Some context:
My mother broke her hip and was bedridden during recovery. I bought her a Roku and would watch mainly detective shows / mysteries (her fave) with her.
Before I got Prime & Netflix set up, that meant trawling for free ones on various platforms, and YouTube's recommendation algorithm eventually led us to Vega$. Others we saw on YT:
- The Saint
- Burke's Law
- Honey West
- Barnaby Jones
- Rip Tide
- Jake & the Fat Man
- Perry Mason (inc the 80s revival)
- Streets of San Francisco
- probably a few more I can't remember right now
On other platforms (Fawesome, TheArchive, Roku Channel etc):
- The Commish ( we also watched The Shield: what a contrast!)
- Booker
- Wiseguy
- Peter Gunn
- Mr Lucky
- Colonel March of Scotland Yard
- Decoy
- Danger Man
Might have to pick "English-language detective/crime shows 1955-1995" as my specialist subject on Mastermind :)
Yup. With Tony Curtis as his landlord/biggest client!
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Watched some episodes of detective show Vega$ last year. The P.I.'s office/home was in a former storage building right behind Circus Circus, and I noticed that, even in 1978, right behind his office it was still open desert.
Should but won't. The nation can't even bring itself to knock the portraits off Stone Mountain, idolizing its literal enemies.
You've actually seen it? Is it so bad it's entertaining, or just so bad it's a drag?
PS I see it's available for legit free streaming, might have to check it out
Well, when you put it like that, I guess Trump does deserve to go on Mount Rushmore.
Ahh, I guess because I use FreeTube to avoid ads, disinformation, radicalization and all the other ills of YouTube. I didn't realize I might be missing out on some licensed stuff.
Trying that link in a web browser gets me this, unfortunately:
Video unavailable The uploader has not made this video available in your country
That's why you've got to pace your Don-a-thon. :)
BTW which is the licensed one on YT? The one from 'Castello Garrucha', the one from 'Miroslav Vulic', or the one from 'Rock CHUDson'? :D
Oh I see another from 'Sky Action', but that's almost a quarter hour shorter than the others even though it says "full length".
In a further Star Trek connection, the opening scene is shot in a location used as Starfleet Academy, the Japanese Garden at the Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys, L.A.
See it in all its glory:
Other things have been shot there, see:
Watching all the films shot there could be a B Movie theme/season in itself. Quigley looks truly awful.
A.k.a. Red Sun Rising: Based on the Legend of the Death Touch
Tagline
Japan's toughest cop is in L.A. to track down the Yakuza's deadliest killer
Elevator pitch
- Rush Hour but with less laughs and more laserfingers
Premise
A tough Japanese detective comes to LA to seek vengeance after his partner is killed by a deadly Yakuza ninja.
Trailer
Full Movie
Details
Unless otherwise stated, all full movie links I post are for free, no account required, licensed (AFAIK, IANAL) streaming VOD in English (or original language with English subtitles) and work at time of writing in my location, Mexico. Availability and language options may be different in your location. Asterisk by the one I watched.
- I saw it on VCR Party, an Owncast watch party. I can't find it on any of my legit streamers here in Mexico, neither free nor paid. Check below for your country.
Legal stream finders
Details
The 'nobraincellsleft' link finds legit stream sources from many countries, listed by two-letter code.
The Just Watch link lists legit stream sources only for one country at a time. On the web page, change the country to your location, e.g. change Mexico to Australia.
Neither is perfect. Check your preferred streamers directly, just in case.
- https://nobraincellsleft.github.io/JustWatch-Search/title/tm119410
- https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/red-sun-rising
Info
Personnel
- Director: Francis Megahy
Cast
- Don "The Dragon" Wilson (Future Kick, Cyber Tracker)
- Terry Farrell (Star Trek: Deep Space 9)
- James Lew (Shira the Vampire Samurai)
- Mako (Sworn to Justice)
- Soon-Tek Oh (The Man with the Golden Gun, Good Guys Wear Black)
- Michael Ironside (Scanners, Starship Troopers)
- Edward Albert (Galaxy of Terror, Space Marines)
Opinion
Last night on VCR Party (Mastodon) this was the surprise showing (well, about 30 minutes notice). And you know a movie is going to be classy when the title appears on screen as Red Sun Rising: Based on the Legend of the Death Touch!
