Bullet Points: Death Cage
Years before he became synonymous with the character Liu Kang in the Mortal Kombat movies, Robin Shou had the opportunity to headline the Hong Kong produced Death Cage in 1989.
In this edition of Bullet Points, I will try to make sense of Death Cage in all its subtitled glory…
- Hot Start: Death Cage starts in the midst of a competition between fighters from the Wa Chai Gym of Bangkok and Kents Gym of Los Angeles. The local favorites, Wa Chai Gym, are getting their asses handed to them by the Kents Gym fighters, with one Wa Chai fighter even being stretchered out as the movie begins… Hold up, there’s still hope for the Wa Chai Gym… Nam See Hon (Robin Shou) is the best Wa Chai fighter and it quickly shows as Nam See Hon gets the upper hand in his battle with Lai Chai (aka The Wolf of the Desert). If it was a fair fight, there is no doubt in my mind Nam See Hon would have won, but when Lai Tsai pulls out a pair of brass knuckles and attacks Nam See Hon’s leg. Seeing the injustice at ring side Master Wa Chai gets into the ring to come to the aid of his star pupil and ends up with a broken leg…. the next day Master Wa Chai in a wheelchair and Nam See Hon walking with a crutch, move out of the Wa Chai Gym… it is Kents Gym Bangkok now.
- A Day Late: Tang Chuan and his daughter Siu Chu show up in Bangkok to visit Tang Chuan’s old friend, Master Wa Chai. When Tang and Siu show up at the now former location of the Wa Chai Gym, they are shocked that it is now Kents Gym… after being harassed by one member of the Kents Gym, another Kents fighter points Tang Chuan and Siu Chu in the direction of someone who may be able to tell them where their friends moved to…. which leads them to Master Wa Chai and Nam See Hon, who are now operating a garage… Did they always have this business? Was this a backup plan if the whole gym thing didn’t work out? If it was a new endeavor, how did they finance it? The movie never really explains it and in the end it really doesn’t matter.
- Draft Kings: Mr. Hunter (Joe Lewis, Force: Five) is the owner and operator of Kents Gym… which is probably why both IMDb and HKMDb list him as Mr. Kent, but my subtitles said Mr. Hunter, so even though Mr. Kent makes more sense, he is Mr. Hunter to me… it seems Mr. Hunter’s expansion plan into Bangkok has upset the local gambling circuit. Betting on the fights was big business, but with their local hero, Nam See Hon, out of the picture… the people are no longer excited about the fights… which means they aren’t betting on the fights… which means the Bangkok underworld ain’t happy! So now Hunter has to find a way to coax Nam See Hon back for a rematch with Lai Tsai.
- Wax On, Wax Off: Hunter starts sending goons (on auto rickshaws no less) to cause trouble at the garage and even has one of his fighters Pi Gum, cozy up to Master Wa Chai’s daughter Linda (or Lin Da as the subtitles addressed her… honestly Lin DUH would have been more appropriate, since she was easily the dumbest character and inadvertently caused so much trouble due to her foolish stupidity). What Hunter and his men didn’t know was the fact that the visiting Tang Chuan was a martial arts master and he begins training Nam See Hon so he can get even with Hunter and Kents School, this means some training montages in the garage including a little wax on, wax off action
- The Rematch: Nam See Hon returns to in ring action and squares off with Lai Tsai and this time the dirty tricks don’t work and Lai Tsai is defeated… that’s when Pi Gum reveals he is not just some dude trying to get into Linda’s pants, he’s with Kents Gym and we get a bonus match… which means more gambling ! Mr. Hunter was so confident in his evil plan that he bet big on Pi Gum… WRONG BET! Nam See Hon ended up beating Pi Gum too… the Wai Cha Gym is back baby!!
- He Beat Joe Lewis’ Ass: Now it is is personal for Hunter since he lost his ass… so once again he goes into shit disturber mode, having a group of guys attack Nam See Hon at the garage, kidnapping Linda and worst of all… having his two female assassins MURDER Tang Chuan. These acts get Hunter what he wants… Nam See Hon in a rematch with Pi Gum, but this time inside the Death Cage! The bamboo structure was unique, but nowhere near as impressive as the cage used in The King of the Kickboxers. What was impressive was Nam See Hon, who once again defeated Pi Gum… which prompts Mr. Hunter to step in the Death Cage himself and we have ourselves another impromptu fight, although this one ends with a FATALITY!
Death Cage felt like a movie that had a rough outline as opposed to a fully fleshed out script. There were times I got the sense they were making the story up as they went along. However Death Cage had quality fight scenes (thanks in part to Alexander Lo Rei), some great montages and a tremendous hero in the form of Robin Shou’s Nam See Hon and a rogue’s gallery of bad guys that gave the movie’s shortcomings a pass in my book.
Don’t pass up these Bonus Bullet Points…
- AKA: To capitalize on the success of Mortal Kombat and the new found fame Robin Shou had with American audiences, Death Cage eventually made its way to the United States under the title Mortal Combat 2: The Death Cage.
- Flashback: There is a flashback scene to Master Wa Chai’s time in the war and the promise he made to Nam See Hon’s father, as he was dying on the battlefield, to watch over his son and raise him as his own.
- AKA: Death Cage was released as Bloodfight 2: The Death Cage in the UK. I am not sure there was a Bloodfight released in the UK prior to this, but my gut tells me Bloodfight 2: The Death Cage was an in name only sequel.
