Episode 15 - Ring of Fire - The PM Entertainment Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You have entered the PM Entertainment Podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Hello, and finally I hear you all gasp. Welcome to
an all new episode of the PM Entertainment Podcast, and
thank you so much for your patience. While I found
the time to edit and put this episode together around
a currently unusually hectic schedule. During this small hiatus from
the show, people will probably know by now that we
very sadly lost Rick peppin the P and PM, and

(00:53):
I wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone for
the messages and sharing stories and condolences over on the
Instagram and Facebook pages. We're in the process of planning
a celebratory memorial show where we will be discussing one
of Rick's directed sci fi action films, Dark Breed, and
talking to as many people about their memories of Rick
as possible. Please call three four seven sixty six nine

(01:16):
zero zero five to three if you want to leave
a voicemail message and be part of this tribute. All
the messages will be played out on the show, so
please look forward to that and thank you at this
time for your patients. I'm your host, John Cross and
don't forget that. If you like the show, please remember

(01:36):
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It means so much and helps the show so much.
Please review us. Also share our Facebook posts like comment,
and you can always contact us either from that telephone
number three four seven sixty six nine zero zero five

(01:58):
three or our email Peace ent Pod at gmail dot com.
That's pm E n T Pod at gmail dot com.
I guess this week is returning champion, writer, soundtrack producer, director, actor, journalist,
actionmovie fan and all round fascinating and talented individual, Corey Danner,
whose book Sheldon Ledditch from Vietnam to Van Dam is

(02:21):
available in hardcover, paperback and digital versions from wherever you
buy books. Corey, thanks so much for being back on
the show.

Speaker 3 (02:28):
Hey, thanks for having me back.

Speaker 4 (02:30):
Oh no, it's a pleasure.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
So we had so much fun last time, and it's
great that you're available to do this. You were the
first one I reached out to, because I remember when
we first connected it was Tracy Lords or Don the
Dragon Wilson movies, and I didn't want to do a
Don Wilson movie until I had the interview because I
was ninety percent sure that I was going to get

(02:52):
the interview at some point, so yeah, yeah, it's a
really good interview.

Speaker 4 (02:55):
I can't wait for people to hear it.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
And when I thought, well, let's kick off don the
Dragon Wilson episode on the podcast, you were the man
I thought of.

Speaker 5 (03:04):
So well, thanks for thinking to me, because yah, I'm
definitely excited to talk about Ring a Fire.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, and it's it's I probably will have a rule
on the podcast, even though we're doing pm D statement
movies out of order, where there's a franchise or a
trilogy or a sequel or whatever, I'll do them in order.

Speaker 4 (03:21):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
You wouldn't do CyberTracker two before doing cyber Tracker one
or whatever. So yeah, we have to start with Ring
a Fire and then we can build up to Ring
a Fire two and three, which probably are more well
known and probably better like just because they're crazier than really,
but I think Ring of Fire is pretty pure in
its intentions, which I think makes it an interesting and

(03:43):
almost unique movie in PM entertainment films.

Speaker 4 (03:47):
We'll we'll have.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
To get into that, but yes, you were one of
the interesting things that you have been working on, and
I'm very excited about because I'm a huge Steve James fan,
big Sam Furstenberg fan. In fact, I'm about to do
a sound first and bog double bill with Matt Perea
over at the director video of Connoisseur, two of his
thrillers from the one Crisscross, which was two episodes of

(04:09):
a TV show that he did welded together, and then
Motel Blue or something. So we're covering two very obscure
first and books tomorrow. But news has come across the
grapevine from Sam himself and from the people working on
the Blu Ray that a lost Steve James classic, very
few Steve James starring movies, so this will be a

(04:30):
gem for people who love Steve James. Riverbend now being
released on Blu Ray somewhere down the line.

Speaker 4 (04:37):
Right.

