{"id":11496,"date":"2025-03-22T19:08:59","date_gmt":"2025-03-22T23:08:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=11496"},"modified":"2025-03-22T19:08:59","modified_gmt":"2025-03-22T23:08:59","slug":"blackbelt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/03\/22\/blackbelt\/","title":{"rendered":"Blackbelt"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Blackbelt <\/strong>(1992)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Concorde\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 85 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong martial arts violence, nudity, sexuality, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Charles Philip Moore\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Charles Philip Moore\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: David and Eric Wurst\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: John Ulyanov\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 28, 1992 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Don \u201cThe Dragon\u201d Wilson, Deirdre Haj (as \u201cDeirdre Imershein\u201d), Matthias Hues, Richard Beymer, Alan Blumenfeld, Jack Forcinito (as \u201cJack Verell\u201d), Barbara A. Graham, Bob McFarland, Joe Garcia, Mitch Bobrow*, Victor Mohica, \u201cBad\u201d Brad Hefton*, Mia Ruiz, Kimberly Lord, Mychelle Dangerfield, Linda Sharpe.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cameos by Ernest Simmons, Tim Baker, Gerry Blanck, Ian Jacklin, Jim Graden and John Graden.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0A few weeks ago, I reviewed another Roger Corman cheapie entitled Angel of Destruction, It stars Maria Ford as an undercover cop protecting a rock singer from a psychotic stalker and her mobbed-up financial backer looking to collect on her insurance. I mentioned in the review that it\u2019s a female-driven remake of another Concorde flick. This is it! It\u2019s called Blackbelt<\/strong> and it stars Don \u201cThe Dragon\u201d Wilson in the role played two years later by Ford. It\u2019s pretty good.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Wilson plays Jack Dillon, an ex-cop who now works in the private sector doing odd jobs like saving young runaways from violent pimps on behalf of their worried mothers. He also runs a karate school. He\u2019s hired to be the bodyguard of rock singer Shanna (Imershein, Skyscraper) after she\u2019s threatened by a psychotic admirer named John Sweet (Hues, I Come in Peace). This guy is all kinds of f***ed in the head. Like most psychos, he\u2019s got mommy issues. We first meet him bringing an attractive hooker (Ruiz, Witchcraft II: The Temptress) to a hotel. They go to his room to get down to business only for him to excuse himself for a moment so he can go to another room and beat all five occupants to death. He then returns as if nothing happened and gets to work on the unsuspecting lady of the night.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Sweet\u2019s next stop is the club where Shanna is playing a gig. While she performs this really cheesy 80s rock number, he sneaks into her dressing room backstage and leaves a small token of his devotion, a flower box containing the hooker\u2019s severed finger with a ring on it. It freaks her out enough to seek professional protection. That\u2019s where Jack enters the picture.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s a chilly first meeting. Shanna doesn\u2019t like cops, not even ex ones. Her father was a cop and he raped her as a teen. Jack initially doesn\u2019t want the job, but he changes his mind after the frosty singer warms up a little. She\u2019s far from the ideal client. She goes from hot to cold in a second. Her manager\/boyfriend Bobby (Verell, Demon Wind) is an abusive jerk. Whenever Jack tries to protect her from him, she consistently takes the creep\u2019s side telling Jack to stay out of it. Uh, that\u2019s his job, sweetheart. She even pulls this crap right after they sleep together. If Jack had any sense, he\u2019d keep their relationship strictly professional, but that\u2019s not how it works in silly movies like Blackbelt<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The stalker isn\u2019t the only person Shanna has to fear. Her sleazy mobbed-up financial backer Eddie (Beymer, West Side Story) wants her dead too. She doesn\u2019t intend to renew their contract meaning he stands to lose the $2M he invested in her. It\u2019d just be easier to kill her and Jack along with her. He sets up a hit, but it fails miserably. It seems Eddie underestimated Jack and his martial arts skills. Oh and Jack gets a little help from Sweet who was lurking around outside when the hit squad showed up. Timing sure is everything, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Jack isn\u2019t working alone. He gets back-up from his cop friend, former partner Will Sturges (Blumenfeld, Friday the 13th<\/sup> Part VI: Jason Lives). He helps him track down Sweet by way of his calling card, a queen of spades playing card left with the hooker\u2019s corpse. It\u2019s the card American soldiers used to leave with the bodies of those they killed in Vietnam. It was their way of scaring the s*** out of the Viet Cong. Hey, you better watch out! We\u2019re f***ing crazy! The clue leads Jack to a bar full of mercenaries that he has to beat up in order to obtain information.<\/p>\n

