Showdown in Little Tokyo

Showdown in Little Tokyo
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Mark L. Lester
Produced by	Martin E. Caan Mark L. Lester
Written by	Stephen Glantz Calipoe Brattlestreet
Starring	Dolph Lundgren Brandon Lee Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa Tia Carrere
Music by	David Michael Frank
Cinematography	Mark Irwin
Editing by	Robert A. Ferretti Steven Kemper
Distributed by	Warner Bros
Release date(s)	August 23, 1991
Running time	79 min.
Country	United States
Language	English Japanese
Budget	Unknown
Box office	$2,275,557

Showdown in Little Tokyo is a 1991 action film. It features Brandon Lee in his first American film role, starring alongside Dolph Lundgren. Set in Los Angeles, California, two police officers attempt to take down a new and deadly Japanese drug gang. The tone of the movie follows the traditional buddy cop formula.

Plot

Los Angeles (L.A.) cop Chris Kenner (Dolph Lundgren) is an American who was raised in Japan. He is given a new partner, Johnny Murata (Brandon Lee), an American of partial Japanese descent.

Kenner does not appreciate American culture, while Johnny does not much like Japanese culture. One thing they both enjoy are the martial arts, of which they are both experts.

The two are assigned to L.A.'s Little Tokyo, where they break up some criminal activity in a Japanese restaurant, and an arrest is made.

While Kenner and Johnny are questioning the suspect, Kenner loses his temper and rips the suspect's shirt, and the tattoos that Kenner sees on the suspect remind Kenner of when he was 9 years old, a time when he witnessed his parents being killed by a member of the Yakuza. The tattoos are the trademark of the Iron Claw Yakuza clan. However, before Kenner or Murata can get any information out of the suspect, he kills himself in the interrogation room by breaking his own neck.

On the other side of town, the leader of the Iron Claw, Yoshida (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), kills the owner of a popular downtown nightclub called the Bonsai Club by crushing the owner, Tanaka (Philip Tan), in a car compactor.

To celebrate "gaining" ownership of the Bonsai Club, Yoshida throws a party at his house with all of the club staff.

One of the girls at the party, named Angel (Renee Griffin), is revealed to have warned Tanaka about Yoshida behind his back, and this infuriates Yoshida. Yoshida questions Angel about her loyalty, and she attempts to appease Yoshida by offering her body to him. Yoshida then drugs Angel and strips off her clothes, and then fondles her from behind before beheading her.

When the coroner runs an analysis on Angel's body, it is revealed that she had a large amount of methamphetamines in her system (induced by Yoshida) which would have led to her death anyway. This discovery of drugs, together with the suspect having Yakuza tattoos, cause Kenner and Johnny to go to the Bonsai Club in search of information. There they meet lounge singer Minako Okeya (Tia Carrere), who was a good friend of Angel's. Before they can get any useful information out of her, they are ambushed and taken to see the nightclub's owner—and Kenner recognizes the owner Yoshida as the man who killed his parents. Yoshida is now a drug manufacturer using a local brewery as his distribution center. He uses smaller gangs such as the Hells Angels, Crips and Sureños to peddle the drugs for him, in return for a percentage of the profit.

Kenner and Johnny escape from the nightclub. Later that night, Yoshida rapes and kidnaps Minako and vows to kill Kenner. Kenner and Johnny set out for Yoshida's heavily guarded home, where they rescue Minako.

His pride wounded, Yoshida sends his men out to get Minako back. He has Kenner and Johnny captured and tortured, but Kenner and Johnny manage to escape, and they take on Yoshida and his men in a battle to the death.

Cast

• Dolph Lundgren ... Sgt. Chris Kenner
• Brandon Lee ... Det. Johnny Murata
• Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa ... Funekei Yoshida
• Tia Carrere ... Minako Okeya
• Toshirô Obata ... Sato (also as Toshishiro Obata)
• Philip Tan ... Tanaka
• Rodney Kageyama ... Eddie
• Ernie Lively ... Detective Nelson
• James Taenaka ... Hardboy
• Renee Griffin ... Angel
• Reid Asato ... Muto
• Takayo Fischer ... Mama Yamaguchi
• Simon Rhee ... Ito
• Vernee Watson-Johnson ... Nonnie Russell - Coroner
• Lenny Imamura ... Kickboxer #1
• Roger Yuan ... Kickboxer #2

Reception

The movie faced largely negative reviews from critics. Vincent Canby of the New York Times described it as "violent, but spiritless."

Box office

Warner Bros. were not too happy about the film and re-edited it, only to give it a limited theatrical run in the United States, Mexico, Italy, Israel and Hungary. It is estimated that the film was shown in only 140 theathers in the United States alone. Except for these markets, the film was released direct-to-video elsewhere in 1992.

In the US opening weekend, the film grossed $455,192 from 140 theaters which was an average of $3,251 per theater. This accounted for 20% of the film's total gross.

It ranked #9 in Hungary's Top 10 of 1992 Overall Box Office Grosses (according to the 1994 Variety International Film Guide).

Cuts

An older version of the script (104 pages) had a slightly different outline and had a more serious tone to it, less tongue in cheek.

The shooting script was 95 pages and includes a longer opening scene that was filmed featuring Kenner's former Japanese partner Eddie Yosuto. There was also a chase scene after the Japanese bath scene where Dolph and Brandon go after the fleeing yakuza, it ended up in an action scene set in a mall.

In the US, around 13 seconds were cut in order to avoid an NC-17, namely: -An extra topless shot during the pool party. -Some of Yoshida caressing Angel before chopping off her head was cut. Her initial decapitation lost an extra shot, reducing it from two to one. Later, when her severed head is shown, the head is shown once due to an extra shot being cut. -When Kenner stabs a guy underwater, a brief closeup of him stabbing him in the gut and twisting the knife around was edited out. -In the version screened for test audiences, Minako's rape was longer and more brutal.

Home media

After Brandon Lee's untimely death, movies such as Showdown in Little Tokyo saw a surge in video sales.

Gaffs

An obvious dummy can be clearly seen during the car crushing scene once the crusher starts moving.

External links

• Showdown in Little Tokyo at the Internet Movie Database
• Showdown in Little Tokyo at Box Office Mojo
• Dolph - the ultimate guide