Speaker 5 (04:37):
Yes, it's gonna do. From what I understand, it's gonna
be doing a theatrical run later this year, you know,
just kind of you know, festivals, bautique theaters, that type
of thing for a while, and then probably early first
quarter next year they're planning on doing a four K
Blu Ray release. And I mean they've on Mychael Dennis

(05:00):
is the guy who's been going to town on this thing.
I mean, he's really put a lot into this project, right,
and yeah, he actually it started out he had a
he had a just a you know, a thirty five
million print and kind of beat up, but he was
able to restore it looked pretty decent. But then they
found the original negatives. So they're painstakingly going through those

(05:26):
negatives and restoring from the original negatives.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
So it's it's gonna be something special early.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yeah, that's gonna be fantastic. That's gonna be fantastic. And
is this his first release or is Michael Dennis done
other stuff that I'm not aware?

Speaker 5 (05:40):
This will be his first Blu Ray release under his banner.
I think he's going by Real Black Renaissance. He has
a YouTube, pretty popular YouTube channel called Real Black or
you know, he discussed his the importance of black film
and that sort of entertainment, and obviously Riverbend and Steve

(06:02):
James are a huge, huge part of that and and
that film just nobody knows about it, and Steve is
so good in it. Margaret Avery stars in it as well,
and she's great and people, you know, Sam Sam has
a huge following and a lot of people don't just
never seen it because you know, got lost on VHS

(06:24):
years ago.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah, I think there was a copy on I've seen it.
I saw it on some VHS rip on YouTube years
ago when it was on there. I think just because
I was a big you know, whether it was The
American Ninja or was The Exterminator, and then Steve James
would end up cropping up in all sorts of movies
by those film directors.

Speaker 4 (06:44):
I just became a huge Steve James fan.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
You know, I'm a big fan and supporter and very
vocal about those you know, what is I think unfavorably
now called black exploitation, but the early seventies African American
filmmaking that, as I say, very often gets just categorized
as you know, pimps and big hats and stupid comical

(07:06):
movies that sort of play up bad stereotypes. Actually, if
you ever watch any of them, or watch a good
chunk of them, they're not.

Speaker 4 (07:13):
That at all.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
They're actually they're actually it's also considered a genre, which
it's not. There are multiple genres within that era. You
certainly can't say that Adios and Migos is the same
genre as Shaft or the same genre as Blacula or whatever.
You know that there are horror films, there are westerns,
there are action films, there are dramas. There are biopics, Grease, Lightning,

(07:36):
and other things like that that are absolutely phenomenal. And
I think it always blows my mind that, you know, obviously,
the sort of early nineties African American renaissance of Spike
Lee and those kind of filmmakers obviously gets a lot
of focus and quite rightly. So people like Sidney Pottier
and Harry Belafonte get a lot of props and focus

(07:59):
quite right. So everyone either skirts off or the lines
those sort of seventies to eighties movies. Freda Hammer Williamson,
I've interviewed him a couple of times, and you know,
my thing with him is he's an independent film director
and film producer that no one ever talks about. Like
Poboy Productions kept those actors working long after Hollywood.

Speaker 4 (08:21):
Gave a crap.

Speaker 3 (08:22):
Yeah, I mean for sure, so I.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
Can't wait, you know, And I feel like Steve James,
what's interesting about him is I feel he bridges that
gap a little bit from like the seventies to the
eighties in the same way as Carl Weathers as well,
you know, Friday Foster and then obviously makes it big
in the eighties.

Speaker 4 (08:39):
So I love all those movies.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
I'm really excited to see Riverbend get all cleaned up
and stuff like that, because, man, we need more of
those movies. Man, we need to show people that those
filmmakers and those actors and those stars were making entertainment
and genre film in the best possible way, but with
an important message. A lot of them have a really
important message.

Speaker 5 (09:00):
Very you know, like Steve James is somebody I've kind
of idolized since I was a kid, you know, and
the fact that he didn't have more leading roles kind
of always bothered me. Yeah, and that's I had actually
reached out to Sam and you know, I had asked
him about what was going on.

Speaker 3 (09:20):
You know, how come you know there rights issues? You
know what's going on with River Bend? You never had
a DVD or anything.

