Personal blog - and temporary home page until new website is finished - of writer, editor and graphic artist Christopher Mills


Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Directed by Dolph

It's funny, but I never really thought of myself as much of a fan of  Swedish action star Dolph Lundgren  until just recently. Sure, I respected the guy - it's difficult not to respect a 6'5' authentic genius (reported IQ of 160) with a master's degree in chemical engineering and a 3rd-degree black belt in karate - and I certainly enjoyed his screen work in the early 90s, like Red Scorpion, I Come In Peace (a/k/a Dark Angel), Showdown In Little Tokyo, and Universal Soldier, but I didn't keep up with his filmography past '93/'94. In fact, I only rediscovered Dolph when I was sent some of his later movies for review at my DVD Late Show site. It was then that I noticed that his DTV movies were generally more entertaining than those starring most of his contemporaries (like Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal, for instance.).

Part of the reason for that, I think, is that starting around 2004, Dolph started personally directing some of his direct-to-video flicks, starting with The Defender. Now, I haven't seen all of his self-directed efforts, but I did enjoy The Killing Machine (a/k/a Icarus), Missionary Man, and, in particular, Command Performance.

I'm about to go sit down and watch his second film as director, The Russian Specialist, a/k/a The Mechanik. I've read some favorable reviews of the flick, and found a very inexpensive copy of the DVD for sale online (less than $5, including S&H). It sounds like a fun revenge flick, and I'm looking forward to it....

2 comments:

Weird WWII said...

Its not bad but not his best stuff. Missionary Man was fun but Dolf's best in my opinion is Rocky IV, I Come in Peace, Missionary Man, Showdown in China Town and the most excellent and under rated Punisher.

Gotta love the Dolf,
Brian

PS
But this is pretty close to his best,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHtatY7bOUY

Christopher Mills said...

Actually, I enjoyed The Russian Specialist/The Mechanik a great deal. The story was simple, sure, but it was well-told. For a low-budget, DTV action flick, I thought it was pretty good.

I still think Command Performance is his best self-directed film, though...