Firecracker (1981) New World/Action RT: 77 minutes Rated R (bloody violence, nudity, sexual content, drug material) Director: Cirio H. Santiago Screenplay: Ken Metcalfe, Cirio H. Santiago and Allan Holzman (additional scenes) Music: Nonong Buencamino Cinematography: Ricardo Remias Release date: May 1981 (US) Cast: Jillian Kesner, Darby Hinton, Rey Malonzo (as “Reymond King”), Ken Metcalfe, Peter Cooper, Carolyn Smith, Chanda Romero, Tony Ferrer, Vic Diaz, Don Bell. Box Office: N/A
Rating: ***
It happens, even to the Movie Guy, but I don’t let it get to me. On the contrary, I see it as a gift, discovering a movie I never even knew existed. I stumbled on Firecracker while cruising through the action titles on Tubi late one Saturday night. It sounded good, so I clicked on it. Right away, it had solid credentials. It’s a New World picture, it’s from 1981 and it’s directed by Cirio H. Santiago whose resume includes such exploitation delights as TNT Jackson, Vampire Hookers, Stryker and Angelfist. At that moment, I knew I was in for a good time. I wasn’t wrong either.
When her journalist sister goes missing in the Philippines, martial arts teacher Susanne Carter (Kesner, Raw Force) goes looking for her. At the time of her disappearance, she was working on a story about a drug ring headed by Erik (co-writer Metcalfe), owner of The Arena, a nightclub that features fight-to-the-death martial arts matches. Susanne decides the best way to locate her sister is to get close to Chuck Donner (Hinton, Malibu Express), an American fighter who looks more like a 70s porn star than a cold-blooded killer. She uses her feminine wiles in an effort to get Chuck to convince the boss to let her compete.
Meanwhile, the drug ring is being destroyed from within. It seems that Chuck is behind the thefts of drug shipments while they’re en route from point A to point B. It’s all part of a larger plot, of course. Susanne isn’t concerned with any of this; she just wants to find out where her sister is. Somebody in the criminal organization knows. She gets help from a bar owner (Cooper, The One Armed Executioner) and a friend of his, Rey (Filipino martial arts star Malonzo). Rey saves her ass more than once. The cops, led by Tony (Ferrer, aka super spy Agent X-44), are also on the case. They even have an undercover on the inside. I won’t name this person, but it’s easy to figure out who it is. Tony warns Susanne to stay out of it, but since when does any truth-seeking warrior listen to the cops? How about NEVER!
Essentially a remake (unofficial, of course) of TNT Jackson, Firecracker is a lot of goofy bad movie fun with plenty of action. A fight breaks out every few minutes which is a very good thing as it distracts from the terrible acting, dopey dialogue and disjointed plot. The fight scenes are surprisingly good, but one of them in particular is one for the books. It has nothing to do with the actual plot. A couple of would-be rapists hanging around on the street go after Susanne only to be resoundingly defeated. What’s truly amazing about this sequence is how she loses almost all her clothes while fighting off the creeps. It starts with tearing her dress on a chain-link fence and goes on until one creep cuts her bra off. OH YEAH! WE GOT BOOBS! That’s great and all, but what I really want to know is how she manages to outrun her would-be assailants in a pair of heels? It’s a couple of minutes before she thinks to take them off.
There’s a lot to laugh at in Firecracker and it isn’t even a comedy, not an intentional one anyway. I got a kick out of watching our heroine fight a cobra. That’s right, she uses her skills to defeat her venomous reptile opponent after one of the villains, a slimeball named Grip (Diaz, Black Mama White Man), uses it in an attempt to get information out of Susanne. She just kicks it and throws it at one of his goons. Now let’s talk about the sex scene between Susanne and Chuck. First of all, why would she go to bed with a guy she thinks might have something to do with her sister’s disappearance? On second thought, who the hell cares? ANYWAY, it resembles a Quentin Tarantino sex fantasy. Chuck removes Susanne’s shoes and fondles her bare feet before using a pair of knives to remove her clothing. She reciprocates (i.e. the clothing part) and they have at it. Alrighty then!
The screenplay by Santiago, Metcalfe and Allan Holzman (what the hell do they mean by “additional scenes”?) leaves a lot to be desired. The plot, such as it is, is messy and underdeveloped. Early on, Susanne treks to a temple in the mountains to learn the art of arnis better known as stick fighting. Remember the opening of Rambo III? She’s met by the master (who looks like the lost twin of Mako’s wizard in Conan the Barbarian) and an assistant who acts as translator. When translated, he sounds like a Chinese fortune cookie. ANYWAY, he agrees to train Susanne and then NOTHING! The expected montage never happens. Did she somehow learn this form of combat in a matter of hours? She must have because she’s pretty adept at it in the finale.
The late Kesner, who died of leukemia-related causes in 2007, is a real fox. Sadly, she’s not much of a martial artist. In her defense, she’s not a terrible actress. She’s not good, but not terrible either. Hinton is laughable as Chuck. What X-rated movie set did he wander away from? I kept waiting for the funky porn score to kick in when he was around. For simplicity sake, let’s just say all of the acting in Firecracker is superbad and leave it at that.
One of the cool things about Firecracker is the bloody violence. Over the course of 77 fun-filled minutes, a man is impaled by a spear during a fight at the Arena. A security guard gets impaled on a sharp metal object. One guy has his head sliced open by a table saw. They’re all cool, but the piece de resistance is when somebody gets a pair of fighting sticks right in the eyes. HOLY CRAP! Dad was right about sticks poking out eyes!
On a dull Saturday night, there’s nothing better than a cheap action flick to pass the time. Oh sure, I could watch some prestigious Oscar winner, but where’s the fun in that? Good or bad, I get a real lift from low-budget exploitation movies like Firecracker. Technically, it’s a bad movie, but it’s also great in its own way. Everything that should count against it works in its favor. For instance, the score by Nonong Buencamino isn’t even original; it’s excerpted from Shogun Assassin. Ordinarily, I’d consider this lazy, but it’s the right movie in the case of Firecracker. That’s the miracle of exploitation. I really wish I could have seen it in a grindhouse theater along with two equally dumb B-movie titles. It’s made to be seen that way.