Speaker 5 (09:26):
And he's like, I'll tell you what, you know, I
want to put you in touch with somebody who's just
got in touch with me. And it was Michael Dennis
who had already started to work on it. So he
and I have been talking about how I can help,
So I've been trying. You know, my best I had
Sam and I had like a two hour long conversation
just about Steve James. So hopefully, you know, I'll be

(09:48):
contributing like an article, essay or something to the release
and we'll see how I'll go from hope. Hopefully I'm
working on setting up a screening in Detroit once once
things get a little bit more closer to February March,
you know, when they plan I'm doing that, then I
can start getting that really in motion.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
But yeah, I mean I'll look and see if there's
any screening happen. I mean, there's bound to be a
screening happened in New York at some point. But I'll
see if the maybe in conjunction with either the Archive
or one of the retro theaters out in Connecticut, maybe
I can get a screening going over here as well.
But as I say, there's bound to be one in

(10:30):
the city just because there's so many retro theaters, even
if it's Alamo Draft House, and I'm they're great in
all but I prefer the smaller theaters. But if even
if Alamo Draft House do it I'll go see it.
Oh yeah, So hopefully I get to see it. If not,
I'll be first in line to buy the four K
when it called Blu Ray or whatever it is when

(10:51):
it comes out. And that's fantastic and wonderful that he's
taken his YouTube channel to the next step and starting
to release movies.

Speaker 4 (10:59):
I hope we get a lot more of them because.

Speaker 3 (11:01):
Already, I mean, I can't say anything about what it is.

Speaker 5 (11:04):
If he's already planning a second release, so great, it's
it's going well for him.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
I love that, man, I love that. That's fantastic.

Speaker 3 (11:11):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
Well that's great. Yeah, So everyone look out. If you're
a fan of PM Entertainment, then you're a fan of
action films. And if you're a fan of action films,
you've got to be a fan of Steve James because
the man was a mountain and a legend and funny.
I mean, he could do everything you do, funny, drama,
he could do action. I mean without you know, a

(11:33):
lot of people talk about Dudakov obviously with the American
Ninja movies, but I feel like without Steve James, especially
those this first couple, like he really Blewi's Dudahkoff, who
was pretty amateur at the time.

Speaker 5 (11:46):
Their friendship, real life friendship were really transferred to the screen.
You could tell that there was a chemistry between those
two and I think that's a huge reason why those
first two movies are so successful.

Speaker 4 (11:58):
Oh definitely.

Speaker 2 (11:59):
And I just thing, you know, as much as I
love a lot in American Ninja, that bit where Steve
James comes around on the like that big military vehicle
with the machine gun and he's just like fucking going
wild at the big attack on the compound at the end,
I'm just like, yes, yes, that's that's like the fifth
pump moment and in that final final action sequence. So

(12:22):
that's great man. Oh well, look, keep us posted on that.
It's great that you're doing that work. And yeah, if
there's ever anything like that that I can help with,
let me know.

Speaker 4 (12:29):
I'd be great.

Speaker 3 (12:30):
Definitely.

Speaker 4 (12:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
So on this episode of the PEM Entertainment Podcast, as
I have said, we are talking about nineteen ninety one's
Ring of Fire, directed by Richard W. Munchkin, who would
work with PM well before when they were with City Lights.
He worked with Joseph and Rick pretty much from the
very beginning his first credit is La Crackdown, but I

(12:53):
happen to know from the interview that him and Joseph did.
He actually goes back before that when they first started
city Lights. He works as a producer on several of
the city Lights movies and even some of the earlier
PM films Angels, The City, La Vice, Cold Fire, and
so on. So he was really entrenched with the company

(13:13):
from day one, and he directs a few of their
very well known successful ones. We've already covered Guardian Angel,
which he directed, but Out for Blood, and he does
the first two Ring of Fires, and then Deadly Bet
with Jeff Winkertt and his movie Dance or Die, which
he directed for city Lights. Just got a beautiful special

(13:35):
edition of Blu ray from terror dash Vision dot Com.

Speaker 4 (13:39):
Have you got that, Corent?

