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Karate champion Steve Chase has been hired by Kandy Kane. Her father, the scientist Dr. Horatio Kane, has created a fuel alternative made from potatoes that can also serve for mind control. But Marduk, a billionaire who fancies himself a Babylonian god, has taken Dr. Kane. Marduk’s plan is to add the serum to the world’s water supply and control the population. Steve calls his old team and they head to Marduk’s base in Ironville. But this requires them to combat Marduk’s trained army of martial artists that stand between them and the base.
South African James Ryan remains one of the lesser-known figures of the 1970s/80s Martial Arts movie craze. Ryan starred in the South African Kill or Be Killed (1976) which indeed had an international showing in 1980 under the name Karate Killer. The plot was an unintentional parody of Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon (1973) and included Ryan as an overzealous martial artist competing in a tournament set up by a bitter ex-Nazi. After the movie did well, Ryan and director Ivan Hill were funded by the US for the production of this sequel. A third instalment was in the works but was never completed. This was Ryan’s last major endeavour after putting out a few other movies, including the adored cult classic Space Mutiny (1988) but for some reasons he did not take up any other action roles.
Despite seemingly being a sequel, Kill and Kill Again functions as an offshoot of Kill or Be Killed. In this case, Ryan people may remember him from the first instalment as part of the “Chase” rather than “Hunt” ensemble. Once again, there is a superbly dramatic plot twist where super-villains disguise themselves as ex-Nazis, but in truth, they are merely hoodlums with diaper cracking plans to rule the world by putting mind control drugs in the world’s water supply. Oh, did I mention there is also a Michael Mayer with an utterly fake beard in the mix? Now, that fabulously aged comic cheek aside, this film is hardly about an inter nation combat tournament which the first film largely was but it does have the age-old extended final battle theme in place. To further diversify the plot, the villain puts the various members of the team into competition as well.
All of this, however, is absurdly funny. There are many variations on the times when Michael Myers’ pink-haired subordinate Marloe Scott-Wilde keeps calling him Michael Myron, which later on his parrot repeats. There is even a scene where some of the characters are standing by and playing cards while their ‘teammates’ fend off a bunch of paratroopers, which is absolutely ridiculous. There is also a scene when they go to recruit Bill Flynn Hotdog and find him and a couple of other friends in a warehouse playing a game of Russian Roulette with a loaded gun betting on whether or not it would go off after hitting the ground.
The fight scenes are okay. I mean the character James Ryan does possess a certain athletic quality, none more so than during the aerial gymnastics that he performs during the tournament. On the other hand, one is compelled to mention that the script of the movie Kill and Kill Again as a martial arts film is hard to comprehend. For instance, the villain has a huge army of martial arts soldiers and spends a considerable amount of time having them all neatly arranged and practising. You cannot help but feel that he could have saved a lot of effort if he had simply used a smaller group of armed soldiers instead. Likewise, as James Ryan and his team in the van are trying to reach his base in the country, the villain tries to cut them off by having some of his martial artists waiting or being parachuted into position. On the other hand, if he had just put a few specially trained soldiers with a sniper rifle in place to ambush, he could have eliminated unprepared Ryan and his friends and captured them in no time.
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