A new synthetic drug nicknamed “Kick” is creating havoc in Asia. “9 out of 10 children have been born with birth defects” due to their parents using Kick. A syndicate led by Nakata (Tadashi Yamashita) is planning on brining Kick into the United States. The government does the only thing that makes sense. They turn to a kickboxer named James Thayer (Gary Daniels) to stop the Kick from entering the U.S. The only problem is that Nakata was once James’s sensei and the head of the DEA (David Carradine) is secretly working with Nakata!
The plot doesn’t make any sense. Does it have to? If you’re watching this movie because Gary Daniels is in it, you know what you’re getting into. Scene after scene, Daniels beats someone up. He beats them up outside. He beats them up in hallways. He beats them up on rooftops. Sometimes, I wasn’t sure who he was beating up or why but that’s to be expected with a Gary Daniels films. Eventually, the bad guys kidnap Gary’s equally lethal wife (Ava Fabian) and Gary finally gets some motivation. Even when motivated, Gary Daniels can’t act but he still does his best with the weak one-liners that the script gives him. He’s the human equivalent of Homer Simpson shouting, “Die, bad robots, die!” (With a cool dry wit like that, I could be an action hero.)
Don’t get too excited about David Carradine being second-billed. He spends most of this movie either on the phone or driving a truck. Do get excited over the way he calls Gary Daniels a “son of a bitch” at the end of the movie. It’s as if he finally woke up. As Nakata, Tadashi Yamashita is more committed to his role than either Daniels or Carradine. He gets to deliver the inevitable “I am a capitalist” speech.
This may sound weird but I feel like I could watch this film a hundred times more. It has no coherent plot. It has absolutely no budget. But it did have nonstop fights and Gary Daniels stiffly trying to joke after killing someone. It’s dumb but hypnotic, the type of film where a bad guy gets shoved out of a helicopter for asking if he’ll be getting a fair share of the loot and no one really seems to notice.
I don’t know why it’s called Capital Punishment. Does it matter?