Speaker 3 (13:41):
I certainly do.

Speaker 4 (13:44):
It's beautiful.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
I got their first three city Lights, and I hope
they're doing more. I mean, I know they have the
rights to all of them, but I hope they're putting
more out. Yeah, that'd be nice, because they did Dance
or Die, they did the Newly Newly Deads, and they
did Hollowgate, so and I know they're more interested in
sort of the horror side of things, So maybe they'll
put out like Epitaph, although that might fall under vinegar

(14:05):
syndrome because they took on all the h Troma releases
and Tromer released Epitaph.

Speaker 4 (14:11):
To begin with. But there's the Killing Game, Fresh Kill.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
There's a couple of other kind of horror adjacent city
Lights they could put out. I'd like to see them
put out all of the city Lights films, to be.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
Honest, But yeah, that'd be great.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
We'll wait and see, We'll wait and see. But yeah,
so Richard W. Munchkin in Trench from the beginning with
the companies. An interesting thing came up when I interviewed
Michael Wirth is that he in nineteen ninety five, Richard
Munchkin goes off and makes a movie that he produces
and directs with a different company called Fists of Iron.

(14:44):
And if you've ever looked at the cast and crew
list of Fists of Our, it's like ninety nine percent
PM entertainment people. Michael Wur, Sam Jones, Batias Hughes, Eric Lee, Marshall, Tigue,
Charles T. K Ganis Art Camarcho, Michael Delano, like all
these guys had worked with them, but even behind the scenes,

(15:07):
Louis Favorite does the composing Garrett Griffin as a cinematographer,
and I believe Garrett did a couple of the PM films,
so he really cherry pecks a bunch of PM guys
and goes off and makes his own movie. The interesting
thing about that. The only reason why I bring it
up is Michael Worth indicated because after he did the
three movies with PM, I said, oh, you know, normally,

(15:28):
if you're interested to do more movies, like Don Wilson,
who we're going to talk about in a minute, Joseph
and Rick are very open to, like, keep putting you
in films. I mean, Gary Daniels did twelve movies with them,
and Don Wilson I think did about eight or nine
and so on. And he said, yeah, I think Fists
of Iron kind of annoyed Joe and Reck a little bit.
They were like, why are you not doing it with us?

(15:48):
Why are you doing it somewhere else. I didn't get
any more than that from the interview. But the reason
why I bring it up is Richard Munchkin does a
ton with the company right up until nineteen nine when
Fitsirvin comes out and then doesn't work with them again
except on their TV shows Hollywood Safari and La Heat,

(16:09):
which they kind of brought everyone back for those anyway,
Like everyone directs an episode and everyone's in an episode
of those films. So interesting. Look, I'm not trying to
like start gossip or anything, but if you look at
Richard W. Munchkins's career, it's very interesting that right up
until ninety five is PM all the way, and then

(16:29):
there's this little bit of a little bit of a
slamming on of the brakes. But this is his second
movie that he directs. His first film with them is
as I said, Dance or Die. It's the first PM
one that he directs, and he would go on to
do as I say, Deadly, bat Out for Blood, Rain,
and Fire to Guardian Angel for them, all of which

(16:52):
are great movies and could well make a top ten
list of anybody's PM entertainment films. Okay, well, this is

(17:20):
obviously more of a romantic movie than it is necessarily
an action packed PM extravaganza that we're used to.

Speaker 4 (17:26):
But here we go.

Speaker 2 (17:28):
We have a kickboxing fight featuring kicks, punches, headbutts, and
even one of the fighters strangling the referee, multiple crotuitous
Gary Daniels doing the splits. Another kickboxing fight, gratuitous racist cup.
Yet another kickboxing fight, this time intercut with a gratuitous
oiled up sex scene. Playful brotherly martial arts scraped by
a swimming pool, openly urinating on your enemies foot chase,

