Also released as NAKED FIST The Drinking Game:
- Drink every time there's a fight (twice if it's topless)
- For your safety, there are no other rules.
The Movie:
Few people did as much to popularize the Blaxploitation, Vietnam War and Femme Fatale genres as a little known but extremely prolific Filipino director named Cirio Santiago. He directed TNT JACKSON--one of the most popular films we've ever shown at DST3K--and he also directed its 80s soul sister: FIRECRACKER. We're doubly excited about this screening, though, because up until know we've been watching a dark, soupy version transferred from VHS, and now we've got a copy of the crystal-clear remastering made from a direct scan of the negative!
In many ways, Santiago was just recycling TNT JACKSON when he made FIRECRACKER: both were about a woman going to South East Asia to find a missing sibling, both involve the female lead meeting and having sex with a martial arts expert connected to organized crime (and later killing him), and both feature topless fight scenes. Since this is the 80s, though, Santiago traded afros for sweet 'staches, bell bottoms for track suits and disco for synthesizers. He also swapped Jeanie Bell for Jillian Kesner, and the movie is the better for it. Although Bell--a Playboy model--looked gorgeous throughout TNT JACKSON, she was terrible in the fight scenes and all her stunts were noticeably performed by a man. Kesner is just as terrible an actress as Bell, but she was a bona fide karate champion and when she kicks the shit out of the bad guys every other scene, she at least does it with real skill.
Santiago also gets credit for creativity: although FIRECRACKER is formulaic to a fault and terrible in almost every area save cinematography, he at least found ways to make the formula more interesting. For example, we don't just get a fight scene between Kesner and some hit men; we where Kenser has her clothes progressively torn off until she's fighting in only a pair of panties. We don't just get a sex scene between Kesner and the main bad guy; we get a sex scene where foreplay is accomplished by the two cutting each other's clothes off with knives. And at the end, Kesner doesn't just kill the bad guy; she stabs his eyes out with bamboo poles. Yeah, it's THAT kind of movie.
So come make fun of it this Thursday! It's going to be a (ahem) blast!