78 - Showdown in Little Tokyo

Your Stupids Minds attempts to right the wrongs of the past by finally reviewing one of our favorite bad movies, 1991’s macho martial arts masterpiece Showdown in Little Tokyo. Running at a brisk 79 minutes and starring YSM favorite Dolph Lundgren (Rocky IV, Masters of the Universe, In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds), as well as Brandon Lee (The Crow), Tia Carrere (Wayne’s World) and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Elektra, Mortal Kombat), Showdown is about a giant blonde Swede Nipponophile who teams up with a half Japanese partner who doesn’t even like sushi! An evil yakuza boss (Tagawa) overpowers all of the LA gangs with brutal and stereotypically Japanese violence, so it’s up to Chris Kenner (Lundgren) to use his superior Japanese-ness to take him down. Along the way he rescues a lounge singer mid-seppuku (Carrere) and literally carries her to his Epcot-style Japanese house. It all leads up to a “showdown,” if you will, in Little Tokyo’s big parade, complete with dangerous fireworks wheels and horsemen with sharpened period-accurate katanas.