Steele Justice (1987)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

best movie i've ever seen.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Steele Justice (1987) is an underrated solid action flick from the 80's it is a cheap action film but it is a really good rated R action film from the 80's from Martin Kove this is his best role. Written and directed by Robert Boris. What can I say about this film? I like this film not love but like for a fun popcorn cheese action movie. I loved Martin Kove in The Karate Kid Trilogy as Sensei John Kreese he was really a bad guy and he become really famous by his role. A lot of people on the street yelled at Martin saying he hurt Ralph and they hated him, he played the bad guy Vietnam Vet and a karate "bad" guy instructor. A year later after the release of the first film The Karate Kid (1984) he went to play another Vietnam Vet character but this time Ericson in the action war flick Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) another bad guy who is a Vietnam Vet. I wish his character would had more to do. But this time he plays another Vietnam Vet this time he is "John Steele" wow what a cool character. An ex cop and a Vietnam Vet. Martin Kove plays this time a good guy in a cheap movie we can see he is a nice person not an evil guy like he got the roles on a screen. Martin does a fine solid job playing his character and I like this movie it is my favorite Martin Kove film.Plot: Steele is ex-cop and Vietnam vet who is determined to bring down Kwan, former South Vietnamese general and now rich and powerful drug lord.This is an action revenge film of the 80's and it is one-man army action hero type. We see like 1975 a mission that John Steele (Martin Kove) and his partner Lee Van Minh (Robert Kim) goes on a secret mission in the Vietnam only that they are set up by the nemesis Gen. Bon Soong Kwan (Soon-Tek Oh) who try's to kill them but John saves Lee and he wounds Kwan with a knife and leave's him for dead but Kwan survives. 12 years later Lee is now a detective by LAPD on a chase for a cocaine but he was set up Kwan is now the leader of Vietnamese mafia and he deals drugs and prostitution. John is now an ex washed up cop who can't keep a solid job and he is divorced now from his ex wife Tracy (Sela Ward) he get's arrested but Lee bails him out. Kwan sends assassins on Lee and his family to send a message but to everyone in Vietnamese neighborhood, they kill everyone but they miss John and Cami (Jan Gan Boyd), Lee's only daughter now Steele must protect Cami and get's his own brand of justice against Kwan. We have a great action scenes, practical blood squibs, there a few shootouts, Steele were Milk snake around his neck and he avenges his best friend's death in which he served in Vietnam together. Steele kicks ass two assassins in the prison then he escapes jail and he kills a lot of bad guys. He save's Cami and Tracey and other innocent life by killing Vietnamese assassins who start shooting at the music video spot they were filming. It is a rated R film and it is one man one-man army action hero type. One man against an army of Vietnamese mafia. For me it is a good cheese action movie not a boring or crap movie like some reviewers are claiming it is a fun popcorn film. I first saw this movie on VHS when I was 13. years old, years later I watch it on TV. I downloaded form the net and I watch it again and I had fun watching it. Here we have actors Soon-Tek Oh from Missing in Action 2: The Beginning (1985) who plays another Vietnamese soldier bad guy. In Missing in Action 2: The Beginning (1985) he played Colonel Yin enemy to Chuck Norris this time he plays a Vietnamese General Kwan another evil bad guy. We have Ronny Cox from Beverly Hills Cop 1 & 2, Robocop, Total Recall who plays another good guy and again a cop Bennett another good guy. We have Sela Ward from CSI: NY, we also have Sarah Douglas from Superman 1,2 and Al Leong from Die Hard. This a prototypical good action film but because it is cheap and cheese it get's a bad rap. My favorite scene is the end in which Steele and Kwan fight's with sword in a duel and we see a good samurai fights in which Steele uses two swords while Kwan uses one samurai sword. Practical real samurai demonstration. I like action films like are: Rambo films, Demolition Man, Cobra, Tango & Cash, Cliffhanger, Assassins, Hard Target, Hard Boiled, Broken Arrow, The Killer, The Last Boy Scout, Die Hard franchise, Commando, 48 Hrs., Red Heat, Missing In Action 1,2, Steel Dawn, Road House, Black Dog, John Wick, Speed, The Matrix Trilogy flicks, Terminator 1,2 & 3, Predator 1,2, RoboCop 1,2, Beverly Hills Cop 1,2, Death Wish 3, Universal Soldier, Cyborg and many more action movies. I really love the 80's the rating I am giving to this movie is a 6 a good solid movie. I can't give it more higher and I can't also an negative score F. Steele Justice is a 1987 film written and directed by Robert Boris.6/10 Grade: C Studio: Atlantic Entertainment Group Starring: Martin Kove, Sela Ward, Soon-Tek Oh, Robert Kim, Ronny Cox, Bernie Casey, Jan Gan Boyd, Peter Kwong Director: Robert Boris Producers: Thomas Coleman, Michael Rosenblatt, John Strong Screenplay: Robert Boris Rated: R Running Time: 1 Hr. 36 Mins. Budget: $1.327.740

