeah,

Sidey: Yeah, and we get introduced to this other lady. Who is Frank's

Reegs: Love

Sidey: new bit of fluff that he's got on the go. Yeah.

And

we're supposed to believe that he'll be upset if she's

kidnapped

Dan: Yes. Yeah, We are not we're not upset,

Reegs: but we do get a kind of comical driving scene where as they're escaping again, I think from, is that after the casino?

Sidey: It's around this time because we have to have the blind man in charge of a vehicle. you have to. And we have one of those classic scenes where he goes through a junction cars, you know, from every angle.

You know, that

Dan: Everything but him is ended up in a big twisted heap of

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: we

also

Sidey: get some backstory there. We get some flashbacks to exactly what happened. And, The base that, the in the trenches where they were, in Narm

Dan: In Ransom's garden center. Yeah.

Sidey: they

had,

they were all like lolling

and having you know bants and then it became under attack.

There was a mortar attack, and so they had to go to their stations, but mister Devereaux turns out to be a coward, and he just fucking ran. He hightailed out of there, left Nick.

to

Everyone else is getting killed and nicks. we don't see exactly, It's just I think there's an explosion and somehow his eyes get hurt.

And so

that's what happened.

So he's a coward and a drug mule.

Dan: Yeah, it's not going well for young Billy's dad,

As

Sidey: But we are told that he had a penchant for Explosives

Reegs: We are told that, which will be helpful when he goes now to the casino to go and break Frank out of there. Which they do remarkably quickly, I mean, he gets, he just has to dress as a

Sidey: Well, it's the remnants of that idiot redneck gang, isn't it? Plus Tex slag,

Reegs: Slag, yeah, and so he dresses himself as a waiter and traps them by pressing loads of buttons in the lift and all sorts of shenanigans and chopping off door handles

Dan: all blind as well. You know, I mean, he's done this all with,

good

Reegs: performance as well from Rick Gahauer

Sidey: I thought so.

Reegs: of that. And anyway, he does eventually meet up with Frank Devereaux and they decide that they're going to stick it to the man, blow up the lab, not before Frank has pocketed the drugs. And they're out of there.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah.

Pretty much.

Blowing up stuff.

Reegs: MacReady's pissed off. This is when he's like, you know, he's got a sword. We need Bruce Lee.

They're like, oh, Bruce Lee's dead. He's like, well, get his brother. And then you're getting hopeful that something good's gonna come in. It's setting up Shokusugi to come in at the end.

Sidey: There's an ambush, again, in the casino, in like a hallway.

And

Frank, dies.

does a runner again. You're thinking, oh, here we go. He's like, true to form. Yes. You know, Leopard can't change spots, but he comes back. Yeah. Because, Nick gets penned in.

Dan: And he, and yeah.

Sidey: Behind

a locker, like the flimsiest metal which they're and I've, you know, seen Magnum Force and stuff like that.

with

Dan: Won't

go through those, they won't go through those school

Sidey: an airplane in one of them, but They can't get,

through one I'm Scott a fucking Magnum and they can't shoot through these

Dan: Can't, can't get through those school

Sidey: Frank comes back with some explosives

Dan: He's MacGyvered something together, isn't he? And and he's, he's redeemed himself suddenly.

It doesn't matter that he's, he's, Fucked off his kid or he's been running drugs and been gambling with other people's money and Because he's he's now blowing people up.

for the good guys.

Reegs: So anyway, they're escaping the casino, is this the bit yet where, have we had the bit where all the light, he turns out all the lights, makes them all blind, or

Sidey: like that Yeah, Yeah, that's that bit, yeah.

Reegs: Yeah. And, that was pretty

Sidey: pretty cool. Because They, they have him surrounded, and as they, as the lights go out, he obviously just hits the deck and they just start shooting

they're obviously just

Dan: It's just carnage

Sidey: idiots.

Dan: though, isn't it? It's like absolute carnage. Of course, they haven't gone pitch black for us viewers. So we can see

Sidey: I was just

seeing this as, like, such a computer game, you know, where you just go through the levels, then they go up to like the end

boss,

Dan: Boop, boop, boop,

Sidey: and, you know, They, because they do go to the casino, boss McReady's office

Reegs: and,

well, it's his estate out in the country, isn't it? They have to take a cable car.

