Farewell, Terminator (1987)

Here we have an odd little movie. Farewell, Terminator was Isaac Florentine's first official movie and it's something so weird as a cyborg-martial arts-futuristic movie about Israel! It's only 27 minutes long, but still shows Florentines talent for stylish action and nice production values for very little money. Or... well, the production value is rundown buildings, destroyed cars and a lot of dust - like all post-apocalyptic movies from this time.

Yaakov Yaakobson is Dror, a police that works in the worst neighbourhoods in his country. When he killed enough criminals he get's a free passport out of the country... and now that times has come. But by mistake he discovers that there's a price on his head, and it's the police that's behind it all! Why?

It's a nice story actually, not bad at all - and very typical short film subject. The concept has been used before, but with different twists, and this is one that I like. It feels logical for once. Florentine fills the screen with ruins and old cars, lots of concrete and dust, and in this some good and violent action sequences. The first fight is a bit silly, with to much speed up to make it look serious, but the second one between Dror and one of the criminals looks great and is very brutal. I can see how he got the chance of directing bigger movies after just this little scene.

But the story focuses on the drama and the secret behind it all, even here Florentine manages to hold up a good pace and brings some good performances from the actors. I'm happy I finally got to see Isaac Florentines debute movie and it's a pity it's not easier to find. It could have been a perfect bonus movie on one of his feature length movies. If you get a chance to see it, take it - and I'm quite sure you will like it, at least if you are fans of obscure post-apocalypse or the talent of one of the best action directors in the world right now!

American Cyborg: Steel Warrior (1993)

Here we have one of my biggest guilty pleasures: American Cyborg. It's one of the last of the Golan/Globus-productions and is a very late entry in the post-apocalyptic cyborg-genre. Why they decided to make this movie in 1993 with a soul of a eighties Albert Pyun-movie is beyond my imagination, but I will thank them forever.Boaz Davidson directs with a steady hand and gives us a nice looking movie with lots of darkness, shadows, underground tunnels, factory-locations, people with transparent coats, radioactive cannibals (!) and Joe Lara in hunk-mode no. 3. He's of course is the lone warrior (complete with music cues from spagetti-westerns) who's helping the last pregnant woman, Mary (Nicole Hansen ... and actually she has the baby in a jar in her bag) to get to the sea where a ship will meet her and help mankind to make babies again. Yeah, it's more or less like Children of Men but with more cyborgs.

I don't know what the budget was, but it has a bigger looking visual style than it should have for it's time. Darn, it's actually kinda well made! The locations is awsome, for us who like that style of torn down buildings, dirty streets, burning cars and everything else we can expect from the future. The cinematography is nice and the effects quite good. Some impressive latex-effects and lot's of stabbings and cyborg-gore (ya know that white blood that cyborgs always have). The action is brutal and the bodycount above average. The ass-kicking is uneven, but Joe Lara and the cyborg-actor (John Saint Ryan) kicks each other a lot and it's a nice way of communicating in these kinda movies. The highlight is the radioactive cannibals (they are called so in the movie to!) which are rotting people in mummy-bandages who just would love some fresh baby-meat. 

American Cyborg is a way better and entertaining movie than some of the fools at IMDB would suggest ("terrifyingly bad movie" - bah, haven't they seen Terminator Salvation?). It's far from the hip action-movies from the nineties, and we should be just happy because of that. It's out on dvd in Holland I think, but I have the Hong Kong release. It's fullscreen, but seems to be open matte - so just zoom and you will see it with correct ratio and it will also hide the terrible forced chinese subtitles.