No Surrender Cinema: Bloodfist V: Human Target
It’s time for a Very Special No Surrender Cinema, as today happens to be the birthday of one of my all time favorite martial arts movie stars. Don “The Dragon” Wilson is responsible for numerous films that myself and my Bulletproof Action buddies happen to love, so on his 67th birthday I’m going to take a look at another entry into a series that’s synonymous with “The Dragon”. It’s time to go back to the Bloodfist franchise for a look at the fifth entry, Bloodfist V: Human Target!
If you’re new to the Bloodfist series, fear not, dear reader; aside from Bloodfist and its immediate sequel, Bloodfist II, each film in the franchise is a standalone story. After his portrayal of a wrongfully convicted man fighting to survive prison in Bloodfist III: Forced To Fight and a father out to save his daughter in Bloodfist IV: Die Trying, Wilson is tasked with playing Jim Stanton, a man left with amnesia after an opening fight scene where “The Dragon” is wearing a wig that makes him look like a two-bit Branscombe Richmond. After some time in the hospital, Jim is discharged into the care of his wife (Denice Duff). While Jim is having trouble remembering his past, he still remembers how to fight, and that comes in handy when the happy couple are confronted by Tommy (Yuji Okumoto, best known as Chozen from the Karate Kid franchise) and Sam (the incomparable Ron Yuan). Jim fends off the attackers, but soon finds out that Candy is not really his wife. Turns out she’s just some hooker who was paid to get him out of the hospital, and her pimp Marcus (the great Steve James) is somehow wrapped up in what’s going on. Jim and Marcus start brawling just as Tommy and Sam show up, and within minutes Marcus is dead, Tommy and Sam are down, and Jim and Candy are on the run.
While evading the goons that are after them, more details of Jim’s past are revealed. It turns out that Jim isn’t Jim after all; he’s Michael Wilkes, an undercover agent trying to bring down a Chinese smuggling ring. Because this is an action movie, we only find out that detail after Jim/Mike has dispatched of roughly 100 of his fellow agents, only for Agent Blake (Don Stark) to realize that Jim/Mike really did wind up with amnesia and has no idea of who he truly is or the situation he’s in. Even though he’s not of sound body and mind, the NSA wants to force Mike back into his role of Jim Stanton to finally bring the smugglers to justice. Blake agrees to set his old friend as well as Candy up with new identities and lives as long as he agrees to this final job. Blake also drops the bomb on Mike that his parents are dead, as well as his wife, which makes Jim/Mike hesitant to continue down this path.
Mere moments after absorbing all of that bad news, the NSA office is under attack by the smugglers, which leads to the death of a number of agents, including Blake. I’d also like to state on the record that Blake, played by the same actor that was Donna’s dad on That 70’s Show, looks like a discount store Jon Favreau. So now that we’ve said RIP to the guy who looks like the guy from Swingers, Jim/Mike and Candy find themselves on the run again with nowhere to turn. Jim tries to get Candy to go on her merry way, but she steadfastly refuses, so she becomes a willing accomplice as he dives deep into the underworld again to try to figure out just what the hell is going on. It’s a pretty solid idea, since I’m still not quite sure of what’s going on myself.
During his little amnesiac adventure, Jim/Mike grows closer to Candy, tangles with Tommy and Sam again, and has to rescue his ladyfriend from the clutches of the syndicate’s leader, Quan. All of this makes it seem like we’re getting closer to the truth, but the more Bloodfist V rolls on, the more twists and turns it provides us. I normally enjoy it when a film decides not to go the obvious route, but my issue with this film is that it piles on twist after twist, all of which are fairly predictable; while I appreciate the producers trying to give the film some substance, the complexity of the plot is a bit much. I came here for Bloodfist, damn it, not The Bourne Identity.
Shockingly enough, it’s the action in the film that could have had a bit more attention paid to it. It’s not that there isn’t enough of it, because Wilson gets to showcase his skills time and time again. Where Bloodfist V fails is at the way the fights are laid out. We’ve got guys like Art Camacho, Yuan, Okumoto, and James here and every fight that features them feels like a snippet of what could have been. Seeing James, best known for his appearances in classics like American Ninja and Avenging Force, in a film with Wilson, who was dominating the B-movie scene at the time, felt like a major deal. Unfortunately, the two fights that these stars had felt anything but epic. The one fight early in the movie was nothing more than a quick brawl to set up the “death” of James’ character, and the finale when (SPOILER) James’ true persona and character are revealed and he goes one on one with Jim/Mike is completely ruined by Candy (now going by her true name of Michelle) intervenes. It leaves the ending of the film feeling flat and open-ended, as if our hero just said “screw this” and walked away from the mayhem rather than getting resolution. If the guy we’ve been rooting for for the past hour and a half doesn’t give a damn, why should we?
I have a soft spot in my heart for all of the Bloodfist movies; one of my favorite collections among all of the physical media I own is the 8 VHS tapes for the entire series. However, every series has its hits and misses, and unfortunately Human Target misses its mark. Coming so soon after Bloodfist III, which is not only the best of the Bloodfist series but my personal favorite out of “The Dragon’s” filmography, this one didn’t feel as structured and focused. The amnesia storyline made the film hard to follow, and though Wilson brought his A-game to the fight scenes, many of the encounters felt lackluster. If you’d like to see this one for yourself, the best way to watch Bloodfist V: Human Target these days is via Youtube or hit up the secondary market for the out of print VHS or DVD. I’ve got nothing but love for “The Dragon” so I can’t completely hate on it, but in the end Bloodfist V is so forgettable you’ll think you’re the one who had amnesia.