(17:49):
four on one fight, gratuitous mask ball in which almost
nobody is wearing a mask, groturitis, getting to Know You
montage three on one fight, Chinatown gang fight, training in
tai Chi mon more brotherly spirring, but more intense now
ring of fire, fight preparation intercup with sex scene, violent
fight with glass on their fists, ending in the death
of Don's brother. Final fight with Don Wilson kicks, blocks, punches,

(18:12):
broken stall over back two against one, throwing the guy
out of the ring. He comes back in with a
gatana sword and because she gets in the way, slices
his sister's stomach. The fight ends, and then shortly after
so does the movie. So not a lot of stunts
or explosions or anything that we're used to necessarily, However,
a ton of fighting, lots and lots and lots of

(18:34):
fights in this movie. If you like fights with kicks
and punches and all that good stuff. Oh throughout the film.
But Corey, why don't we delve in then Ring of
Fire Talkers?

Speaker 4 (18:45):
Through it?

Speaker 2 (18:46):
There is West Side Story, Tromeo and Juliet and Ring
of Fire.

Speaker 4 (18:52):
Why am I mentioning those other movies? Corey?

Speaker 5 (18:53):
Let us know, because plot wise, that's exactly what you're getting.

Speaker 3 (18:58):
Don Wilson plays Johnny Wu.

Speaker 5 (19:00):
He's a was he was he was a nurse practitioner,
wasn't quite a doctor or something like that.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yeah, he says he's a wait, he's a doctor at
the beginning, and then later on, when pressed about it,
I think he says he's an intern intern.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
Yes, that's it. Yeah, that was it.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
So does that mean he's not a real doctor like
I mean, because the next two movies he's still a
doctor and he's still working in the hospital.

Speaker 4 (19:23):
So I don't know.

Speaker 3 (19:24):
Start out with it.

Speaker 5 (19:25):
You can start out with it's almost two separate stories
in a way. You've got the love story between you know,
Maria Ford and Don Wilson, and then you got the
rival gangs, you know, headed by it would be Johnny
Wu's cousin played by Stephen Vincent Lee, and his group,
and then there's Dale Jacobi and Vince Verdaco.

Speaker 3 (19:48):
They got their own group, and it's that's.

Speaker 5 (19:51):
Got the whole you know, play the race card quite
a bit, you know, the white guys against the the
Asian gang and uh yeah, I mean that's the story
in a nutshell is you know, the two love birds
are kind of torn apart by the two gangs because

(20:11):
reaf Ford is actually Vince Verdako's girlfriend.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
And Dale Jacobi's sister sister sister yep, and Vince yeah,
Vince Modocca's fiance and Deal Jacoby's sister. So she is
you know, she's embedded with the Caucasian Fight gang in
two ways. And Don is once none of it. Donn
is a doctor. He doesn't fight. I mean, he practices

(20:38):
tai chi in various other martial arts, and you know,
his his big brother kind of teases him, but he's
always trying to get him to to fight, and because
I think he knows how good Donna is, and Don's like, look,
just let me be a doctor. Let me hang out
at my mom's Chinese restaurant. That's all I want to do.
I want to make googly eyes at Maria forward and

(21:01):
who wouldn't with her big blonde eighties hair and her
thick eyeliner. She's very she's very pale. I think the
blond hair kind of bleaches her out a little bit.
I think in the sequel when she's got dark hair,
it's a little better, but she's very pale in this film.

Speaker 3 (21:21):
She is She is always enjoy to watch.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
Yeah, always a joy to watch. You know, we've got
the Michael Delano who I was just doing. You know,
I used to I do some social media posts and
for the PM Entertainment podcast, and one thread of social
media posts I do is sort of the guys behind PM.
And then I do like the PM All Stars, who
are you know? You're Don Wilson's you, Tracy Lord's people

(21:45):
like that. And then I started one with Robert Miano
from a Guardian Angel and a bunch of other movies,
the sort of character actors like the PM Entertainment Players
kind of thing. And Robert Miano, who's in about eight
or nine different things with PM Entertainment. Well, Michael Delano
no slouch at all. He's in something like ten or
twelve PM Entertainment movies. I mean he's in all three

(22:07):
Ring of Fires. It's the same character Lopez, but then
he's also in a ton of others as well, So
it's wonderful to see PEM Entertainment using these character actors.

