by Peter Nielsen
By now you should all know I’m a huge Chuck Norris fan and I’m not just saying that because he could, in fact, roundhouse kick my ass into the next decade. No, I am a fan and have been since I was a young teen and Michael and I started to rent his movies on VHS back in the days.
Unfortunately due to the Swedish censorship back then, most of them were heavily cut and when Forced Vengeance was released in 1984 it was basically shredded.
As far as I remember it was shortened with 5 minutes or so!! Yeah, that’s a whole lot of fighting! But, and those of you who’ve seen this movie know that, during the end credits you see a lot of the fight-scenes from it, so we were pretty much just sitting there wondering what the hell happened. Stupid move on the censor’s part, wouldn’t you agree?
We had to get a copy from Denmark, I think, to watch Forced Vengeance in its entirety and have since then seen it numerous times.
On a little side-note in regards to Mr. Norris and the local video rental store we used to frequent, I have to mention this… On the wall was an enlarged and framed photograph of the owner, a very nice guy by the way, as he was shaking hands with Chuck Norris! Yeah, that one had us in awe!
Old Army buddies shooting the breeze.
Incidentally this was the same store that I ended up working in later on in life. Sadly it isn’t here anymore, but it lasted for 20 something years, I think. I was there until around Christmas-time in 2007, when it changed owners for the last time and roughly 6 months later it was gone!
But let us not linger on such sad memories any longer, we’re here to talk about a movie, remember? So with no further ado let’s dive right into it now…
Josh Randall works as head of security and sometime debt collector at the Lucky Dragon Casino in Hong Kong. It was founded by Sam Paschal, but is now run by his son David who unfortunately isn’t doing a very good job nowadays.
His gambling losses have taken a toll on the casino’s finances and it’s close to shutting down. Sam is played by David Opatoshu (Death of a Gunfighter, Cimarron) and his son David by Frank Michael Liu who’s mostly worked in TV.
Say hello to my boot, punk!
In order to save the casino David has agreed to a meeting with the known mobster Stan Raimondi, played by Michael Cavanaugh (The Gauntlet, Any Which Way You Can). Raimondi has a business proposition for them in which the Lucky Dragon is to be merged into the Osiris Corporation for their mutual benefit.
Sam is outraged, saying he owns an honest business and wants nothing to do with criminals or their bullshit propositions. He storms out of the meeting under threats from Raimondi, that he better take the offer if he knows what’s best for him.
And by now you all know what’s going to happen, right? If you’ve seen as many of these types of movies as I have, it’s pretty obvious, that Sam and David are going to end up dead very soon. With them gone the sole owner of the casino is now Sam’s daughter Joy, played by Camilla Griggs. She only has 10 roles credited to her name on Imdb and none of them are especially major and I hadn’t heard of any of them.
Well, with the exception for the one in Forced Vengeance, off course. Raimondi and the Osiris Corporation are now after her and it’s up to Josh to protect her.
Josh, Claire and Joy trying to get away.
Oh, and in case you haven’t figured it out yet… Mr. Norris plays the part of Josh. I don’t really have to mention any of his movies, do I? Oh, alright then… I’ll mention two! Good Guys Wear Black and Invasion U.S.A. I have a couple of reviews up here on the site if you want to check out more.
Josh tries to take Joy and his girlfriend Claire to a safe house, but since Osiris has Hong Kong more or less covered it turns out to be like running a gauntlet to stay hidden. It seems that every place they go there’s always someone waiting, so finally Josh takes them to his old Army buddy, Leroy, whom he figures will be able to protect the two women.
Leroy is played by Bob Minor whom you might recognize from Coffy, Action Jackson or maybe even The Deep. In the role as Claire we have the lovely Mary Louise Weller (Animal House, Q – The Winged Serpent).
Mr. Norris kicking butt!
Josh leaves the girls in Leroy’s care and goes to check out some leads he has as to whom is really running Osiris, because it is not Raimondi. When he later returns it’s to a scene of horror… Joy is gone! His friend is left for dead with a broken back and Claire has been raped and killed! So, if you thought Josh Randall was pissed off before… Well, he now goes on a friggin’ rampage!
I must admit that I really, really like Forced Vengeance. The action is good, the fight-scenes are great (some of them are pretty brutal) and the acting is… not Academy Award material of course, but acceptable. There are also a couple of funny one-liners in it, most of which are delivered in a voice-over by Josh.
There’s one where Claire fires his gun through a door, almost killing him, and as he’s taking the gun back from her he kind of matter-of-factly states: “Note: Never let your girl handle your piece!” Hilarious! Gets me every time!
So, my friends, it’s with that line I’ll leave you this week. Until next time, why not leave a little comment below?