This straight to drive in action pic, is just your typic action fare, with some well staged action set pieces, no more. What's fascinatingly strange here, it's it's lead, Kove, who I've never seen, take the lead before, while also playing a good guy. I'll be honest, I've never considered this guy to be much of an actor, my friend, even stating, during the 80's, he's a no talent, but I've seen him in a lot of stuff. I am glad to see him in this, and really, he doesn't do half a bad job (but don't push it) as a Vietnam vet turned cop, out to bust an Asian bad arse, (one of his team you'll recognize straight out of the first Die Hard) who has slain the closest thing to family, though his late vet/cop buddy was crooked. The surviving daughter, a little Asian girl, who overacts, especially one bit of dialogue, robot sounding, when she and Uncle John are on a stolen boat, about to flee from authorities, is taken under his wing. What Steele Justice suffers from, is tired formula, and you'll feel tired and exhausted by this at the end, when he's claimed victory, killing off the bad dudes, two who went on to star in certain B grade, Wings Hauser fare. There are some dumb moments in this slightly stupid actioner. Ronny Cox, as the police commissioner is so actor stereotyped, when you look at his surrounding roles of this mid 80's era. Shannon Tweed provides nice scenery and a sexual stimulant to the film as Soon Teck Oh's business partner, and she looks so fine in a bikini. Soon Teck Oh, in a kimono, not. A weird partnership. Sela Ward as John's ex, looks undernourished. The eye nabbing performance is that of Joseph Campanella as Steele's old vet buddy, now an untrusting one. He makes his scenes, worthwhile, while another highlight of the average 80's action, is it's rockin' finale soundtrack. Out of interest this was on at the drive in, with another film of even appeal, Slate, Wyn And Me.

A movie starring Martin Kove, aka the evil Sensei from the Karate Kid movies, vrs. an Asian crime syndicate ran by Soon-Tek Oh, one of those familiar Hollywood Asians from the eighties who I remember as the head baddie from Missing in Action 2? Sounds like it should be can't miss eighties cheese but unfortunately it is no Action Jackson. It is mostly dull by the numbers cop movie with a Vietnam back-story, which seemed to be in vogue at the time for cop movies ala Lethal Weapon. Ex Viet Nam vet and ex cop John Steele (Don't you love silly macho cop names?) takes on a drug syndicate, lead by the traitorous south Vietnamese general who almost killed him in the war, after they kill his old partner and war buddy and his family, except for his teenage daughter who Steele has to protect. There is not enough action, cheesy or otherwise, to keep things interesting. The story and a lot of individual scenes develop in such an awkward fashion at times that it seems that the version I saw may have been an edited one, although it is possibly just bad storytelling. For example a character, a friend of Steele, we have barely seen for most of the movie is revealed to be in cahoots with the evil syndicate prompting not a reaction of surprise from the audience but a reaction of puzzlement as to who this guy actually is. Supporting the editing apologist theory is a least one picture on the back of the video case of a scene which doesn't occur in the version of the movie I saw. Supporting the bad writing theory is pretty much the rest of the movie.Most ludicrous is the syndicate's motivation in trying to track down and kill the daughter of the cop and war buddy of Steele, who was murdered early in the movie. They have absolutely nothing to gain by killing her, other than to possibly make themselves more intimidating in the eyes of the community they were intimidating in originally murdering her family i.e. saying nobody gets away from us! It really seems a bit redundant to do so seeing as they have already massacred the rest of the family, including her mother and aged grandmother and everybody is already scared of them. Maybe it is meant to be indicative of a stereotypically strong Asian work ethic or maybe it is just an obvious and lazy plot device to keep things moving beyond Steele's revenge motivation. The syndicate does go to great lengths to kill this one completely unthreatening teenage girl. As with other dumb cop movies of this era such as Cobra the baddies end up committing multiple murders and other crimes in broad daylight with impunity in front of many, many witnesses just to get to one person. The most notable scene like this is one of the most memorable and goofy in the movie, when a really bad music clip/fashion show/montage, that is bizarrely inserted into the middle of the movie, is interrupted by the gun wielding baddies who end up blowing away half of the backup dancers. They were already eighties fashion victims, why not become eighties crime victims? There are a few memorable bits and pieces in Steele justice. The video clip massacre is one. Another is John Steele's strange proclivity for wandering around with his pet snake, most prominently in the Viet Nam prologue where, yes, he is seen sneaking commando style into an enemy based with a brightly coloured snake hanging from his neck. Strangely enough he seems to have the exact same snake, which is deadly poisonous and remarkably domesticated, as a pet 12 years later. This leads to another the movies few memorable moments, Steele's dispatching of one of the main villains in a manner that seems a precursor to the death of Bill in Kill Bill- remember the snake is called 3-step. Another memorable moment from the Nam intro is the part in which Steele appears to fire a knife from his gun. Later in the movie Steele gets his own Rocky style montage in which we get to see him train before his onslaught against the bad guys complete with him running on the beach, working out etc. complete with really bad eighties pop music. For some reason it is intercut with shots of his love interest and the teenage daughter sitting around in a kitchen not really doing anything. It is apparent here more than any other time in the movie how odd a choice Kove is to be a leading man with his thuggish looks and creepy smile. On the other side of the coin Soon-Tek Oh as the villainous general Kwan looks rather unthreatening, if not downright cuddly at times. Especially in the scenes where is he is wearing a Muumuu. Nobody wearing a Muumuu is threatening, especially not the one he is wearing, which is effeminate even by Muumuu standards. There is an impressive B-movie cast including- Sela Ward, who played the Ex, one way or another of Dr. Richard Kimble and Dr. Gregory House as Steele's love interest and predictably brittle ex. Ronny Cox, from a lot of things, perhaps most notably as villains in no less than two Paul Verhoeven sci-fi action flicks and as the guy who doesn't come back from the trip down the river in Deliverance, as the chief of police who predictably has a chip on his shoulder about Steele's loose cannon behaviour. Al Leong, Asian Hench De Rigueur who you may have seen in movies such as Die Hard and Action Jackson, as an Asian Henchmen who predictably tries to kill Steele.In summation, despite a few amusing moments it's boring.

Martin Kove stars as John Steele an ex-vietnam vet who becomes a one man army when his partner (and fellow vietnam vet friend) is killed by an enemy of his in Vietnam. Silly actioner which has a huge bodycount, will no doubt satisfy those craving action, but will fail to keep anyone else from squirming, or laughing for that matter (Martin Kove's wound repair scene must be seen to be believed). Soon Tech Oh does make a good villian though.