A Walking Weapon That Never Misses

Once upon a time, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was arguably the most prestigious film studio in Hollywood. By 1981, MGM was producing and distributing Chuck Norris movies. Hey, there are those of us who don't consider that a big step down.

The busy Norris, playing his seventh leading role in five years, stars as Josh Randall, a Vietnam vet and troubleshooter for the Lucky Dragon casino in Hong Kong. Randall isn't just an employee of the Dragon's owners, elderly Sam Paschal (David Opatoshu) and Sam's half-Jewish/half-Chinese son David (Frank Michael Liu), but an unofficial member of the Paschal family. So when a local mobster named Stan Rahmandi (Michael Cavanaugh) murders the Paschals for refusing to sell him their business, it ain't like if your boss or mine got killed.

Randall is really steamed, especially since the local fuzz want to frame him for the killings. With his girlfriend Claire (Mary Louise Weller) and party girl Joy Paschal (Camila Griggs), now the sole owner of the Lucky Dragon and Rahmandi's next target, in tow, Josh bounces around Hong Kong with a price on his head, dodging bullets, nunchakus, knives, and flying feet from every two-bit street hood and hitman wannabe in the city.

James Fargo, who cut his teeth on a couple of Clint Eastwood hits (THE ENFORCER and EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE), directed FORCED VENGEANCE in Hong Kong at a reasonable clip. Given that Franklin Thompson's screenplay drags a bit in the middle and Norris' obvious liabilities as a leading man, the 90-minute R-rated feature comes across very professionally. Rexford Metz's camera captures Hong Kong very well indeed, and William Goldstein's score provides period flavor without lapsing too far into clichéd "Asian-style" music.

The subject matter is surprisingly rough for a Norris film, presenting a pair of rapes, a couple of somewhat grisly deaths, and a horrible broken-back injury resulting in paralysis. To compensate, Thompson sprinkles a few one-liners into the script, which are not spoken by Norris with the kind of comic timing that will remind you of Henny Youngman, but do lighten the load a bit. Adding some unintentional laughs is the spotty narration, which allows us to "read" Chuck's thoughts occasionally ("Asshole.").

Norris was just about to hit his peak as a major movie star. A year later, Orion released LONE WOLF MCQUADE, and a year after that, in 1984, Chuck began an exclusive contract with Cannon that produced his best-remembered action pictures like MISSING IN ACTION and THE DELTA FORCE.

His two Orion films--MCQUADE and the tough Chicago policier CODE OF SILENCE--are the best in his filmography, but the jingoistic Cannon cheapies seem to be the ones most commonly referenced today. I have a soft spot, though, for the early Norris works. His American Cinema "trilogy" found him battling sinister CIA operatives (GOOD GUYS WEAR BLACK), a super-karate serial killer (A FORCE OF ONE), and an army of ninja running a training camp for terrorists (THE OCTAGON). In Avco-Embassy's AN EYE FOR AN EYE, he fought druglord Christopher Lee's army in a Bondian climax, and an indestructible serial-killing zombie (!) was his foe in SILENT RAGE--certainly a more interesting mix than the Commies and terrorists Chuck tackled in his Cannon days.

But whomever he puts the smack on, you can always count on Norris to deliver a good time. My memories of FORCED VENGEANCE are of watching it a dozen times on HBO, usually late at night with my brother and our friends. Now I can see it as many times as I want--and in its original 1.85:1 ratio--on Warner Home Video's DVD. The mono soundtrack isn't going to blow out your speakers, and the colorful anamorphic image isn't going to evoke the cinematography of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, but they're perfectly fine for an '80s Chuck Norris chopsocky flick.