Sidey: right. I, I checked,

Thinking this could be an inanimate object that's been in something else, I thought. It was the cable car from one of the Bond movies.

Dan: it's

Sidey: But I couldn't find, Couldn't find any trivia

Dan: Diesel cable car content, though.

Reegs: trivia about that. Yeah, they can't believe it. They're all

Dan: tables.

Yeah, they can't believe it. They're all smiling, happy to themselves, thinking nobody could have survived that until they realize nobody

Sidey: They've already escaped. out of the trap dory

Dan: Yeah, like, behind

Sidey: they do, like, They

do get into McCready's office and the woman who's been introduced to us is there tied up And Annie? Yeah.

Reegs: The, the sort of girlfriend,

Yeah. And the kid along with two other guys who are sort of there as some sort of business deal.

Don't really know.

Sidey: yeah. They were, they were the, so the thing is they had to get.

So the casino was struggling, they were losing, they were

Reegs: were losing money.

Yeah, so they

Sidey: so they had to do this drug deal to balance the books, basically. Yeah. And when the drugs aren't there, the guy says, well, he's just like, amateurs and laughs at him And walks off, so he's really grumpy. Yeah. And he gets The end boss fight. Well, well, No, it's not Is it?

Reegs: that. He fights, he fights Shokusugi. There is a good fight. There is a moment, which I guess is racist, where he puts his hand on his face and goes, Ah, Japanese. And then he gets electrocuted in the What happens

Sidey: It's the

most telegraphed death.

Yeah. In the entire world. They're fighting around a hot tub Which something gets pushed into.

Dan: some electrical devices in there

Sidey: and then

they turned the hot tub on. which, and I'm like, the thing was

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah. You didn't need that as well. Yeah. It's already got water in it and an electrical item.

Sidey: Yeah. So then they're, They're fighting and dancing around literally the perimeter of the hot tub.

Yeah.

And you're just like, oh God. And go,

you

mate. There's, there's something above it. Like effectively acts like a trapeze. Yeah.

And in the history of bad ideas, this is like right up there. He decides to try and attack

Dan: a blind man

Sidey: by swinging a cross and We already know he can chop fruit that's in the air.

Yeah,

Reegs: so a man swinging on a

Sidey: It's gonna be

way louder.

And yeah, he just is

swinging through the air and he just cuts the rope. and the guy,

Reegs: him, he falls

Sidey: a clothes Horse type thing. for drawing. I don't know. It's weird. So yeah, he falls in and is electrocuted.

Reegs: Yeah, and then Slag turns up, pulls a gun on him, and then Nick

Sidey: cheap shots him, doesn't

Reegs: he cheap shots him, and then he sort of guts him from across the sort of bowel part, and then he falls out the window, and George Lucas must have seen this movie, because he stole the shot of Slag dying for the Phantom Menace, for Darth Maul famously sort of falling in half as he tumbles.

It's the same shot. It's

Sidey: But he, but in this one Slag just kind of disappears as if he's a ghost or something.

I thought, I don't know, it was wild. I was fucking

laughing at this

Reegs: Yeah. And we

Dan: wasn't a scary film.

Reegs: And that is where that bit stops. And the last time we see MacReady, the bad guy, he's struggling with Frank and then with a shotgun. And then the next scene, everything's fine. They're at the bus station. We never see whether he was handed over to the authorities.

Even, indeed, who won versus Frank in that arm wrestle of the shotgun.

Dan: But we know that Billy is now going to go and live with his drug peddling father. And

Sidey: he doesn't want to though, does he?

Dan: Oh, I'm not surprised.

Sidey: He's,

sad that Nick

Reegs: Uncle Nick now.

Sidey: Yeah, is just turfing him out. He wants him to stay. and He says, No I don't like you. He doesn't say that

Dan: But he means that.

But

Sidey: he says, no, you should be go and be with your father, and I'm gonna now be hobo with a shotgun.

And the kid says, I fucking hate you and throws his symbolic little dinosaur over the bridge and it

catches it And there was not a dry eye in the house

Dan: Oh my god, because he caught that other

Reegs: not a dry eye in the

Sidey: yeah Let him go

Reegs: caught that other toy.

