Furious (1984)
Visual Vengeance Collector’s Edition
directed by Tim Everitt & Tom Sartori
starring Simon Rhee, Phillip Rhee
Visual Vengeance
Some low-budget movies become unintentional comedies due to their low production value, and some low-budget movies are intentional comedies, and then there are the rare gems that are zero-budget films that set out to be funny and also bring such weird vibes that they become classics. Tim Everitt & Tom Sartori’s 1984 kung-fu fantasy, Furious, manages to send up both classic martial arts movies and made for video American schlock in a high kicking, chicken blasting, magical romp that is one of the more bizarre films of the 1980s (or any decade).
Starring brothers Simon and Phillip Rhee as Simon and Master Chen, the film centers on Simon, who is looking for revenge on the Mongol warriors who killed his sister and seeking help from his mystical master. Master Chen turns out to actually be the evil mastermind who has not only opened a portal to the astral realm which allowed Mongols to time travel to the modern day, but also, along with his wizard henchman, is turning people into chicken to serve in his chain of Chinese restaurants. Simon must face off against a deadly kung fu army, a cloned new wave band, and a wizard who shoots chickens and fireballs from his fingertips (when he isn’t doing random birthday party magic). To aid in his fight, Simon recruits his dojo of pre-teen karate students with an assist from his sister, who is trapped in the astral realm. Make sense? I certainly hope not.
Clocking in under 80 minutes, Furious is a fever dream of a film. Huge chunks of the film are dialogue free, and one of the longest exposition scenes comes from a pig with peanut butter in its mouth. Excising dialogue certainly helps to expedite a film made without permits in west Los Angeles and Will Rogers State Park, in six days, with actor hired for their martial arts skills, not their acting chops. The micro-budget filmmaking required nearly every inch of film shot to be included in the final film to make a usable running time. The unorthodox editing required to work in all the footage creates some surreal imagery, including a restaurant dinner set piece with long shots of old women eating chicken in the foreground and a magician doing magic tricks for a toddler behind them, along with a man doing a sword dance. In this tableau, our hero, Simon, hallucinates being served the heads of his best friends under a cloche. Then a fight breaks out.
The main attraction of Furious, besides the utter visual lunacy, is the fighting, which is actually good, especially for a low-budget American production. It shouldn’t be a huge surprise, since Simon and Phillip Rhee both went on to long film careers, Simon as a stunt man and coordinator in films and TV who is still working today, with recent credits in MaXXXine and American Horror Story, while Phillip starred as Tommy Lee in the Best of the Best film series. Tom Sartori & Tim Everitt didn’t become major film directors, but have both had long careers working on the technical side of film and TV, and they will always have their strange and wonderful film, Furious.
This gonzo piece of cinema hits Blu-ray in a great release from tiny boutique label Visual Vengeance. The disc is full of extras, including two audio commentaries on the film, interviews, and a primer on American low budget martial arts films, which is a treasure trove of weirdness and wonder.
