Showdown in Manilla

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We could give this steamer a new title. “Chapter 11”. Because its the income the actors need before they file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Showdown in Manilla is a movie that didn’t need to be made about a story that shouldn’t be told. We didn’t know what was going on. It was like watching two movies. The first half was in the city and looked like Transporter/Bourne. The second half was like Platoon.

I think the story was that there is a bad guy (Shang Tsung), and he is trying to kill this local girl. He has an army and kills many policemen in the city and then in the jungle. He gets caught in the end. They never say why he is doing this or why she is the target. There was some brief subplot about her being a prostitute and a daughter of some important guy and the cop was a client. Yeah, its was so convoluted and stupid and nonsensical.

The “actors”:

  • Casper van Dien. He was the guy in starship troopers. And awesome movie. This movie was rubbish. He probably got paid with prostitutes. All of Manilla seemed to have had sex with him and they all know him. Why was this in the movie? It served no purpose.
  • Don ‘the Dragon’ Wilson. He is a martial arts guy and acted in a million other movies. One of his series is the Bloodfist series. Its last one was number 8. In this movie, he looks waaaay too old. He is about 62 now. It shows. Its almost like he had Alzheimer’s and would grenade the wrong cars and hobble to the wrong team because eyesight.
  • Mark Dacascos is the guy from Iron Chef America that always kicks off the episode with his karate chop. He also acted in a million other martial arts movies. He wasn’t too prominent here but that was because he was too busy directing this movie. “Directing”. I used quotes because there wasn’t direction. I am being explicit because he thinks you’re stupid.
  • Alexander Nevsy is a huge buff guy that fucks everyone up. I don’t know him from anywhere. IMDB says he acted in some other shit action movies. But he tries to be Arnold Schwarzenegger. You cant understand a word he says.
  • Matthias Hues is an old blonde bad guy that is probably the best actor here. He acted in a bunch of other movies as a baddie.
  • Cynthia Rothrock is in this. She is random soldier number seven that wears camo clothes but then leaves her hair long and purple. Great work Cynthia. No one will notice long purple hair in the middle of a jungle.
  • Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa is the main bad guy. He was shang tsung in martal kombat and a bunch of other movies. His acting was ok. He was probably the most expensive guy here and they bought four hours of his time and some was paid in booze.
  • Tia Carrere. What can I say? Age has not been kind. We kept laughing throughout this movie when we didnt see her. Because thought that she was out getting KFC for herself and the crew. At the end of the movie, the good guys (Cynthia, Nevsky, Casper and Don) catch the bad guys (Shang and Hues) but Tia says some shit about being the daughter of a sniper and then she slowly shoots the two bad guys. Why? Ever hear the revenge doesnt undo the past? What did they do to you? Did you think you can get away with it? Why would you do this in a police station? Oh she gets away with it. WTF! Why cops? Why did you let a non-cop shoot someone in the station and walk out?

We had a ton of fun watching this movie. It was like a cheap knock off of the Expendables. But with really old shitty acting and actors. The Pensionables would be a better title. It was a movie made to feed Tia for the next week and the rest of the cast for, at least, the next month.

Watch it.