‘The Dangerous’ (1995) Review

Reading Time: 8 minutes

Over on Kung Pew Video, I’ve been revisiting the direct-to-video relics that raised us. This week: The Dangerous.

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If I could order up an action movie the way you order from an à la carte menu, on paper, The Dangerous is exactly what I’d ask for.

I’ll take some ninjas, a gritty urban setting, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, car chases, sword fights, shootouts, explosions–and a heaping helping of totally unnecessary t & a.

On paper, The Dangerous should be incredible. Unfortunately, ordering all your favorite ingredients in one meal doesn’t always make for good eating. 

The Forgotten Films

One of my favorite things about making these videos is the process of discovery involved in watching movies I’ve never heard of before. When I’m scrolling through tubi, I’m not looking for hidden masterpieces. I’m looking for forgotten bits of movie history. Familiar actors with names no one’s ever heard. Forgotten production companies. Faded trends. Movies that I somehow never saw–and most I never even heard of–but that are still worth watching because of what they tell us about the era they were made in.

And that’s exactly what The Dangerous is.

Unfortunately…it’s also kind of a mess.

The Back of the VHS

Now some of you heard ninjas, car chases, shootouts, and boobs and were sold. Some of you probably already clicked away and are scrolling tubi trying to find the movie. But some of you need a little more convincing. And if you’re in that camp, you’re probably wondering what The Dangerous is about. 

And you’re in good company, because I’ve seen this movie twice now, and I couldn’t tell you what it’s about or why half these people are doing what they’re doing. I’ve honestly got more questions than answers, but I’ll give it my best shot. 

The Dangerous opens with a Japanese photographer/journalist (?) uncovering…something. Drug dealers? Organized crime? Corruption? Honestly, your guess is as good as mine. All I know is the bad guys catch her, stuff her in a barrel, pour cement on her, and dump the barrel in the bay. It’s a pretty brutal way to start off a movie, but I guess it ain’t called The Dangerous for nothing. 

Anyway, Robert Davi rides into New Orleans on a motorcycle and immediately gets into a gun battle at a famous New Orleans cemetery. Why? I have no idea. 

Michael Paré plays Detective Random, who spends most of the movie looking like he’s not sure if he’s on the right movie set. He’s quickly paired up with Davi’s character Davalos in a hilarious scene that has Davalos walk in on Paré mid coitus like he’s asking a neighbor to borrow a cup of sugar. Why are they paired up? I have no idea. 

Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa and his sister show up out of nowhere to avenge the photographer’s death (who happens to be their sister), while Juan Fernandez, John Savage, Sven Ole Thoreson and about thirty other people wander in and out of the movie until they eventually all converge on a Mardi Gras float warehouse for a fun and sometimes absolutely ridiculous shootout.

If that sounds about as clear as mud, settle in, because it doesn’t get any clearer from here. 

The Movie Hollywood Ordered

But as I watched this the second time around, I realized The Dangerous isn’t really a story so much as it’s a handful of tropes some writer tossed in a bag, shook up, and dumped onto the page. It’s like somebody strolled through a video store in 1991, grabbed every tape with cool box art, and said, “This is our next movie.”

That’s actually kind of charming.

Unfortunately, charm can only get you so far when your story is completely incoherent.

New Orleans

But don’t get me wrong. The Dangerous is a mess, but there are things I liked about it. And one of those things is the setting.

Some cities almost become subgenres unto themselves. Chicago is perfect for gritty cop movies.Think Code of Silence. Above the Law. Excessive Force. Those movies wouldn’t work quite as well if they were set in some other city.

New Orleans works that way with The Dangerous too. It’s got cool cemeteries. Old, sort of spooky architecture. Humidity. Corruption. And plenty of nightlife.

New Orleans packs this movie with vibe right from the start. It’s also kinda odd that Robert Davi made so many movies set here in the 90s. In the span of just a few years, he starred in Night Trap, Body Count, and The Dangerous.

And I love making connections like this, so I chased this down the rabbit hole a bit. At first I thought maybe Robert Davi just really liked shooting sleezy action movies in the Big Easy, but I think it’s actually a lot more mundane than that. All three of these movies were produced by Winters Hollywood Entertainment Holdings Corporation and West Side Studios. Both of which seem to have been the production companies of co-director David Winters. 

I don’t know much about Winters, but I do know he directed a favorite skateboarding movie of mine called Thrashin’ in 1986, which I will be reviewing at some point. Thrashin’ was a lot more competently made than The Dangerous by the way. I’m not really sure what the takeaway here is, guys. I’m just sharing nuggets of information I find interesting. Do with them what you will.

Hollywood’s Japan Phase

Another thing I liked about The Dangerous is the connection to Japan. Growing up in the late ’80s and early ’90s, Hollywood seemed to be absolutely fascinated with Japanese culture. And although accuracy wasn’t always a strong suit for these types of movies, I think the people making these were enthusiastic if not genuinely fascinated by the culture. 