Speaker 4 (22:17):
Again.

Speaker 5 (22:17):
Oh, definitely, Yeah, he was definitely interesting character in the film.

Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah, he's sort of the racist cop, yeah basically, but
also the racist cop who I think like throughout the
movie comes around, I.

Speaker 3 (22:32):
Think, yes, yeah, yeah, Okay.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
He's sort of the one who keeps coming up to Don,
and Don's just like, I'm a doctor. I don't know
why you keep coming to me with all this stuff
because Don's not fighting in this stuff at all, and
we do get as well. In one of his early
heavy roles, I mean I mentioned earlier that Gary Daniels
did a bunch of films for PM Entertainment. Well, Gary
really earned his leading man stripes with PM Entertainment because

(22:56):
he played a heavy in what three or four movies
before he and and even in Firepower, which I think
is like his first, he's still second fiddle.

Speaker 4 (23:06):
Yeah yeah, yeah, queen McQueen.

Speaker 2 (23:08):
So he really worked hard and worked to become the
leading man that you know, he earns rage, recoil and
riot like those absolutely definitely by putting his time in
and he's great as Bud in this movie, one of
one of the Caucasian heavies. So yeah, it starts and
there is sort of a what's funny is it's meant

(23:29):
to be this underground fight ring, but it looks I mean,
apart from the fact that there's no audience, it looks
like a professional fight ring to me.

Speaker 5 (23:36):
Oh yeah, definitely, and it's got that, you know, a
nice brightly lit's got some nice color to it, and
it's not like some dark, dingy, you know, white club
type thing.

Speaker 3 (23:45):
It's all right, Jack del.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yeah, you would expect like a spit and sawdust kind
of basement somewhere or warehouse or something like that, but no,
it's as you said, it's like a nice.

Speaker 4 (23:55):
Brightly lip fight ring.

Speaker 2 (23:57):
And we see a couple of bouts to begin the movie,
just to kind of start it off, and we see
Eric Lee, who is the fight choreographer for this movie
and had worked with Don Wilson before on one of
his Roger Corman movies. He had worked on a Future Kick,

(24:17):
and at this time Don is dancing back and forth
between Corman and PM. He does the odd one or
two with some other independent producers, but at the time
is very much Corman's guy and PM's guy. He was
making six weight movies a year without breaking a sweat.

Speaker 5 (24:36):
Oh definitely, yeah, and obviously cementing his his name, you know,
in the pantheon of action history.

Speaker 4 (24:44):
Oh, one hundred percent. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
And he'd actually worked with Maria Ford before as well.
I believe she has a part in She's in Future
Kick as well. Oh okay, yeah, yeah, so they were
all in Future Kick pretty much before Ring of Fire
came along. And in fact, Eric Lee's character Kwang, he
causes lots of problems, not least of which being drunk,

(25:06):
doing a bit of drunken Master type performance. He's a
bit like early Jackie Chan in this movie, in the
Slapstick and whatever. I have to say, though, I lose
I lose a lot of empathy with the Asian gang
in this movie, because yes, they're fighting in this underground ring,
and yes they have this rivalry, but the real problem

(25:28):
doesn't start until Eric Lee as Kwang decides.

Speaker 4 (25:31):
To urinate all over them. If he didn't.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
Urinate all over them, he wouldn't have got beaten up.
And then Stephen Vincent Lee wouldn't be like, oh, we
have to avenge Kwang or whatever, and then you know
what I mean, like.

Speaker 3 (25:44):
That's kind yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
The inciting incident. And I'm like, well, Kwang didn't need
to pee on.

Speaker 3 (25:52):
But he does nail Gary Daniels first, if I remember.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
He does he pees. I mean, Gary Daniels must have
loved that.

Speaker 4 (25:59):
Gary.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
I know you're a world renowned martial artist, but would
you mind being in this movie where Eric Lee will
piss on you from the top of a building and
carries all right, yeah, don't worry about it, whatever you need.

