TNT Jackson (1975)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

After a young black man is killed in a drug transaction in Hong Kong a young black woman named "TNT Jackson" (Jeannie Bell) arrives at the airport and asks the taxi driver to take her to the "Yellow District" of the city. The taxi driver refuses because he believes it is too dangerous. So she then asks to be taken as close to that area as possible and decides to walk the rest of the way. In no time she is attacked by several thugs but manages to fight them off with her skill at martial arts. Eventually she arrives at her destination and meets a man named "Joe" (Chiquito) who takes her under his wing and gives her guidance and information that she needs in order to survive in the strange world she has just entered. Now, rather than divulge too much of this movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this is both a "blaxploitation" film and a "martial arts" film rolled into one. Unfortunately, it doesn't honestly rank up there in either category because of the less-than-stellar acting and the rather low-grade fight scenes. Still, Pat Anderson (as "Elaine"), Imelda Ilanan (as "Joe's Assistant") and the aforementioned Jeannie Bell were all somewhat attractive and I suppose that should count for something. But even so the movie still seemed kind of cheap and shoddy. Below average.

From Roger Corman's New World Pictures, the script was co-written by actor Dick Miller (a frequent player in Corman's films). Director Santiago worked (uncredited) on many Corman flicks, three of which starred Pam Grier. Shapely Jeanne Bell (a former "Playboy" Playmate) is just one of many Grier lookalikes Santiago would put in his later films. This is an ultra-cheap chop-socky martial arts flick with a slight twist. In what could be called "Foxy Brown in Hong Kong", the casting of two black actors, Bell and Stan Shaw, give it the appearance of a Blaxpoitation film. But the two genres never blend. The result is an awkward, implausible fish-out-of-water feeling.The derivative revenge plot unfolds with Diana "TNT" Jackson, a foxy, karate-kicking babe, roaming the mean streets of Hong Kong after her brother is killed in a drug deal. And before you know it, everybody is Kung Fu fighting -- but these cats are not "fast as lightning". In fact, this has some of the slowest and least convincing fight scenes ever filmed. It looks more like rehearsal footage. Jackson is supposedly so skilled that she routinely pummels half a dozen Chinese thugs at a time. Plus, her fighting style also includes frequent acrobatic back- flips that just look silly.Posing as a bad-ass looking for action, she infiltrates a powerful heroin smuggling ring with absurd ease. This is incongruously led by two Americans -- Sid (Ken Metcalf), a dapper white dude who looks and behaves more like a college professor, and his black henchman Charlie (Shaw). Jackson seduces Charlie, and some dated jive-talk dialog ensues -- along with several shoot-outs, fights, and a totally predictable ending.Watching Bell's flat, featureless performance, one appreciates Pam Grier all the more. Grier generated a charisma and sex appeal that jumped off the screen, even when the scripts were terrible (and they usually were). Although Bell is lovely to look at, especially in her two obligatory nude scenes, her personality and acting skills are as bland as steamed rice.Although this movie is consistently awful with nothing to recommend it, there is one scene that is hard to forget (though poorly filmed and executed). In a dark bedroom, Jackson, nude except for a pair of black bikini briefs, kicks the crap out of a gang of goons who have abducted her. An almost iconic scene. Don't be surprised if Tarantino does an homage to it some day.

As another piece of fine programming recently featured on the newly created "Bounce Channel," a TV network devoted to the exclusive showcasing of African-American programs, many of which, unfortunately, are B-films, former black Playboy model Jeannie Bell stars in this movie as a kung fu gal who--in Pam Grier, super girl fashion--is out for vengeance against the bad guys in Asia who killed her brother.All of the typical elements of sub par B-movie/Blaxpliotation filming are at work here--wooden acting performances, cheap dialogue, vague movie direction, and a confusing story line, all topped off by some of the cheesiest and most bogus kung fu "fight" sequences ever filmed for the big screen.Perhaps the only good thing about this movie is that it makes for ideal fodder for the guy and his two robotic buddies over at "Mystery Science Theater 3000" to tear up.

Now any Blaxploiation fan will recognise the ingredients: big Afros, topless babes, surreally bad fashions and some 'jive' talk. In this case add in a lead who can't act, a plot that makes little sense, editing by someone with no hands who has been blindfolded and the most god-awful fight scenes and you have 'TNT Jackson'. Not quite bad enough to be good, but not good enough to be bad, this is a wonderful mess from start to finish. I especially loved the endless continuity errors and the lead's white stunt double.This is so '70s bad Far Eastern martial arts meets black power that it hurts, but boy it hurts so good! I am ashamed to admit that I almost enjoyed it.