Before making it big as one of the biggest action stars of 1990′s B-movies, British-born kickboxer Gary Daniels stars in this very low-budgeted action film about a former underground fighter who goes to great lengths to get his younger brother out of the game before it’s too late.

Jake Tanner (Gary Daniels) was an underground fight champion who also ran little errands for the promoter, Ogawa (Gerald Okamura). When Jake and Ogawa’s son Ito (Roger Yuan) are set to blow up a small restaurant, the two find themselves at battle with some local thugs. Despite the fighting skills of Jake and Ito, as they try to make their escape, Ito is gunned down by the thugs. Desperate to escape, Jake leaves L.A. for Hong Kong and doesn’t return for ten years.

Now a successful businessman, Jake is living comfortably in Hong Kong and away from the brutal realities of Los Angeles. However, a frantic call from his mother reveals that Jake’s past is about to catch up with him. Jake’s younger brother Randy (Ian Jacklin) has followed in his brother’s footsteps and is now a member of Ogawa’s organization as an underground fighter. Determined to get his brother out of the game, Jake heads back to Los Angeles and learns that Randy is not only a top fighter, but he has a relationship with Ogawa’s daughter (Lorraine Yong).

As Jake confronts Ogawa, he soon learns that Randy is nothing more than a pawn to Ogawa’s plan. Ogawa has never forgiven Jake for Ito’s death. Ogawa plans to use Randy until he is no longer needed. With the help of his martial arts teacher Nick (Kent Ducanon) and his ex-girlfriend Rose (Traci Dali), Jake is determined to stop Ogawa once and for all, and hopefully save his brother in the proces.

After making two films in the Philippines and a small yet very good role in the Don Wilson-starrer RING OF FIRE (1991), British martial arts ace Gary Daniels stars in this definitive B-movie directed by Steve Austin (No, not the WWE Wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin). Definitely made on a miniscule budget, the story is pretty standard as Daniels must get his little brother out of the same racket he was in. The film opens with Daniels, sporting the long curly locks, and Roger Yuan getting ready to blow up a small restaurant only to be stopped by the owners, who look like typical stuntmen waiting to get knocked out.

Yuan only appears in the opening scene, but is able to show off some nice kicking skills like Daniels. However, the film is mainly a kickboxing fest as the fights, choreographed by four stars of the film, use the American-kickboxing style of fight choreography. While it’s not bad on a B-movie level, the action seems to be the only asset of the entire film. As much as one would like to Daniels act, the film as a whole storytelling wise, is typical and at times, the acting just seems a little bad. In all honesty, it is not all Daniels’ fault.

The veteran martial arts cast includes another kickboxing champion, Ian “The Jackal” Jacklin, as Daniels’ little brother turned top fighter Randy. Jacklin is perhaps best known for his role as the kickboxing challenger who takes on Sasha Mitchell in KICKBOXER 3: THE ART OF WAR (1992). Jacklin definitely is a good martial artist, but acting wise, he could improve a little bit. However, with his later roles in the martial arts films RING OF FIRE II: BLOOD AND STEEL (1992) and DEATH MATCH (1995), he definitely has the range to play both a hero and villain and improved somewhat in the acting department.

The true villain is well played by Hollywood stunt veteran Gerald Okamura. His character, Ogawa, is perhaps a real mastermind, something one doesn’t see much in these B-movies. It seems as if at first, he is enjying Randy as a fighter in his organization much like he had Jake in the past. However, when his true nature is revealed, it kind of brings a really good twist to the otherwise mishmashed plot.

Daniels and Jacklin made good use of the martial arts cast in terms of the fight choreography. It seemed as if the only reason to see this film is to see the fight choreography. While it may not exactly be the great undercranking kickboxing of Hong Kong action cinema, for an American B-movie, they actually did a pretty decent job compared to other American B-movies, where at times the camera angles are so bad that the guy never gets hit and he has to pretend he gets hit.

In any event, while it may not be the greatest American martial arts film made, AMERICAN STREETFIGHTER has its moments, and for die-hard Gary Daniels fans, it may be worth a rental to see some of his earlier work in films.

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  • http://martialartscinema.blogspot.com/ Sky

    ‘American Streetfighter’ is a funny little introduction to the talent of Gary Daniels, but not a great movie by any means of the imagination and contains no real show stopping action either. I think this was Gary Daniels’ second or third starring role in the US, his first 4 being with no-budget film company Cine Excel (the makers of this film).

    The two basic ways I gauge Gary’s fighting are by speed, and the variety of kicks he displays. The fighting in the film is really not that great, with poor reactions and slow fighting (typical of American martial arts films from this time). In the final fight scene, Gary does display a few interesting aerial kicks (including his trademark helicopter kick, which rivals Van Damme’s) that are nice, but don’t make up for the film’s overall sluggish and uninventive choreography, and the terrible storyline and high school theater department-quality acting (of which Ian Jacklin’s is the worst). This film is probably only for Gary Daniels fans.

    All his movies for Cine Excel, roughly in order are Capital Punishment (1991), American Streetfighter (1992), Full Impact (1992), Pocket Ninjas (1997 – although probably filmed around the same time as the others) and Reptilicant (2006). Daniels himself admits that the movies were so bad they probably hurt his career, but were fun to do.

  • Fmarkland32

    I'm not sure if Gary Daniels is one of the biggest action stars. I mean he just now got a theatrical release but wasn't even on the poster. Fist Of The North Star is I guess the closest to such but his star wasn't as bright as even Michael Dudikoff's or even Jeff Speakman's. He wasn't even second billed in the piss-poor Submerged. He did have some decent PM efforts but he was a video star more or less. As for A.S Daniels is clearly better than the material…the fight sequences were utterly lame due to budget restrictions. It's also ripped off from Death Warrant and Lionheart. This is strictly amateur night in terms of filmmaking…Daniels really payed his dues. Still better than Black Friday though.

  • Alexsource

    The article says it clear: “…before making it as one of the biggest action stars of 1990′s B-movies…”. Nineties, and B-Movies. He had his short-lived moment in the middle nineties, after a couple of albert pyun movies and hong kong collaborations, plus the FOTNS flick. So perhaps “the biggest” is a tad too much, but last time I've checked, PM-Entertainment was a B-Movie DTV studio (altough like just about every other DTV studio, some of their stuff califies as between C and Z…) and Submerged was not even made in the 90's…
    Cut Albert some slack, he tends to be like this about american made 90's MA movies, but his reviews are always a good read.

  • Fmarkland32

    Did I anyway insult the author…I am blown away by him giving Angel Town and Max Havoc extremely high ratings (and I like martial arts films) but overall I've maintained a civil tone. As for B.movie studios…Gary Daniels aside from Dolph and Dudikoff he wasn't as big as C.Thomas Howell, Michael Madsen, Eric Roberts,Michael Pare and Jeff Fahey. And PM hired out more work fromDon “The Dragon” Wilson, Lorenzo Lamas, Jeff Speakman and Jeff Wincott. I would argue those guys were bigger at the time.

    Nothing against Daniels…I enjoyed Rage, Recoil, Cold Harvest but you know it's sort of misleading in saying he was big. He had a modest showing at the time but biggest is a stretch. I'd say he was about on the same level as Cynthia Rothrock (here and not in HK),Thomas Ian Griffith and David Bradley.

  • Alexsource

    Hey, It's cool, It just seemed you were overreacting. You made a couple of mistakes, and I thought I should point then out.
    I do agree with you that Daniels was more of a modest than big B-Action star. Albert seems to be very passionate about this kind of flicks, so he sometimes makes a mistake or exaggerates the virtues of the flicks.