Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects (1989) Cannon/Action-Thriller RT: 98 minutes Rated R (language, strong violence, full frontal nudity, strong sexual content, child prostitution, thematic elements) Director: J. Lee Thompson Screenplay: Harold Nebenzal Music: Greg De Belles Cinematography: Gideon Porath Release date: February 3, 1989 (US) Starring: Charles Bronson, Perry Lopez, Juan Fernandez, James Pax, Peggy Lipton, Sy Richardson, Marion Kodama Yue, Bill McKinney, Gerald Castillo, Nicole Eggert, Amy Hathaway, Kumiko Hayakawa, Michelle Wong, Sam Chew Jr., Alex Hyde-White. Box Office: $3.4M (US)
Rating: ***
Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects might very well be the oddest movie Charles Bronson ever made. It certainly threw me off; it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. When it comes to certain actors, you generally know what to expect from their movies. With Bronson, the audience expects a straight-up action flick along the lines of Murphy’s Law or whatever Death Wish sequel. Nobody expects an in-depth examination of the differences between Eastern and Western society wrapped inside a sleazy crime thriller. Yet that’s what director J. Lee Thompson (10 to Midnight) seems to be attempting.
I went to see Kinjite: Forbidden Subject on a cold Thursday night (February 9, 1989) with my father and a close friend. I thought it would be a standard Bronson movie where he plays yet another cop POed because criminals don’t have to play by the same rules as cops. Not that he always plays by the rules. That definitely describes his character Lt. Crowe, a member of LAPD’s vice squad trying to take down a child prostitution ring.
It opens with a typical Bronson scenario. He and his partner Rios (Lopez, Chinatown) bust some pervert for sexually assaulting an underage prostitute. Bronson, in his own inimitable style, takes things too far. To wit, he doesn’t leave it at cuffing the creep and reading him his Miranda Rights.
This is where Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects changes course somewhat. The scene shifts to Tokyo where a group of Japanese businessmen are learning the finer points of American culture as it relates to social protocol. The instructor points out that certain subjects are taboo (aka “kinjite”) in the US. Upwardly mobile businessman Hiroshi (Pax, Big Trouble in Little China) is moving to L.A. with his family for work. His family is one of traditional Japanese values- i.e. subservient wife, obedient daughters and emotional repression. I couldn’t imagine what these scenes had to do with the story. It was off-putting to say the least.
Crowe would love nothing more than to get sleazy pimp Duke (Fernandez, Crocodile Dundee II) off the streets, preferably for good. He’s the guy running the ring. He’s always on the lookout for new talent, be it young runaways just off the bus or young girls attending a sporting event at a large stadium. In other words, he’s a class-A scumbag.
Duke makes the mistake of approaching Crowe at a football game and making lewd comments about his 15YO daughter Rita (Hathaway, My Two Dads). Crowe retaliates by tracking him down and forcing him to swallow a $25,000 watch.
This is where Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects starts to get really interesting. Back in Tokyo, Hiroshi witnessed a young woman’s sexual assault on a crowded subway car. A businessman reaches under her skirt and starts fingering her. Out of shame, the woman doesn’t cry out for help. She’d rather have a quiet orgasm than have everybody know what happened to her. Hiroshi remembers this scene as he heads home on the bus after a long night of “entertaining clients” (drinking and fooling around with prostitutes). He decides to try the same thing on the teenage schoolgirl standing beside him. Guess who she turns out to be? Uh huh, it’s Crowe’s daughter. Rita screams and chaos ensues. Hiroshi manages to get away in all the confusion.
Naturally, Daddy the cop is POed mightily. He directs his anger towards the entire Japanese race. Then, in one of those developments you only see in movies, Hiroshi’s own teenage daughter Fumiko (Hayakawa) becomes a victim herself. She gets kidnapped by Duke who thinks she’d make an excellent addition to his stable of underage beauties. Guess who’s assigned to the case? Uh huh, good old Lt. Crowe! Will he be able to set aside his feelings about the Japanese and locate the naïve girl before Duke turns her out? Is this a real question? It’s a Charles Bronson movie! What do you think is going to happen?
Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects would turn out to be J. Lee Thompson’s final directorial effort (he died in ’02) and Bronson’s last movie for Cannon. In fact, Bronson only starred in two other theatrical movies after this one- The Indian Runner (1991) and Death Wish V: The Face of Death (1994). As for Cannon, co-founder Menahem Golan’s departure marked the beginning of the end for the low budget studio (it officially folded in ’93).
Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects would turn out to be one of the studio’s final theatrical releases. In short, it marked the end of a great B-movie era. It’s not a bad way to start saying goodbye. It may be highly implausible, but it’s an entertaining actioner. Bronson attempts to deliver more than his usual wooden Indian performance here with decidedly mixed results. As the father of a teenage girl, he’s very uptight when it comes to the subject of his daughter’s sexuality. As a vice cop, he sees terrible things involving girls his daughter’s age on a daily basis. It would be difficult for any parent/cop to reconcile these things.
Fernandez makes a great slimy villain. You really want to see Bronson dispense his own brand of justice on this dirtbag. Pax is okay as the foreigner attempting to acclimate to a culture he doesn’t fully understand. Thompson does a serviceable job with what would be his swan song. He contrasts Bronson’s family life with that of Hiroshi’s with emphasis on the complete innocence of his daughter. It’s an interesting idea, but it makes for a somewhat uneven action movie.
Like I said at the beginning of the review, Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects is not the usual Bronson flick. It’s a rather dark movie, similar to 10 to Midnight. Like the 1983 Bronson thriller, it has a cool ending. Of course, I won’t reveal it, but Crowe looks on and says “Now that’s justice.” You gotta love any movie that ends with a line like that!
