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Cast:
Gary
Daniels
Costas
Mandylor
Chris
Penn
Malcolm
McDowell
Isako
Washio
Action:
Winston
Omega
Producer:
Mark
Yellen
Aki
Komine
Director:
Tony
Randel
Score:
  
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FIST
OF THE NORTH STAR
AKA:
Hokuto No Ken
Year:
1995 Reviewer: Phil
Mills
In
an unknown time, the world is devastated by a nuclear war and
left a barren and desolate place. The people that
survived struggle for food and water, avoiding the perils of
the acid rain that falls daily. Lord Shin (Mandylor),
the leader of a sect of martial arts known as the
"Southern Cross", has emerged to declare himself the
ruler of a new world and is crafting it into his own twisted
vision. Meanwhile, Kenshiro
(Daniels) is the remaining member of the "Northern
Fist" martial arts style and he wonders the world
searching for his lost love Julia, who was taken from him
years ago by Shin. Eventually, he hopes to face
his true destiny to become the "Fist of the North
Star" thus returning order to the chaos but that cannot
happen until Julia is returned to him.
Based
on the popular Manga series of the same name, this live action
adaptation actually
remains surprisingly faithful to it's source material.
Seeing a comic book conversion that has not
been mangled in the Hollywood scripting process is a
refreshing change and this allows fans
of the original a chance to enjoy their heroes' anecdotes the
way they were intended to be seen. Obviously,
considering this film was made with severe budget restrictions,
this is by no
means a top of the range production but sets are recreated as
accurately as possible and scenes are played out relatively
closely, although some
of the more magical elements of the animation have been sacrificed.
The
one place that these limitations really show are the re-enactment of the
martial arts sequences. In the comic, Kenshiro is able
to perform a hundred punches or kicks in a matter of seconds
but without the assistance of an enormous special effects
budget this is practically impossible to recreate with real
people. To counter this, the crew have decided to go
with the more realistic approach and use the natural skills of
their stars as a replacement. This works with an actor
like Gary Daniels who has a background in this kind of
fighting (and has worked on numerous Hong Kong productions)
but with his co-stars it is often a little harder to find a
degree of satisfaction. That said, most of the action is
done extremely well and Daniels proves that he as good as (and
generally a lot better than) the likes of Van Damme, Seagal or
Ray Parks, so deserves to be hitting the big time for his
abilities alone.
One
main element that has remained is the over-excessive violence
that was prominent throughout the original. Heads
explode, bones crunch and limbs are torn from their sockets
with incredible accuracy, drawing bloody comparisons with the
likes of 'Story
Of Ricky' and some of the high end Cat III movies.
Fans of these genres will no doubt get a kick out of it and if
you don't have a weak stomach, you will surely be able to
enjoy these bizarre amputations.
Overall,
this is a good conversion considering the movie's obvious restrictions
and is likely to please anime enthusiasts along with
converting a few newcomers as well. If nothing else,
Daniels proves he is A-list material and should be riding the
kung fu wave that is hitting Hollywood shores at this time.
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