And you can see this in movies like Black Rain. Showdown in Little Tokyo. American Yakuza. Rising Sun. And plenty of others like those that treated Japanese culture as something mysterious, honorable, and endlessly fascinating.

Looking back, I honestly think movies had a lot to do with why I was so interested in the country and its culture and why I remain interested to this day. Sure, most of these movies mashed together samurai, ninja, geisha, yakuza, bushido, and whatever else looked cool on a poster. 

But they worked. And they made me want to learn more about the culture and people. Looking back, that’s probably why this movie works better for me than it otherwise would. Even when the story falls apart, it’s still tapping into something I loved as a teen.

They Did My Boy Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa Wrong

Now speaking of Japan, we gotta talk about Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa. I love this guy. I’ve talked about him before in my reviews for Nemesis, The Perfect Weapon, and Kickboxer 2. He’s one of those actors who increases my interest in a movie simply by being present. And he has lots of screen presence. And intensity. Tagawa never phones his performances in.

Which makes The Dangerous that much more frustrating, because it gives him next to nothing to work with. He’s almost totally wasted here. Every time he shows up, the movie suddenly gets more interesting. And you’re just dying for him to do something badass. But then the movie just whiffs it. Still, if you love this actor like I do, it’s a reason to recommend it. 

 

These Ain’t Cannon Pictures Ninjas

Which is a nice segue into discussing the ninjas in the movie, because Tagawa plays one of em.

Now as a kid, I was completely obsessed with ninjas. To be honest…I still kind of am. Which is why this facet of the movie is so disappointing. These aren’t the shadowy shinobi I grew up imagining. Where are the black costumes? The iconic masks? The flips? The smoke bombs? The amazing martial arts choreography?

Instead, we get fights that fall completely flat. If you’re gonna put ninjas in your movie, the ninja action needs to deliver.

Instead, what do we get?

Ninjas fighting Cajuns with knives. And you know what? I’m not even gonna explain that one. You’ll just have to watch it for yourself. 

The Usual Suspects

Now one of the things I like most about watching movies like this is noticing the supporting actors that you see in so many of these.

Sven-Ole Thorsen shows up for like thirty seconds before he’s done dirty by the movie’s heavy, played by Juan Fernandez, who you might recognize from Crocodile Dundee 2 and Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects. I’m not sure what Fernandez is doing here, and to be honest, I’m not sure he knows what he’s doing here. But it sure isn’t boring. 

I’m convinced Thoreson had the best agent in Hollywood, because he shows up in every single one of these movies, and he mostly just has to stand there and look mean. One of these days I’m gonna do a supercut of all of the movies he’s in. 

Michael Paré’s career kinda fizzled out before it really took off, but I’ve always liked him. I think he’s great in Eddie and the Cruisers and Streets of Fire. But here he mostly looks lost or confused. (I would be too.)

Joel Grey as Flea is great in this. Hell, he may be the best character in the movie. Elliott Keener plays one of Fernandez’s flunkies and he also shows up with Davi in Body Count. And Paula Barbieri, who was a fashion model and later a Playboy playmate, makes her film debut as Davi’s off and on love interest. And for her first role, she’s not too bad here. And she’s absolutely gorgeous. Which helps.

Final Thoughts

By almost every metric, The Dangerous doesn’t work. The plot is nonsensical. The character motivations are mostly non-existent. The action is weak when it absolutely needed to be strong. And it wastes one of my favorite character actors–Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa. 

But somehow…it still entertained me.

Not because it’s some amazing hidden gem that everyone needs to see. Because it reminded me why I love sifting through tubi for forgotten direct-to-video action movies. People sometimes give me shit for watching movies like this. They ask me why I watch this trash. Well, it’s not because I’m looking for masterpieces.

I’m looking for connections. I’m looking for forgotten actors who turn up in movie after movie. I’m looking for the production companies that quietly helped build a whole ecosystem of B-movies that were the foundation for so many of my interests as a teen. And which kept me endlessly entertained and sometimes even captivated by the interesting and exotic things I saw in them. I’m looking for trends that have disappeared.

I don’t watch movies like The Dangerous because they’re good movies. I watch movies like The Dangerous because they open a door into an entire forgotten realm of direct-to-video filmmaking that I find utterly fascinating.

Maybe that’s the real fun of movies like this. Not discovering forgotten masterpieces, but discovering forgotten worlds that still exist on tube and inside dusty VHS covers. Every movie like this is one more artifact. Another piece of a larger puzzle. 

And as long as there are still forgotten movies like The Dangerous sitting on dusty shelves waiting to be rediscovered–I’ll keep digging. And as long as you keep turning up to hear me ramble about em, I’ll keep making videos about ’em. 

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