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Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
Released on: November 29th, 2016.
Director: Paul Kyriazi
Cast: Ronald L. Marchini, Michael Chong, Joshua Johnson, Mari Honjo, Ron Ackerman
Year: 1976
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The Movie:
Produced by the mighty west coast exploitation machine that was Crown International and directed by Paul Kyriazi, 1976's Death Machines starts off with some serious hand to hand combat that takes place in an ornate garden or park of some sort. A black guy fights another black guy. A white guy fights another white guy. An Asian guy fights another Asian guy. There can be only one victor from each of the fights. These winning combatants (Karate action superstar Ron Marchini, Michael Chong and Joshua Johnson) are soon put under the employ of the strange Madame Lee (Mari Honjo). She runs the one and only hit squad in town. If you want someone killed, you go through her - otherwise you wind up in trouble and your assassins wind up dead.
A mobster named Gioretti (Chuck Katzakian) learns this the hard way when his gun for hire is put down. He's then invited to Lee's bizarre mansion hideout for a pow-wow where all of this is explained to him. Eager to have some of his rivals taken out, he winds up using her services to eliminate a martial arts teacher name Ho Lung (Eric Lee) who has moved in on his drug trade, and then a corrupt banker named Nathan Adams (Gene Wisenor). The sole survivor of the hit that takes out Ho Lung and all of his students is Frank (John Lowe), a fairly wimpy guy that winds up getting romantically involved with a nurse that helped him out (Mary Carole Frederickson). From there, he kinda-sorta winds up helping cops Clay Forrester (Ron Ackerman) and Jerry (Edward Blair) to put a stop to the reign of terror caused by these 'Death Machines' - but tensions rise when Lee and Gioretti don't see eye to eye on how all of this should work… and then the 'Death Machines' themselves start to do things their own way.
There are some interesting life lessons to take away from this movie. First and foremost, no matter how much love and special care may have gone into making your pasta dinner, if you find a medium sized Buddha statue hidden inside your noodles, you're fucked. Another lesson? If a plane is causing you problems, have Ron Marchini blow it up with a bazooka, because the good guys will just sort of watch you do it rather than try to stop you. If you are on a bridge fighting a guy and he's starting to win, just shoot him - you are a 'Death Machine' after all. Things like this happen a lot in this movie. Logic is thrown out the window in favor of fairly great scenes of martial arts ass kicking, sly subterfuge and colorful, quirky characters.
It's pretty great to see Eric Lee pop up here. He starred in Ninja Busters (along with a bunch of other stuff) and while he's not credited, there's a guy in the dojo seen that sure looks an awful lot like Ninja Busters (also directed by Paul Kyriazi) co-star Sid Campbell strutting around for a few seconds. Michael Chong and Joshua Johnson are fun to watch as the Asian and black 'Death Machines' respectively, but they stand in the shadow of the great Ron Marchini. He doesn't have much in the way of dialogue but he kicks a lot of people. Mari Honjo sort of steals every scene she's in, but for all the wrong reasons. She's sporting a massive wig and doesn't really seem to move her mouth when she talks. Her performance is from another planet. She is an alien being. Not sure who played the guy who serves up the aforementioned pasta, but he's awesome too. He's basically a real life version of Luigi Risotto, the Italian restaurant guy from The Simpsons.
Throw in some admittedly impressive camera work and super colorful costumes and settings and then wrap it all up with a bizarre but sort of great droney synth soundtrack, an a tacked on intro that tries to turn the movie into the sci-fi film that it clearly is not and yeah, Death Machines. This one delivers.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Death Machines was previously released on DVD before by Code Red and the title also appeared in a few multipacks. The film now arrives on Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome (this is the first in an upcoming line of Crown International titles) framed in a 2.35.1 widescreen aspect ratio in AVC encoded 1080p high definition scanned from the original 35mm negative and restored in 4k. By and large, this is a remarkably clean and very colorful image. Any print damage that does show up is pretty minor, white specks and not massive scratches or anything drastic like that. Color reproduction is excellent, which is important when you're dealing with such a garish film as this, and everything really pops nicely in this regard. Skin tones are appropriately warm and natural while detail is solid pretty much throughout. It stands to reason that this is as massive upgrade over the aforementioned DVD releases of the film. No problems with compression artifacts, edge enhancement or noise reduction and this feels like a pretty authentic representation of the movie, an appropriately film-like transfer.
The only audio option on the disc is an English language DTS-HD Mono mix, there are no alternate language options although subtitles are offered up in English. As to the quality of the mix, it's fine. It sounds like the low budget single channel track that it is but it's got clear dialogue and properly balanced levels. There is the occasional pop audible in the mix but no serious issues with any hiss or distortion.
Director Paul Kyriazi gives up the goods on a pretty interesting commentary track, moderated by Joe Rubin. Kyriazi speaks quite candidly about the history of this picture, noting how and why the different players involved in the film came on board, the locations that were used, the whole 'sci-fi' angle that was slapped onto the movie for marketing reasons and, of course, Ron Marchini (who would also star in Kyrizai's final film as a director, 1990's Omega Cop - which absolutely rules). It's a great track, loaded with info and a good sense of humor too.
There is also a great interview here with 'Asian Death Machine' Michael Chong and the second with 'Black Death Machine' who speaks about his martial arts training and getting into the film business thanks to the influence of none other than Bruce Lee. He shares a few fun stories from his work on this picture.
Outside of that we get the film's theatrical trailer, a few minutes of outtakes from the feature (all presented without sound), menus and chapter selection. As this is a combo pack release, the clear Blu-ray keepcase also contains a DVD version of the movie sourced from the same transfer and including the same supplements. The menu screen offers an 'intro' from Kyriazi but when you select it the movie starts, so it doesn't appear to actually be on the disc.
The Final Word:
Death Machines is pretty rad, and not just because it features number one Karate Superstar Ron Marchini in a good sized role. The movie cares not for logic or character development, just ass-kicking and random boob shots, but it does what it does rather well. Vinegar Syndrome's Blu-ray contains some nice extras even if it doesn't include any input from Marchini, and it looks and sounds pretty great. If the rest of the label's Crown International titles are presented with as much are as this one, fans are in for a fun ride in the coming months.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
