Leofwine_draca
I caught this low budget martial arts indie under the title FORCE FOUR. It's a hilariously inept little feature shot on the urban streets of New York, where a task force of four kung fu experts are called in to retrieve a stolen African statue from a sinister criminal gang who have stolen it. The film features some of the slowest and worst-choreographed fight scenes you'll ever watch, while the general air of ineptitude isn't helped much by the fact that all of the dialogue is dubbed in post-production and the words never quite match the lips. It deserve kudos for having an actor called 'Warhawk Tanzania' in the cast, but director Michael Fink is well out of his depth here and the end result a cheesy disappointment.
Comeuppance Reviews
When a guy on the streets of New York is mugged and a priceless artistic artifact stolen, the whole underworld begins buzzing. A gangster named Z (Schwartz) wants this precious statue, as does a woman named Felicia (Filson). Thankfully, a team of black-belted Martial Arts experts are on the scene to stop the artifact from getting into the wrong hands: Eric (Malachi Lee), Billy (Judie Soriano), Jason (Wat-Son, whose real name is Watson but presumably he hyphenated it to look more Asian?), and our personal hero Warhawk Tanzania as Adam. When you have a name as awesome as WARHAWK TANZANIA isn't it a bit of a letdown naming him, simply and boringly, "Adam"? Kind of a step down if you ask us. Anyway, what ensues is a bunch of wonderful incoherency as warring factions vie for the statue. Who will get it? The bad guys or the BLACK FORCE? Travel back in time to the freewheeling 70's as you boogie on down to funktown in this unconstrained, uncontrived, yet unintelligible outing. The temptation is to label this as "Blaxploitation", but really, this movie defies all labels and is a planet all to itself. That being said, it's very much in the vein of fan favorite Death Promise (1977) (though nowhere near as good), and fellow - and only other - Warhawk vehicle Gang Wars (1976). Even Wilfredo Roldan from that film reappears here, continuing the through-line. It's all about grimy NYC streets, funk on the soundtrack (from a band called Life, USA), and montage after montage that seems like it was edited by people who were distracted by Watergate.But you have to remember that this was during the Kung-Fu craze of the 70's, and material like this made a lot more sense back then, presumably. Bruce Lee was king and everybody was Kung-Fu fightii-iin. So it follows that you'd get a bunch of non-actors and semi-pro's together and put their Dan or belt level on the screen along with their credit. Seemingly everyone is listed that way. We practically know the skill level of the best boy grip for godsakes. Or best boy Kung-Fu grip, as it were. We're even informed via an on-screen title card before the movie that "no trick photography was used" and high-speed cameras were on hand to capture all the action. And this was decades before CGI trickery and quick cuts. Such was the reverence for the craft at the time. The problem, if it is indeed a problem, is that because of their focus on the Martial Arts, literally every other facet of the movie suffered. The result is a disjointed, incomprehensible mishmash of scenes of our heroes "hitting the streets", with a bunch of post-dubbed dialogue that is unhearable because the music drowns it out. The only thing louder than the music are the shirts the characters are wearing. The fight scenes have no pretext before they spring up, and what dialogue you can hear is classic jive talk. You have to love it. Or maybe you don't, it's entirely up to you. We found it entertaining for most of the running time.Tailor-made for drive-in's, Black Force was from a different time, when even the priests had very wide collars, even the baddest bad guy had a walrus 'stache, and Martial Artists took their loud exhaling VERY seriously. There's even a "greatest hits" segment at the end where we can see all the moves yet again. At least the music is good quality during all this madness. Besides, you know a movie is going to be good when a credit appears beforehand stating "Produced by Landfall Systems, Inc." Apparently this wasn't produced by a human being, but maybe a laundromat or something. Seeing as we also have a movie on the site called Whiteforce (1988), we figured we'd be fair and balanced.Released on VHS with an unrelated guy on the box cover, the same company actually released Black Force 2 - a retitling of another film that came out two years BEFORE the original Black Force! Maybe the fans were just clamoring for more during the video store era of the 80's. For a classic example of bellbottom-Fu - with no regard given whatsoever for coherent consistency - look no further than Black Force. And why don't guys keep their afro-picks in their hair anymore.
jimmymanbone
This movie is a lot of fun. AQ bunch of brothers running around doing kung-fu on each other. The box shows a couple of guys with guns but I don't recall any weapons being used in the movie. The production is horrible and the story is really bad but if you drink or smoke enough, this movie is wonderful! The sound effects make the movie. Imagine getting kicked in the stomach and it sounding like someone chopping wood! The dialog is funny and the fight scenes are choreographed like an 8th grade production of "West Side Story". This movie is easy to find on the auction sites and can be had for under $1. You can also pick up Black Force 2 for a few pennies if you really have the urge to waste away a Friday night. Don't watch this while sober.
shaun-jones
I have seen Force Four (aka Black Force) about 15 times. Admittedly it has been a couple of years since I last watched it, but I still love it to bits. It's not the type of movie you would watch for realistic, or even entertaining martial arts - it's more of an example of how funny a C -grade movie can be!I honestly find Force Four's main entertainment value to be it's complete lack of professionalism. It looks like it was filmed in one take and the cinematography is down right ugly, but that's what makes it so much fun to watch! The story line is terrible but that's not important when you have so many other things to keep an eye out for. Scenes like Billy (the girl) fighting about 12 bad guys - one minute she is wearing her orange hat, but the very next camera angle shows her without a hat at all! Pretty damn funny because it's pretty damn obvious. Basically, the film is riddled with errors and dodgy camera work. In my opinion, it has the perfect recipe for a great movie.So if you're looking for a good laugh, give Force Four a go. I'm sure Warhawk Tanzenia wouldn't agree, but it has some of the lamest acting and fighting you'll ever see! Keep an eye out for it - it's the video (I REALLY doubt it's on DVD) with three guys on the cover (Billy is on the back).Enjoy!