\u00a0If there\u2019s one thing Blackbelt<\/strong> has it\u2019s fight scenes. Writer-director Charles Philip Moore (Angel of Destruction) can\u2019t go more than a few minutes without one. The scene in the bar is great as is the one where Jack fends off hitmen at Shanna\u2019s place. If I\u2019m being honest, Maria Ford did it better in her movie but only because she was topless. The climax features Jack fighting his way through another group of mercenaries at his dojo. It\u2019s awesome. It leads right to his final showdown with Sweet who\u2019s holding Shanna while he performs some weird ritual.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The cast includes eight champion martial artists in addition to Wilson. In keeping with Concorde tradition, their titles are listed under their names in the opening credits. Other than Wilson, I don\u2019t know who any of these guys are. Allow me to point them out for you. Kickboxer \u201cBad\u201d Brad Hefton plays the fighter hired by Eddie to take Jack out in hand-to-hand combat. Karate champ Mitch Bobrow plays Rene, a guy Jack and Sturges question about Sweet. Jack\u2019s opponents in the bar include kickboxers Ernest Simmons, Gerry Blanck, Ian Jacklin and karate guy Tim Baker who also appeared in Bloodfist II (1990) and Angel of Destruction. Kickboxers Jim and John Graden show up in the dojo fight. I hope this is helpful.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I know I haven\u2019t seen too many Don \u201cThe Dragon\u201d Wilson movies, but Blackbelt<\/strong> is my favorite so far. It\u2019s an enjoyable dumb and OTT actioner with lots of fighting and truly priceless dialogue like when Jack deals with a slimy pimp beating on a girl. He doles out his own brand of justice and tops it off with this gem: \u201cThe broken nose is for the girl, the vasectomy\u2019s free.\u201d When the mother tries to pay him, he says, \u201cKeep it. I don\u2019t charge to take out the garbage.\u201d Spoken like a true action hero from a 90s movie! BTW, if the first line sounds familiar, it\u2019s because Moore recycled it in Angel of Destruction.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I have no problem with Wilson. He\u2019s as good an actor as any of the martial artists recruited by low-budget filmmakers in search of the next Seagal or Van Damme. He fights better than he recites dialogue, but so what? It\u2019s not like he\u2019s doing Shakespeare. Imershein\u2019s character isn\u2019t very likable, but she\u2019s kind of hot. She gets to perform a couple of songs including a number called \u201cLove Rocket\u201d where she\u2019s accompanied by back-up dancers who makes the ones in the Robert Palmer videos look like they\u2019re on speed. And yes, we see her boobs, but she only shows them once.<\/p>\n

The real MVP in Blackbelt<\/strong> is Matthias Hues who you know best from his role as the alien nemesis in the 1990 Dolph Lundgren sci-fi-actioner I Come in Peace (or Dark Angel if you prefer). With that muscular build and long blonde hair, he\u2019s a psychotic version of Fabio. He plays crazy very effectively. Beymer is a long way from West Side Story playing a vicious mobster. He overacts with no shame at all. You gotta love a guy that does that.<\/p>\n

\u00a0When it comes to B-movie fun, you can\u2019t go wrong with a Roger Corman-Cirio H. Santiago production like Blackbelt<\/strong>. This one was actually filmed on location is Los Angeles as opposed to the Philippines. Moore makes great use of the L.A. locations from the seedy to the glitzy. It definitely plays like a grindhouse movie from the 80s. It\u2019s fast-moving, sleazy and doesn\u2019t have two brain cells to rub together. It\u2019s made for Saturday night viewing.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blackbelt (1992)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Concorde\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 85 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong martial arts violence, nudity, sexuality, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Charles Philip Moore\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Charles Philip Moore\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: David and Eric Wurst\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: John Ulyanov\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 28, 1992 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Don \u201cThe Dragon\u201d Wilson, Deirdre Haj (as \u201cDeirdre Imershein\u201d), Matthias Hues, Richard Beymer, Alan Blumenfeld, Jack Forcinito […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11530,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies","category-kick-ass-actioners"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Blackbelt-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11496"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11531,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11496\/revisions\/11531"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}