Firecracker (1981)

Sick Product of a Sick System

Absolutely Fantastic

Absolutely brilliant

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Susanne Carter (Kesner) is a beautiful female Martial Arts instructor (we're informed multiple times that she's a sixth-degree black belt) who travels alone to the Philippines in search of her missing sister. While on her quest, she runs afoul of a man named Chuck (Hinton) who not only fights in Karate tournaments himself, but is also involved in a variety of illegal doings with a man named Grip (Diaz). While Susanne has to navigate this treacherous world, she also finds time to enhance her Martial Arts studies, learning the Philippine art of stick fighting, known as Arnis - they even made a whole movie about it called Sticks of Death (1986). Will Susanne's beauty and brawn combination lead her to find her sister and win the day? Find out today! Jillian Kesner, of Operation Cobra (1997) fame was an ideal choice for the heroine of Firecracker: she's attractive, athletic, and was not only game for the many fight scenes, but also the Cirio standby of the nearly-nude girl fighting multiple attackers. It's one of the standout scenes in the movie, as it would be again in the future for Silk 2 (1989) and Angelfist (1993). Firecracker is classic Cirio. It has a thin plot about a woman trying to find her missing sister, there are plenty of shots of the beautiful Philippine countryside and other local cultural things, plenty of fight scenes, and a lot of 70's.early 80's fashions on display. Plus at an audience-considerate 77 minutes, it never overstays its welcome.Darby Hinton, who plays Chuck (did they try to get Chuck Norris for this role, fail to do so, then hope nobody would notice?) steals the (fashion) show with his multiple stylish outfits, not to mention his resemblance to basketball great Larry Bird. But it was a different time - a time when audiences would dress up nicely and go to a supper club to watch Martial Arts displays while they eat dinner by candlelight. A time when seemingly-random barfights could break out at a moment's notice, a time when Jillian Kesner could step in and save us all with her newly-acquired Arnis skills. Has the world really gotten better since then? Clearly not.With contributions by Philippine film legends Vic Diaz and Joe Mari Avellana, and a very cool main musical theme by Nonong Buencamino, Firecracker is an enjoyable gem that mixes two hot genres of the day: Martial Arts and exploitation. Now that it's on DVD with the three-movie "Lethal Ladies" collection, there's really no excuse not to check it out.

Ever wanted a lobotomy but are either afraid of surgery or you just haven't been able to prove your psychiatrist that you need one? Well, no problem, just try to find this "Firecracker" or "Naked Fist" on video (or DVD if someone's been crazy enough to release one).I love martial arts films, really do. Chackie Chan and Bruce Lee are quite common in my DVD collection and I always try to look for other genre classics. Having such a cult status, "Naked Fist" got me excited, even though the bare title made me worry - Naked Fist sounded awful lot like a porn film. And when the film started, I was STILL afraid it was a porn film. The looks, the acting skills; Pure exploitation quality. And actually the script is VERY close to porn films, too; Actors drop a few lines of dialog, then comes the action sequence. After that they switch the scene, drop a few lines of dialog and start another action sequence. This pattern is repeated all the way to the end. That wouldn't be bad for cult film, though, if the plot was any good or had any reasonable sense. Poor cutting makes things worse, as I honestly had no darn clue what the heck they were fighting for this time. Just insane hustle. The choreography wasn't near great, either.First I feared it was a porn film. After an hour of it I started to hope it WAS a porn film.After all this, you possibly wonder why I gave it TWO points. The only thing I enjoyed was Nonong Buencamino's insane retro-trip soundtrack; The score was just like from Commodore 64 era video game classics, like "International Karate +". Sadly the score gets constantly overrun by horrible punch noises - or noise, they seem to use same sample for every 200+ punches in the flick.But hey; If you STILL want a lobotomy, have go!

Yup, star Jillian Kesner does manage to combine a karate fight scene with a slow strip, and it actually is a bit sexy. She's not the most lovely woman who ever took her clothes off in a movie, but I thought she was attractive and there's something appealing to a certain sort of adolescent sexual mind (like mind) in the sequence. She gets her clothes ripped off, a bit at a time, while she's fighting for her life. It adds vulnerability to her physical allure, and that worked for me. Of course, that's because it's a movie, and not reality. Seeing women attacked for real is nothing I hope for. Hell, most of what happens in movies is nothing I hope for.There are other scenes in this movie, but I don't remember any of them from the one time I saw it, over 20 years ago. They're probably awful. But, who cares? There are many films that are worth seeing for one scene and, if you share my fondness for the sort of thing that makes teenaged boys snicker and rewind their VCRs, over and over, you'll think this is one of them.

I remember seeing this film when I was young. It was being aired on cable, when it first came out. This was great because it was the un-cut version. I somehow was able to get a copy of this when it was aired on late night TV some years ago. I still have the copy with commercials (edited for television). I would like to get the full version. This film had some unforgettable scenes. I have to say that it turned me on to women in the martial arts.