Bullet Points: Deadly Target (1994)

It’s almost impossible to be a fan of action movies (especially from the 80’s/90’s) and not have watched a considerable amount of movies from the PM Entertainment library. Whether they were bikini movies, kickboxing movies, or pretty much anything involving Lorenzo Lamas, PM Entertainment had me at hello. At the behest of Chris the Brain, I recently looked at a list of their movies from the early 90’s and was reminded of this Gary Daniels gem. You know what they say; there’s no better time than the present….

Synopsis: Hong Kong police detective Charles Prince (Gary Daniels) arrives in Los Angeles to extradite a notorious Chinese gangster back to Hong Kong for trial. But soon, his suspect escapes. With the help of renegade cop Jim Jenson (Ken McLeod) and beautiful Pai Gow dealer Diana Tang (Susan Byun), Prince tracks the ruthless gangster down.

• Prince: Hong Kong Sgt. Charles Prince (Gary Daniels) is in L.A. to extradite Chinese gangster Chang (Byron Mann) back from the US. He’s trying to take over the Chinese drug trade in the States and he’s here to kick some ass and drag that guy from Street Fighter back to Hong Kong.
• Opening Salvo: The film opens by quickly introducing us to Prince and his American partner Jenson (Ken McLeod) and then giving us a nearly 20 minute-long action scene. It’s a great way to open the movie, even if the action isn’t going to make you jump with joy, it still combines plenty of fighting, shootouts, and exploding cars to wet your appetite.

• Byron Mann: It’s hard for me to see that youthful, pretty boy face of Byron Mann as a Triad dude. I’m so used to seeing older and far more menacing looking guys in that role that I couldn’t accept Mann so easily.
• The usual suspects: If you’re a big-time action fan then may be thinking of the same crew that I was when I first turned the film on. It’s a movie starring a martial arts expert fighting against the Triad so you’re guaranteed to get a couple of noticeable guys like Al Leong and James Lew in it, but Deadly Target gets even more involved with the Asian bad guys like Aki Aleong and Philip Tan. You couldn’t ask for a better cast of baddies.

• The Captain: The police Captain played by Max Gail is fantastic! He constantly yells at Jenson and Prince and feels like he was directly influenced by every other cop movie of the late 80’s and early 90’s.
• Chang’s peeps: Chang really doesn’t do shit in this movie. His crew does most of the fighting and that somehow consists of them going into public places and shooting them up with submachine guns and then disappearing into thin air. They finally show up out of the blue to instigate things with Prince and his new girlfriend at some random breakfast spot. Things get out of hand and we’re finally given our first proper car chase scene of the movie.

• Stop kidnapping my girl, bro: Byron Mann must have only been paid for a few days on set because his people keep doing things without him being around. They kidnap Prince’s lady friend a couple of times and it sets the wheels in motion for the finale on a docked ship. It’s not as good as Double Impact but it at least gives us fisticuffs-a-plenty!
• Time to pay the piper: Damn it! I should have saved that line for a Roddy Piper movie! Either way, the final showdown between Prince and Jenson and the wannabe Triads goes exactly the way you might expect it. They beat the crap out of a bunch of nameless Asian dudes and Gary Daniels’ leather jacket single-handedly kills three people. We hear the sound of a helicopter in the distance and I instantly start taking wagers on whether that thing is gonna get blown up or not. It’s only then that I realize that the ship they’re on is a naval ship (for some reason) and Jenson was obviously a Navy vet. Things get fiery and Jenson does his best to bring Yin to Daniels’ Yang with a denim jacket! It’s peak 90’s direct to video action.

The Verdict: Deadly Target is a fun Gary Daniels film where he gets to beat up a bunch of people and occasionally shoot them. That’s right in his wheelhouse as an actor. His partnership with Ken McLeod is just ok as he wasn’t nearly “L.A.” enough to play his counterpart. I could have used a better main baddie as Byron Mann didn’t do it for me and his role never needed someone with physicality so he was kind of wasted from the beginning. All in all, Deadly Target is a fun movie and easily on the happier side of Gary Daniels movies that I’ve seen over the years.