Eternal Fist | aka Fist of Steel (1992) Review

“Eternal Fist” Theatrical Poster

AKA: Death Zone
Director: Teddy Chiu (aka Irvin Johnson)
Producer: Andy Andico, Vivian Andico
Cast: Dale ‘Apollo’ Cook, Don Nakaya Neilsen, Cynthia Khan, Alina Borkowski, Greg Douglas
Running Time: 97 min

By Paul Bramhall

In 1989 a movie by the name of Cyborg unleashed a certain Belgian thespian upon the world in the form of Jean Claude Van Damme. The story, which took place in a dark post apocalyptic world ruled by chaos and violence, saw Van Damme rising up to be a hero for the people through slow motion spinning jump kicks and questionable acting. Be that as it may, Cyborg is solid B-movie material, and helped put Van Damme firmly on the map as an action star. 3 years later, in 1992, director Irvin Johnson decided to try the same tactic to launch Dale ‘Apollo’ Cook as the next big action hero.

It’s worth pointing out that Irvin Johnson is in fact a pseudonym for director Teddy Chiu, a member of that revered group of Filipino directors that churned out countless action B-movies in the 80’s and early 90’s (see also the likes of Mission Terminate and Future Hunters). Teddy liked his aliases, as he also sometimes went by the pseudonym of Ted Johnson (Blood Chase), other times he called himself Ted Hemingway (Final Appraisal), and on occasion he even went by the name of Teddy Page (Ninja’s Force). Quite where Irvin came from is anyone’s guess.

Eternal Fist kicks off with stock footage of an atomic bomb going off. By 1992 Johnson must have presumed the world had been subjected to that many post apocalyptic movies, we should all know the deal. So we never find out what the cause of the bomb was, and we don’t even get a voiceover telling us how half of humanity have been wiped off the planet, and the rest left to fend for themselves. Isn’t that how all these movies are supposed to start off? Instead we get a title sequence which let’s us know that we’re going to be watching WORLD KICKBOXING MIDDLEWEIGHT CHAMPION DALE ‘APPOLO’ CREED, and US KICKBOXING HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION DON NAYAKA NIELSEN.

Apart from the permanence of such introductions (I’m sure neither of them are the current champions), there is something distinctly ominous about such overstated billing. It’s almost like the producers are pre-empting the fact that these guys performances are going to be really poor, but when it comes to fighting they’re the real deal! Unfortunately it’s become a well known fact by now that just because you have the credentials in the ring, doesn’t mean you’re going to look great on the screen – just ask Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson.

Cook continued to be pushed as the new Van Damme for the duration of his career in the film industry, which totaled 9 movies between 1991 – 1995, but audiences just didn’t buy it. In part it was due to lack of exposure, when one of your biggest roles is being the star of American Kickboxer 2, you know you’re in trouble when the first question most people ask is, “Was there an American Kickboxer 1!?”. By the time he starred in one of his last efforts, Raw Target, it was almost as if the distributors simply decided the best way to move forward was to force the point, plastering across the poster – “Dale Apollo Cook is the New Van Damme…” It wasn’t just speculation anymore, it was fact!

What’s most interesting about Eternal Fist though is that neither Cook nor Nielsen receive top billing. That privilege goes to Cynthia Khan. What is Cynthia Khan, a name synonymous with the Girls with Guns genre, doing in a B-grade English language post-apocalyptic flick!? It’s a good question. Khan is one of the most recognizable faces from the late 80’s – early 90’s Hong Kong action movie scene, having starred in every official entry of the highly regarded In the Line of Duty series. By the early 90’s though the Girls with Guns genre was on its way out, so it could well be that Khan was attempting to diversify into other types of genre. Sadly though it wasn’t a successful transition, and even though she still had some high points, notably the Sammo Hung directed 1993 period piece Blade of Fury, by 1995 she was relegated to starring in Philip Ko Fei directed Filipino cheapies like Angel on Fire.

In Eternal Fist Khan bizarrely gets two roles. When the movie opens she and Cook are running through the desert (because naturally the atomic bomb turned the world into one big desert) while being pursued by an evil gang of post apocalyptic bad guys. You know they’re evil, because one of them wears a wheel trim on his chest as a fashion statement. They fight, but Khan doesn’t survive, with Cook barely escaping. He eventually stumbles across a settlement of Christian’s (the director is Filipino after all), and there he’s nursed back to health by, wait for it, Cynthia Khan. It turns out that the woman nursing him back to health is the spitting image of his murdered girlfriend, Lyssa, but it’s confirmed several times (probably as much for the audiences benefit as Cook’s) that this character isn’t Lyssa, this character’s name is Wild. You may think Cook would be suspicious of someone with such a name, but his character is called Amp, so I guess not.

Cook actually had a small role in the Cynthia Khan starring Hong Kong movie Deadend of Besiegers, made a year earlier, which is perhaps how she ended up appearing in this. Much like Cook was dubbed for his role in Deadend of Besiegers, here Khan, although evidently speaking English by reading her lips, is over dubbed by what sounds like a softly spoken middle class British woman. Personally, I would have preferred to hear her actual voice. That said, even dubbed, she out acts and out performs everyone else in the movie, including Cook.

Eventually a plot forms which revolves around fighting tournaments that are held between each ‘settlement’, with winnings like clean water and dope (even though an atomic bomb has gone off, apparently people still like to get high). One of the fighters is a power mad lunatic called Mainframe, who along with his henchman, Wires, want all the girls for themselves. Mainframe even considered Lyssa to be one of his girls, and the fact that she ran off with Amp makes him think that maybe others will try to steal his girls as well, so he decides to beat everyone up. Did I call this a plot? I guess I should apologize, as the description I just gave is as good as it gets. Mainframe and Wires are played by Gregg Douglass and Don Nayaka Nielsen respectively, who barely scrape a handful of movie appearances between them, however their performances are entertaining. This applies to Douglass in particular, who insists on putting a mouthguard in every time he fights, which is attempted to be passed off as some kind of edgy character trait.

All of this of course leads to a lot of sloppy fight scenes. What Cook lacks in screen presence also carries over to his screen fighting, with the choreography being of the ‘I’m going to stand here and wait for you to kick me’ variety in most of the matches. The real highpoint comes when Cook decides to train the mild mannered Wild (yes the name is ironic) in how to fight. Up until that point she’s been wearing an earthy loose fitting outfit, however mid-training sequence, she miraculously changes into a mix of black spandex and leather, even indulging in some dual nunchucks action with Cook (no metaphor here, they really do).

Proceedings pick up a little towards the end. Cook arms himself with the aforementioned nunchucks, and Khan does her thing with a mini-crossbow, visibly performing her choreography too fast that the other no-name cast members struggle to keep up. Everything eventually culminates in a two-on-two battle, as Amp and Wild face off against Mainframe and Wires, in a confrontation which does actually succeed in generating a modicum of excitement, but it’s arguably too little too late.

I’m really unsure of what message Eternal Fist is trying to bestow upon us. If anything, it seems to be that if your girlfriend is savagely killed, if you’re then lucky enough to find someone who looks just like her that falls in love with you, well, you don’t really have a lot to complain about. Or perhaps it conveys everything it wants to say with Khan’s closing line of the movie – “You’re right about one thing, this world is too full of sh*t to be weak.” The world is full of sh*t movies as well, but sometime black spandex and leather can make them just that little bit better.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 4/10