THE MOVIE
We open with the mafia wacking some undercover agent/informant and disposing of him and some incriminating photos in some old wine barrels or something. I'm sure this will play into things later...
Meanwhile, some other old dude is giving a speech. He must be promoting peace or something, because my main man Jim Kelly heads out to make sure the parking lot is safe. And good thing he did, because out there are a bunch of bad guys that need some whooping!
Jim Kelly is our titular hero - Black Belt Jones - and he gets bored of punching these dudes in the junk, so just shoots the last one in the butt. Black Belt Jones is cool.
CUE SUPER FUNKY THEME MUSIC
The Man is making an offer to Black Belt Jones; they've lost four agents trying to infiltrate Don Steffano's mafia operations and they want Jones to be the fourth. Jones, however, is not about to go on a suicide mission for The Man and suggests they pretend it's the ghetto - then they can just send in the tanks! Black Belt Jones knows where he comes from.
Next, we are treated to some vigilantes attacking a dude named "Pinky" in his pool hall; they are sick of him pushing drugs on the street, but Pinky and his thugs get the upperhand. So now you know Pinky is a bad dude. Turns out, he's in cahoots with the mafia, and the henchmen from earlier come pay him a visit. He owes Don Steffano $250K, and to pay off that debt, he needs to get Papa Byrd to sell his karate dojo to the mafia so Don Steffano can make millions on some property development.
Papa Byrd owes Pinky $1,000 in gambling or something, so he figures this will be easy. I'm not an expert on inflation, but I'm pretty sure a building in 1974 cost more than $1,000. Anyways, he hits up Papa Byrd and says that IOU is actually for $11,000 (oooh he's really sneaky, adding a 1 in front like that!). Papa Byrd tells him to step off, and then he and his karate students give Pinky and his boys a beat down. Movie over! Good guys win!
But no! He comes back with some meaner dudes and beats up everyone at the karate school. So the head teacher calls in Papa Byrd's finest student - Black Belt Jones! He comes down and gives everyone a whooping.
Alas, Papa Byrd learns nothing and go gets himself killed by Pinky and his gang, so they come down to the dojo to collect on the IOU - which has now been changed to $41,000. This dude is smart, the way he keeps changing numbers! But the dojo has been willed to Papa Byrd's only daughter and she has no interest in selling to Pinky. And of course, she also turns out to be a karate master. Her and Black Belt Jones whoop the bad guys, then the bad guys whoop the good guys when Jones and her are not around
and then Jones decides to use his brain as well as his fists, and teams up with a group of young trampolining girls he's been training (did I mention them earlier? I'm guessing he was specifically training them to use their trampoline skills in his undercover missions) to steal money from Don Steffano, then pay Pinky with it, so when Pinky pays Don Steffano the $250K he owes him, it's his own money.
The bad guys only fall for it for about 5 minutes, and eventually everyone has a big rumble at the car wash! And by everyone, I mean Black Belt Jones vs Pinky, his gang and the entire mafia.
REACTION
Look, I am not one to just throw around strong words for a laugh, so please believe me when I say... bah gawd THIS IS A PERFECT MOVIE! Non-stop action (seriously, when people aren't throwing down, there is a car chase thrown in for fun), hilarious dialogue, a funky soundtrack and fantastic characters; you've got mafia dudes with thick accents and names like Big Tuna and Don Steffano, like they're straight out of an episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Then you've got a crazy old man with a gambling problem who is running a karate dojo, when he can barely throw a kick - and he's none other than Scatman Crothers, AKA the voice of Hong Kong Phooey! You've got a serious badass woman in the supporting lead role. Okay, sure, she throws around homophobic slurs like she throws karate chops, but she whoops the bad guys and never gets in the way or anything. And then there is Black Belt Jones...
JIM KELLY
Now this is the movie that made me a fan. He's clearly having a lot of fun in this movie - and why not? He's like some sort of Afro-American James Bond; The Man wants him to work for them, but he's too smart for that bullshit, he has some great lines all over the place, he looks good and he gets to stay true to himself - again just hanging with regular folk and helping them against bad dudes. Also, he straight up whoops all the butts in this movie. I'm pretty sure he only got punched once or twice in the whole thing - that's a pretty good ratio, considering I think the UFC statisticians had him throwing something like 2,100 significant strikes over the duration of the film.
Instead of gifs and pics, I just want to buy you all a copy of the movie on DVD to watch. Black Belt Jones is the best.
Jim Kelly was the man!
No comments:
Post a Comment