Over on Kung Pew Video, I’ve been revisiting the direct-to-video relics that raised us. This week: Sam Firstenberg’s Cyborg Cop.
A Career Cut Short
In the late 1980s, David Bradley burst onto the B action movie scene when he was cast as the titular character in American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt, replacing series favorite Michael Dudikoff.
Bradley reprised the role in 1990 for American Ninja 4: The Annihilation, sharing hero duties with the returning Dudikoff.
Now there are a lot of Dudikoff loyalists out there, but for my money, Bradley nailed the role and showed the promise of becoming the next Cannon Films martial arts action star.
He had the looks.
He had the screen presence.
And, unlike Dudikoff, he had the martial arts skills.
But for some reason his career fizzled out before it even got started, and I was always left wanting to see more of him kicking ninjas in the face.
Then, in 1992, we got American Samurai produced by Cannon and directed by the American Ninja series director Sam Firstenberg. But that movie was chopped up in the editing room by Cannon, and as much as I love the fight scenes in the middle, the movie is ruined by a totally botched final fight scene.
But after that, I never saw the guy in anything else ever again.
Tubi to the Rescue
Now back in the day, there was a limit to the B-movie junk food our local small town video store stocked, and unfortunately the rest of Bradley’s filmography never trickled down to us rural folk.
So imagine my surprise when I am surfing through tubi one day while sick on the couch, adding mountains of junk to my watchlist, and I see the name David Bradley at the top of a movie called Cyborg Cop.
And I wonder to myself: Is there another David Bradley?
Well, it turns out, yes, there is, but this is the one I’m familiar with.
So I quickly hit play and settle in for what I hope will be some good/bad martial arts fun.
The Back of the VHS
As you might imagine, there ain’t much to Cyborg Cop’s plot: a former DEA agent heads to a Caribbean island to rescue his brother from a mad scientist who’s turning soldiers into cyborgs to sell on the black market.
The title had me thinking I was gonna get some kind of cheap RoboCop knock off, but Cyborg Cop’s got more in common with American Ninja 3 than with the Paul Verhoeven classic.
Sidekicks and Explosions are All You Need
But by 1993, with a few American Ninjas under his belt, Sam Firstenberg knew all you needed were a few explosions and a few flying sidekicks, and you had a movie.
And I suppose that’s true, but a more exotic, attractive location definitely wouldn’t have hurt Cyborg Cop.
Acting-wise, there’s not much to dissect here.
John Rhys-Davies of Indiana Jones and Lord of the Rings fame is just going for it here as the diabolical Professor Kesell. His accent drifts from scene to scene, and he chews every line like it’s his last meal.
And yet somehow he still towers over everyone around him.
David Bradley, on the other hand, isn’t a great actor, but he brings his own brand of swagger and charm to the role of DEA agent Jack Ryan.
Not to be confused with Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, of course.
And watching him trade barbs with Alonna Shaw—who seems like she just stepped off the stage of a high-school play—is strangely endearing. Like watching a fat guy go down a slip ‘n slide.
The American Ninja Sequel We Deserved
And for the record, the movie’s original working title was Cyborg Ninja—which, now that I think about it, could’ve easily been re-cut into an American Ninja sequel with a few tweaks and reshoots.
Too bad we didn’t get that instead of this crap.
Outside of Bradley’s fights, there’s not much here to hang your ninja mask on. The action is what we show up for, and unfortunately what we get here is bottom of the barrel stuff:
Corny stunts, endless gunfire, and explosions that must have eaten up half the budget.
Still, there’s a certain charm to the proceedings. The cyborg effects look like leftovers from a Power Rangers warehouse—rubber muscles, blinking lights, and the faint smell of melting plastic.
And yes, it checks the final box on the ’90s DTV action checklist with a bit of female nudity that’s over before you can say Skinemax After Dark.
But back then, that was part of the deal—sidekicks, firefights, and boobs to make you feel like you were getting your money’s worth.
The Caribbean Island of South Africa
The tone of Cyborg Cop owes a lot to its setting—or rather, its lack of one. The movie is set in the Caribbean but it was shot in South Africa, a favorite shooting location of director Firstenberg. And you can kinda tell, because the teal and turquoise waters of the West Indies are nowhere to be seen. No beaches, no babes in bikinis, nada. Just dusty streets and arid-looking jungles.
Still, there’s something fascinating about this period of action cinema. The Cold War was over, optimism was on its way out, and video stores were overflowing with bargain sequels and genre leftovers. Cyborg Cop sits in that strange liminal space—too cheap to compete with genre oddballs like Millennium and Freejack that had studio backing, but too fun and dumb to fit in with the sleek pessimism that would take over by decade’s end with films like The Matrix, Equilibrium, and Dark City.
It’s the kind of movie that showed up on late night cable and scratched a particular itch. A dying breed of action flick—one foot in the ’80s, the other sinking fast into the VHS bargain bin at your local video store.
What Happened to David Bradley?
And maybe that’s what happened to Bradley’s career. Maybe he got started just as this era of filmmaking was starting to fade. Or maybe there was more to it than that.
On the YouTube channel Viking Samurai, director Sam Firstenberg said Bradley’s real passion was music; acting just happened by accident, and when his music career never materialized, he vanished like a ninja in a smoke bomb. The story is a bit more interesting than that, so if you are interested, you should head over and watch the interview.
Tell him I sent you.
Anyway, whatever Bradley decided to do with his life was our loss. He was one of my favorites, and easily one of the best martial artists ever to throw a roundhouse on camera.
And that’s why I watch a movie like Cyborg Cop. There aren’t many fight scenes—fewer than his American Ninja or American Samurai days—but when he moves, you can tell he had the goods. Cyborg Cop might have been a bargain-bin title, but it’s another reminder of how good Bradley could be even when the material around him wasn’t.
What’s the Verdict?
Cheap.
Dumb.
Fun.
And I mean that in the best way possible.
Movies like Cyborg Cop remind me why I fell in love with this crap in the first place. They weren’t trying to win Oscars or chase praise on the Twitters—they just wanted to blow things up, kick a few guys in the face, and give you ninety minutes of sweaty, low-budget escapism.
I’d still rather watch this than ninety percent of what studios have put out in the last decade. At least I don’t have to worry about some screenwriter turning a simple B-movie into a Ted Talk.
Cyborg Cop might be junk, but it’s honest junk—the kind that made Friday-night rentals worth the two bucks…
And the shame of returning ‘em three days late.
Have you seen Cyborg Cop? What did you think? Let us know in the comments, and before you go…
Kung Pew Video is where I dig into the neon-drenched, straight-to-VHS corner of film history. New episodes weekly. Be kind. Subscribe. See ya in the VHS wasteland.
