CAN WE TALK ABOUT DTV MARTIAL ARTS MOVIES?

[This post originally appeared in Froth Episode 3 which you should definitely sign up for for hot meme stock tips (*no stock tips)]

Remember video shops?

Sure, as an opening gambit this feels risky and potentially alienating for the sweet tweener demographic that I'm so openly courting with my lack of Tik Tok account and nu-metal fandom. But to heck (for the kids) with it.

When I was young, me and my Dad used to rent videos (they're like heavy MKVs) from the local garage. I know right, so much to digest already. But thanks to his willingness to indulge my t(w)eenage desire to stuff my eyes with explosions, weapons, fisticuffs and screeching tyres, I watched a LOT of action movies.

As I got older and more able to forage for my own (or Jean Claude Van Damme's) kicks, so my hunger grew. Once I'd devoured all of the A-List titles (and recovered from the trauma of watching Robocop too young), then what? Eventually this path would lead to Hong Kong, but for now... what a time it was for American Direct To Video (DTV) movies. Studios were still putting semi-decent budgets into stuff starring Seagal, Lundgren et al while at the same time guys like Albert Pyun were smashing out genre classics like Nemesis starring unknown french kickboxers.

The beauty of DTV is that budget constraints produce a narrow focus. They're called 'genre flicks' because you know exactly what you're getting. It's like that diagram of the 3 things you need for a fire to survive. Except it's the opposite: so you can't have good actors, a solid script *and* great action. You get 1 or 2 if you're lucky and while I'm not sure that analogy is watertight, it felt great.

If you were watching John Wick 3 last year and wondering who the bad guy was - it's Mark Dacascos, a legend from back in the day and star of arguably one of the greatest DTV movies of all time, Drive.

In recent years there's been something of a renaissance of DTV movies (not counting this year's necessity - thank God for Tenet). I guess they're DTVOD now technically but that's one mouthful too many of acronym.

(Nerdy grammar NB: not actually an acronym]

Aside from the fact the Seagal is somehow still pumping out movies where it looks like he works for (maximum) a week and is then doubled for the rest of the shoot including most fighting, some talking and honestly just anything not involving his face, there's still a whole slew of low budget action movies drip drip dripping their way into your screen-of-choice. (I'm a TV-in-the-lounge guy. Old school. Classic. PROPER).

Leading the charge of the DTV new school is British martial arts star Scott Adkins, who somehow manages to pump out between 3 and 10 movies in any given year, all of completely varying levels of quality such that his appearance is really no guarantee of anything aside from someone getting kicked in the head in quite a cool way.

Over the years he has collaborated regularly with a couple of directors, most notably Isaac 'Swoosh' Florentine (deep US Seals 2 cut there) and Jesse V Johnson, the former of whom he produced the classic Undisputed Series with (where his bad guy actually becomes the star of the latter 2 movies), a couple of fun Ninja movies and a bunch of hit & miss random stuff (I oddly enjoyed 'Close Range' which I picked up on DVD from Poundland aka Video Shop 2018).

With JVJ he's knocked out some interesting stuff like The Debt Collector, Triple Threat and Avengement which all certainly have their moments, while at the same time never Quite Achieving Greatness. Maybe I'm asking too much of the fire diagram?

Another stalwart of the scene, Michael Jai White (the good guy in Undisputed 2!) popped up just recently in my 'feed' (is that where you discover movies?) in a reboot/remake of a JCVD movie, 'Welcome To Sudden Death'. I could not recommend watching it less, despite how enthralling the below still looks. But! His back catalogue does hold plenty of solid moments if you're willing to dig.

Of course, now that we don't have to post bootleg video tapes around the country (IT WAS A DIFFERENT TIME), the internet has opened up a world (LITERALLY) of cinematic treats. All but the biggest Asian martial arts movies go DTV internationally which raises the bar tenfold for those trying to compete in Hollywood where budgets and adherence to health & safety protocols might curtail some things...

The people making DTV martial arts movies today are the ones who, like me, grew up idolising Hong Kong action cinema and are striving ever harder to emulate that level of technical prowess and kineticism, just with actors who didn't spend their formative years being snapped in half at the Peking Opera School.

Netflix has provided the Video Shop Shelf We Always Wanted in our house and its algorithm knows whether you prefer Completely Forgettable Rom-Coms With A Strong Female Lead And A Terminal Illness Subplot or By The Numbers Revenge Thrillers Filmed in Romania Which Feature One Quite Good Fight Scene Sixty Percent Through It's Mercifully Short Runtime. Or, y'know, if you like both. But that's for another Froth.

I feel like I should sum up this celebration(?) of DTV martial arts movies by shouting out some of the good stuff I've consumed during the Deep Pan Demi Moore (I warned you about these new names) or The Bit Before That...

The standout DTNetflix action movie of this year for me is probably Extraction, which while not troubled by lack of budget or A-list star, still comes from a place of action movie fandom and old-school physical stuntwork that I greatly admire.

It felt, and I mean this in the best possible way, that is should come in a big-box VHS case. Or at least a pirate DVD cover.

Elsewhere, I enjoyed the chops on little British indie actioner Nightshooters (forage for it online) and Lost Bullet on Netflix was pretty decent. If you watch one Scott Adkins movie (and you should) then of his recent fare it's probably Avengement or Triple Threat (also featuring Michael Jai White) that are worth a look (both on Netflix, both flawed but with some good fisticuffs). And of course Undisputed 2 if you want to go deep.

I'm struggling to think of an Asian action movie that has really impressed me this year (which is concerning on both cinematic and ageing memory fronts) but there have been some scrappy up-and-comers in recent, less horribili anni, that make their stars and directors Ones To Watch - I'd put Jailbreak and Buy/Bustinto that category for sure.

So what I think we can discern from this surface-skimming scattershot shitshow is that much like music, our tastes in movies get locked in during our teenage years and may mature or refine but largely remain the same. Which seems like a fairly roundabout way of saying I Heart Linkin Park.