Speaker 6 (26:14):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (26:15):
Eric is a legend, you know, Oh he is?

Speaker 2 (26:17):
Oh yeah, Eric's absolutely fantastic and train many people and
work with al the Cascos and all sorts of people.
So uh yeah, No, is a legend in his own
right and has earned his scribes, as I say, But
his act is the inciting I mean, yes, it's the same.

Speaker 4 (26:35):
They have a rivalry.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
They are fighting in the thing there are there you know,
there is worries there between like Maria Ford is saying
to her side, you know, do you always have to
beat each other up so much? And Don is saying
on his side, like I'll patch you guys up, but like,
do you always have to beat each other up so much?

Speaker 4 (26:54):
Kind of thing?

Speaker 2 (26:54):
So these are the voices of reason in this movie,
but no, a couple of good bounds, I mean the
fight boreographies.

Speaker 4 (27:01):
Yeah, great in the film.

Speaker 2 (27:04):
I think it's it's still I think, what's interesting watching
it again? And I rewatched it today on the on
the I'd seen it recently, but I wanted to remind myself.
This was on the Blu ray, which is beautiful, by
the way, I mean the the the Blu ray from
Focus Media. It just it just gives these I was,

(27:25):
what was I watching the other night? And I was
just I watched Riot the new because I just got
knacked Terrors or whatever they've released it as, but it's Riot,
And I just watched that again the other night. And
once it once it goes into like the nighttime sequences,
once it goes into the escape from New York bit
of the of the movie essentially just looks gorgeous. I mean,

(27:47):
the colors part, the cinematography is phenomenal. The explosions against
the night sky are great. I mean, it's just these
Blu rays are just giving these movies a whole new lease.
Of Life and Ring of Fire. Ring of Fire looks great.
I think. The only thing I would say that's odd
to me is that knowing that this comes after the

(28:13):
Wings Houser movies, and I really think like the wings
Houses movies, especially The Art of Dying and Living to
Die or whatever it's called. Yeah, those two movies in particular.
And I know Wings at that point was pretty experienced
in movie making, and obviously he has Rick Peppin as
a cinematographer, and he has a good team around him
and everything like that. The only thing I feel about

(28:35):
Ring of Fire if this was one of the ones
they came out the gate with, if this was sort
of eighty nine to ninety and was sort of in
the midst of sort of the Lawrence Hilton Jacob's movies
and you know, the early films, I would cut it
more slack. I think if the Wings Houser films didn't exist,
it would be fine. I think because the wings Houser

(28:55):
films look so much more accomplished in terms of editing, cinematography,
direction than this movie does. Not that it's not not
that it's not watch but it's very watchable. It flows.
You understand what's happening. Da Da Da da da. But
it still feels more early days and more amateur than

(29:15):
the wings Houser movies. And that could be down to
as crazy as he was on set, wings Houser just
having that cinematic background where he had already been in
a ton of movies, whereas this is Munchkin's second film
as director, It's Don Wilson's fourth movie is an actor.

Speaker 4 (29:34):
You know, It's it's very early in a lot of
their careers.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
And maybe that accounts for the fact that while it's
a good movie and I would definitely give it a
strong you know, three out of five or whatever, it
doesn't have the the polish or accomplishment or even the
necessary the necessarily the editing or the pacing that movies

(29:57):
both made slightly before it and most the movies after
it will have.

Speaker 5 (30:04):
Definitely, I mean, you know, because when I had I'd
picked up the DVDs, you know, like a year or
so ago, the box set of a you know, the
first of the three films, and when I watched them
back to back, you can see how they become more polished.
And then when you hit Lions Strike, you know, it's

(30:26):
just like absolute home run.

Speaker 3 (30:28):
So you know, if we watching it by itself, I
think is a bit of a disservice to the film.