Don "The Dragon" Wilson strikes again, this time as a Japanese cop who must overcome culture shock (i.e. US racism and cars much larger than back home) and learn the Power of the Laser Finger. Actually the deadly ninja technique had some Orientalist bollocks name I can't remember now, but everyone in the watch party immediately dubbed it 'the laser finger' because that's what it looked like. Taught to Don by Mako, playing a fallen priest/uncle, who swills brandy, lives in a big house with a big pool and has two hot assistants now that he gave up religion for selling bullshit merch to dumb, rich Americans.
[Cue training montage]
The Laser Fingering Baddie is James Lew, the sifu from Shira the Vampire Samurai (previously on BMB), who even uses his ninja wizardry to make a zombie. He also like to snap necks in the most sensual way possible.
Playing Chris Tucker to Don's Jackie Chan (but with more sexy time) is Deep Space 9's Terry Farrell, trotting out the usual casual racism towards Japan typical of the era, until she and Don ride her giant convertible to Makeout Point.
Clearly emerging (about a year or two too late) from the "ZOMG Japan will be more powerful than us soon" panic/trend in western pop culture of the 80s to early 90s, along the lines of Rising Sun, Black Rain etc.
- 0 out of 5 sharks. Not all ninja movies have sharks, you know.
- 2 out of 5 ninjas. (Marked down because nobody was actually in a shinobi mask.)
- 3 out of 5 Dragons. Not bad... for a Don "The Dragon" Wilson movie, if you know what I mean, and if you're a sucker for 90s action like I am.
Screenshots
I took none cuz:
- it's a watch party, so I couldn't pause/rewind etc for juicy bits, and also I didn't have the movie full screen, two thirds taken up by chat window, web page etc
- VCR Party is literally a VHS tape inserted into a VCR streamed online, with all the visual quality you can expect from three-decade-old second/third/fourth-hand cassettes found cheap at a charity shop.
Here are some from the interwebs:
What a title!
James about to give Don the Finger... the Laser Finger! (Right where the red sun don't rise?)
Mako teaching the Power of the Laser Finger to Don in a tank top that is frankly rather inappropriate for the workplace
I don't even want to speculate what Terry is indicating there!
No, this is not a Dutch angle from Battlefield Earth
Last night on https://watch.vcr.party/ (Mastodon) we watched Red Sun Rising (1994), a Don "The Dragon" Wilson martial arts movie so classy its full title is actually Red Sun Rising: Based on the Legend of the Death Touch.
Before we even get through the opening titles, it's clear we are in a familiar location: The Japanese Garden at The Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, California.
You know... Starfleet Academy.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Tillman_Water_Reclamation_Plant
Watch the video if you'd like to see the familiar grounds of Starfleet Academy but instead of a sage old man imparting nuggets of wisdom, you want to see a evil wizard ninja imparting sensuous neck snappings.
Oh yeah, content warning: sensuous neck snapping.
Bonus: the lead female role is acted by Terry Farrell, playing a racist LAPD cop. (Don't worry, though, in the end it turns out... she's not quite as racist as the other LAPD cops.)
Bonus bonuses:
- The evil wizard ninja is played by James Lew, "uncredited stunt Romulan" (words I want on my headstone). https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/James_Lew (Also in the truly terrible Shira The Vampire Samurai.)
- Head FBI agent played by Edward Albert https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Edward_Laurence_Albert
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[Review] Armour of God 2: Operation Condor (88 Films Deluxe Limited Edition UHD/BluRay)
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we didn't see those, maybe they have better DMCA takedown people