{"id":49423,"date":"2025-08-31T00:01:35","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T04:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=49423"},"modified":"2025-08-28T01:29:05","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T05:29:05","slug":"showdown-in-little-tokyo-1991-bigbad-film-fest-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/31\/showdown-in-little-tokyo-1991-bigbad-film-fest-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991) [BigBad\u00a0Film Fest 2025]\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Two\u00a0very different\u00a0cops\u00a0are partnered up in Los Angeles\u2019 Little Tokyo where a Yakuza is making life difficult for the residents.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Written by Stephen Glantz and Caliope\u00a0Brattlestreet, and directed by Mark L. Lester, Showdown in Little Tokyo is an action comedy that is very much of its era. It looks, sounds, and\u00a0smells like a late 1980s\/early 1990s action film with a sense of humor that would make many\u00a0recoil\u00a0these days. Heck, there were meetings about some of the lines, one\u00a0in particular about\u00a0Lundgren being quite impressive to Lee. The film here is predictable but it works, the writing is simple but fun with a few issues here and there (main pet peeve with many films with this story element, a woman who has been raped will\u00a0likely not\u00a0be in a romantic mood within less than a few days).\u00a0The 80s are heavily\u00a0influencial\u00a0here and some of the issues from those films followed into the early 90s, but overall, the story works, the humor works for some, and the insanty level is brought to 11 around the end of the film. Between the writing and the direction, Showdown in Little Tokyo is a fascinating and entertaining artifact of its time.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The cast here is led by Dolph Lundgren, who is in top shape and fighting form, and a relative newbie at the time, a pre-Rapid Fire, pre-The Crow Brandon Lee. The two of them are put together as enemies in the opening until\u00a0they\u00a0realise\u00a0they have been paired up by their bosses because they are both insufferable. This works great at creating an odd\u00a0buddy\u00a0cop\u00a0film where these two fight each other, argue, become friends, and end up fighting the enemy together. The roles for the\u00a0both of them\u00a0have\u00a0their issues, but they each make the most of their respective characters and show their fighting skills that look quite well-matched. Joining them as the lead bad guy, a Yakuza named Yoshida,\u00a0is Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa who gives\u00a0then a run for their money while giving an\u00a0on-point\u00a0performance as a bit of a caricature of a character, one who is over the top in just the right way. His performance here is fun, a bit menacing, and\u00a0just right. On the romantic interest side, we get\u00a0Tia Carrere as Minako, the woman our leads save and who can single handedly take down Yoshida if she can make it long enough to be deposed. Carrere is lovely and lively as usual, not afraid to join both Lundgren and Lee in their shenanigans once they save her life. Stealing a few scenes is\u00a0Gerald Okamura, a professional cinema henchman who does great as the seriously evil\u00a0Hagata, the Torturer.\u00a0This cast here is fantastic and\u00a0just right\u00a0for the film, even when things go a bit odd or a bit off, making this film one remarkable and memorable one.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The humor, the sushi on the raw, the one-liners, and all of the film are pretty much just springboards for\u00a0the humor and\u00a0fighting skills of both Lundgren and Lee, giving them plenty fights in different environments, showing viewers that a simple story, a few skilled fighters, and a director who knows how to make this fun can become a really fun film filled with cheesy action goodness. That last fight? Epic!<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two\u00a0very different\u00a0cops\u00a0are partnered up in Los Angeles\u2019 Little Tokyo where a Yakuza is making life difficult for the residents.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1284],"tags":[58,219],"class_list":["post-49423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-festivalsevents","tag-action","tag-comedy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49423"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49424,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49423\/revisions\/49424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}