I was browsing through Netflix and I found FIST OF THE NORTH STAR under the “recently added” section. I saw bits and pieces of this movie when I was growing up and out of pure curiosity always wanted to see it in it’s entirety but I always seem to catch the last thirty seconds of the movie on cable somehow. But now that I’ve seen it I’m not so sure it was the first time, I think I may have seen this as a teenager and just repressed it.
If you liked this and you’re gay, I don’t want to understand but I do. If you like this movie and you’re not gay then you have an undiagnosed medical condition and you will probably sooner or later have your stomach flooded with liquid charcoal and pumped. This movie is such a god awful piece of garbage that even seven 24 oz Labatt ice’s and 2 sleeping pills couldn’t make it good. This movie might be good if it was a Disney on ice production or an hour and half long Old Spice commercial, but it’s neither, it’s actually a movie! There’s lots of ripped shirtless men that sweat, spin, and grunt, plus there is plenty of exploding brains. Sounds good right? Well be ye not deceived children, there are some things that are so bad that they’re just bad.
This movie was released in 1995 and went straight to VHS….thank God! It starred nobody you’re familiar with, well maybe Malcolm McDowell and Chris Penn (but I won’t speak ill of the dead), but that’s it, and is supposed to be based on the classic Magna series but really only bears about a twenty percent genetic resemblance to it. If you’re a fan of that series or the anime movie and want to see this movie please keep reading and allow me the time to reason with you so that you don’t end up wasting an hour and a half of your life.
The plot is familiar enough: The earth is a desolate wasteland due to nuclear war, the two dominant schools of martial arts, The Southern Cross and The North Star are sworn not to fight each other but the teachings are broken by Shin ( Costas Mandylor, a man that could easily be confused with Adian Quinn), when he fights Kenshiro (Gary Daniels...he was in the EXPENDABLES I think) and takes his girlfriend Julia and leaves Kenshiro for dead. But here is where the movie decides to hack away some vital organs from the source material (by source material I mean the anime movie) and make the storyline supposedly more palatable to the American I.Q. Instead of Raoh watching over the fight between Shin and Kenshiro and subsequently proclaiming himself the fist of the north star, the guy just doesn’t exist in this movie. The movie is very foggy on whether or not Kenshiro died from the fight with Shin only to be resurrected later like in the anime movie instead we just find Kenshiro wandering through the desert shirtless, prominently displaying 7 thickly cut pepperonis on his chest, with an overture by Malcolm Mcdowell that could understandably be mistaken as erotic and interspersed with rolling shots of miniature model towns that aren’t even worthy of a 1960’s Gamera movie. As for Ryuken, he dies by the hand of Shin, with a gun instead of some ludicrous kung-fu move. Jagi (Chris Penn), yeah he’s in the movie but I said I wouldn’t speak ill of the dead, however I can let the dead speak for themselves…watch the video
So do you think wherever Chris Penn is now that he’s being subjected to a montage similar to this one for all eternity? It’s a fair question, after all Chris Penn’s acting was so bad that it actually scared creepy Clint Howard right out of the movie.
And that’s the last we see of Clint Howard in this movie. I hear to this day that poor Clint still struggles with a touch of PTSD due to this movie.
Alright back to the review. Lynn and Bat are in the movie except Lynn isn’t deaf in this movie she’s blind and Bat ends up being a throw away side kick that’s more tacky and annoying than Short-Round in INDIANA JONES…if that’s even possible.
So after all the characters are introduced and the convoluted premise is set the movie starts to feel comfortable enough to get gay.
Exhibit A.
I don’t know if it’s the way the dirt seems to shine with the sweat, the androgynous accent of Lord Shin, or the gentle and endearing reference to angels but I feel the rumbling rocket of gayness about to take off.
Exhibit B.
Yup, it’s 3:00am and Lord Shin is a little drunk and feeling lonely so he summons his ex.
Exhibit C.
Multiple signals, they like it rough and the gayness is closing….can’t get a lock, I got readings in front and behind….tracker’s off scale man it’s all around us…. THE GAYNESS, IT’S COMING OUT OF THE GODDAMN WALLS!!
And just to beat a dead horse, Exhibits D-I
Wasn’t that hair flip amazing?! So I’m pretty sure that this movie is a big hit with the LGBT crowd and I’m not kidding when I say that. Remember when Vinnie Jones (Juggernaut) stated that he had a huge gay following due to his performance in X-MEN LAST STAND.
As for the action, aside from it having some gory and exaggerated results it’s pretty much a status quo Van Damme style martial arts movie of the early-mid 90’s (thank God the MATRIX changed that). In other words it’s stiff, rigid, goofy, slow and lacks the fluidity of real battle. In fact check out this scene where Kenshiro manages to take out what looks like the whole ensemble of the hip hop group BEL BIV DEVOE with one kick
In closing, although this movie stripped away many of the plot and sub plot points found in the original anime, it still managed to under develop and rush what little it had left to work with. The characters are so cartoonish, over-the-top, and forced that you can’t help but cringe rather than care and I can imagine that anyone who never saw the original anime but watched this movie would be almost completely lost as to why Kenshiro wanders the desert and hates Shin until about the last twenty minutes of the movie. The only way this movie will ever be worth watching is if the guys over at RIFFTRAX give it some treatment. So Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett if you're reading this know that you are needed. As for the rest of you, if you’re bored tonight and are searching through NETFLIX you might be tempted to watch this one but don’t do it, instead watch the 2004 PUNISHER with Thomas Jane, you’ll find it under the recently added section. I give this movie 1 out of 6 empty bottles.