Dad

Dan: dad, wasn't interested in the beginning. I don't know if there's any, you know, if you look too closely at any 80s film, there's going to be a few loose morals along the way.

And this is, is no different. And you can pull holes and and well, a blind man could see that there's trouble with some of the plot as well, but it's still not bad, is it?

Sidey: I really enjoyed it.

I mean It's utter

Dan: It is utter nonsense but Rutger Howard just does enough to make this a tongue in cheek, but slightly fun and incredible star along the way.

He does play a blind man quite well,

Sidey: Yeah, I thought he? was pretty convincing.

Dan: and yeah, you know, it's got all the problems that it's got, but for, you know, an hour and a half it's, it's great escapee television,

Sidey: really.

Reegs: It's okay. It leans a little too far into painfully bad comedy for my liking. But I do like,

Dan: not for mine

Reegs: the stories that this is based on the Zatoichi stories.

I'd seen the 2003 reboot and a couple of the other Zatoichi movies and the blind, you know, the blind swordsman is a trope is a cool one. Rutger Hauer is really good is his performance in this as an actor. Martial artist as well as a sort of acting performance is pretty good, but the kid is painfully

Sidey: bad Would've liked the kid to die. Yeah.

Reegs: The plot, the comedy is like kind of obvious and groan inducing a lot of the time, so it's okay. It's okay.

Dan: Yeah It is

Reegs: Chris Strong

Cris: recommend.

Sidey: uh, Say

They

did plan a sequel to this,

Dan: right,

Sidey: But Well, but

the budget

budget for it. imagine

the budget for it was 10 million.

Wow, I know. okay

That's what I thought.

What do you think it did at the box

office?

Dan: think

Cris: not, not

Dan: in the box office?

Reegs: A

hundred million.

Cris: No,

Sidey: Chris is right, and the reason that there is no sequel is because this is a mega flop. It only did 2.6. Rook Auer was.

Not the

man to sell this movie, it appears,

which is a shame. It

Dan: movie to, which is a shame. Apparently he had

Cris: 10 million. I don't know about 10

Sidey: Blind guy. Yeah,

yeah.

Reegs: To

Cris: do not. On his website or something said that he woke up for two months at 4 30 in the morning for two hours in for him to train for two hours with this guy and when they brought Japanese your mate

Shokusugi when they brought him apparently he was disappointed that the fight scene was only 2.

33 minutes or something. But he said that it was a really good week or something to have that guy with him.

Reegs: But he's an absolute

Cris: I, I also thought, well, yeah, for you, I've never heard of him. So, you know, it just depends on, on if you're into

Reegs: Really sound or not. It sort of reminded me of the Shaw brothers stuff as well. You know, all that kind

Cris: knew

that they didn't make a lot of money because I've seen it.

Probably about three, four times as its kid on Romanian television.

Sidey: Right?

Reegs: Yeah,

Cris: And if this made it to Romanian television a few

Dan: they're not paying for nothing yeah, yeah, that's that's it but yeah i'm surprised because it is quite a well known film surprise it costs 10 million. I don't see where

Sidey: you don't see that on the screen

Dan: unless they

Cris: in 1989 as well.

Reegs: well. Have you seen Hergovina Shotgun? I actually had to Google whether

Sidey: Have you seen Hobo with a Shotgun?

I, I actually had to Google whether that was the same character. who like

Now can't

Dan: something like

Sidey: can't

use a samurai sword or

Reegs: but not

Sidey: do make them, but not as free.

I mean In the

80s these were ten

a penny. I think That's the trouble. It was just, you know,

Dan: ten million?

Sidey: Yeah.

they're awash with this kind of

Reegs: kind. It's sort of tonally really weird. 'cause sometimes it's a bit violent and then the other times it's like you're watching something like, stop, or my mum will shoot or something.

Like a real like eighties.

Sidey: The juxtaposition of the comedy moments are just weird. and

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah. So like having not seen this like the first time out, I've got kind of no real

Dan: kind of no real

Reegs: all. So, yeah.

Yes. Huge.

Recommend

Dan: Getting the t shirt.