The Action/Adventure Section — A regular column that will exclusively highlight and review action movies. The most likely suspects? Action cinema of the 1970s and 1980s. But no era will be spurned. As the column grows, the intent will be to re-capture the whimsy of perusing the aisles of your local video store with only ragingly kick ass cover art to aide you in your quest for sweaty action glory. Here we will celebrate the beefy. This is a safe place where we still believe that one lone hero can save humanity by sheer force of will and generous steroid usage.
Tagline: The world’s hottest undercover agents are back!
A couple of weeks back, my good pal John Ary from Photon City News mentioned to me that he had picked up a set of [almost] all of Andy Sidaris’ films. I had to confess that I was totally unfamiliar with this man or his body of work. There was no way in good conscience that John could allow that state of naivete to continue. So we made plans to experience Sidaris’ wholly un-unique, but career-defining blend of boobs, bullets, boobs, babes, and boobs.
You know how JCVD movies in their prime all took a moment out of their packed screenplays to ensure a sweaty, slow-mo love scene? Sidaris’ Hard Hunted (1992) slides a few steps further down that spectrum by inserting the occasional moment of action and espionage between the packed out screenplay’s boob shots. I couldn’t help but be fascinated by Sidaris’ ability to make boobs comedic or boring more often than not.
At any rate, John put together a video review of our experience with Hard Hunted, and he did it with as much (if not more) care as Sidaris himself showed when assembling his boob/bullet love letters. Check out our detailed analysis of Hard Hunted and join me after the break.
A few of my favorite items of note in Hard Hunted include:
- Al Leong and his “reliable Asian-ness” (see video), as well as his helicopter death machine.
- The K-sxy radio station and its uncrackable on-air code language, as well as its bevy of buxom… interns who fetch coffee in bikinis or less.
- The fact that Sidaris thought enough of the characters in his films that he created series’ and sequels for them, despite their wafer-thin singular dimensionality. John and I are greatly looking forward to the further exploits of the spies of K-sxy on your FM dial with the follow up to Hard Hunted, Fit To Kill.
After the one-two punches of Samurai Cop and Hard Hunted, which were admittedly HIGHLY entertaining and offered camp factors that were through the roof, I’d like to file a couple of action classics for the next entries of The Action/Adventure Section. I’m not yet sure what those titles will be, but I’m interested in recommendations! In the past I’ve dreamed of diving into the works of Olivier Gruner, Gary Daniels, and possibly further explorations of the careers of Don “The Dragon” Wilson and Mark Dacascos. Who knows which rabbit hole I’ll venture down?!
John and I are also making plans to return to the Sidaris-verse as we mentioned in the video review. So I hope you’ll join us soon for our coverage of Fit To Kill.
And I’m Out.