Speaker 5 (30:35):
But when you watch them as the trilogy, you do
kind of get a feeling of each one building upon
the next.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
Yeah, I mean this, look, this has Rick Peppins cinematography
as well, I think that, and there are some scenes
that really pop. And again the Blu ray does this
movie a lot of favors. Oh yeah, I just think
that I don't know quite what I'm trying to say
other than you know, because when I think back to
some of the earlier films that I've seen before this one,

(31:06):
there's either a humor to them or like a sleaziness
to them. There's something more to like enjoy in them.
I think the thing with Ring of Fire is that
it's their first tentative steps into doing a tournament movie
or sort of a fight movie in the sense of,

(31:27):
you know, that kind of film, and it's and they're
mixing it with a love story, which is always going
to be when you've got these kind of people in
these kind of filmmakers trying to accomplish something that has
genuine emotion. I'm not saying they're not capable of it.
I think they are capable of it, but I just

(31:47):
think that it's their first tensative steps in that direction
to try and tell a genuine love story. And I
think Donn and Maria are doing their you know best
to make that sing as much as possible. I just
think there's a lot of corniness to it as well,
And there's a lot of sort of and there's a

(32:08):
lot of odd decisions. There's a lot of I don't know,
there's a lot of odd decisions. There's some really sweet moments,
but there's a lot of odd decisions in the movie,
not least of which I mean the Dawn and Maria
love scene is a to be expected, but be edited
pretty nice, nicely in the way that Art of Dying

(32:29):
is where they cut between the sex and the violence
back and forth. But then that early love scene with
Dale Jacobi is it's jarring. It's weird. It's like, what's
it doing there? It doesn't have a beginning, it doesn't
really have a climax, like it's just oh, look some
boobs and then and it's sort of and I'm not

(32:50):
anti boob, but it's just the way it's placed in
the movie just throws me off a little bit.

Speaker 5 (32:55):
Yeah, and I don't know it almost I don't know,
maybe just to me, it just felt like they were
trying to grab a particular audience really, or the or
an audience I guess. Yeah, right out of the gate,
I mean, within the first ten minutes you get to
fight scenes and moobs, you know. Yeah, I mean that's
gonna be an at touching grabber, especially back you know, during

(33:18):
that direct video era when that was you know, that's
what's sold when you weren't really weren't working with any
big names, you know, Don was just starting so right.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
And again, I think I only bring up that particular
scene because it's so edited, so.

Speaker 3 (33:32):
Weird, Yes it is.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
I think why I bring that up is more to
say if it was a and again I don't need
full on love scenes in movies, but like if it
was a full on love scene that had a beginning,
middle and the end right there was like interspersed with
some sort of really choreographed fighting or something like that,
or even if it wasn't interspersed at all, even if
it was just he's having sex before a fight, you

(33:56):
know what I mean, because that's what he does. He
has sex, and then it presume that he then goes
out and goes to fight about.

Speaker 4 (34:03):
Right the next thing we see him doing.

Speaker 2 (34:06):
If it's meant to be like, don't have sex before
a fight or you know, oh, this guy is so
good that he can have sex before a fight and
still go out and win or whatever, Like if there
was a story hooked to it, and if it was
a full scene rather than just you know, a weird
couple of clips, and then yeah, I just think it

(34:28):
would have more impact. And I just think it's it's
a I only bring that up because it's one of
the moments where I'm like a little confused. I'm also
confused in the peeing scene because while I understand that
there is that gang and we've already met Eric Lee
as Kwang earlier doing his drunken master bit in the ring,
I don't know where they are. I don't know what

(34:49):
they're doing. I don't know why he's running around on
top of that building. I don't know why he urinates
on them. It just do you know what I mean.
It's just it's sort of a scene and you just
kind of go, okay, you know, you just kind of
go with it.

Speaker 4 (35:03):
I don't think PM at.

Speaker 2 (35:04):
This point had learned to because this scenes like that
throughout PM's the legacy. In fact, I was just watching
right the other day and there's that whole bit with
the kids and the cooking the pizza with the box
still on it in the other Yeah, what's this got
to do with anything? But because the kids then talk
about their mother not coming home yet and Gary knows

(35:26):
there's riots going on and blah blah blah blah blah.
At least, do you know, I mean, it's at least
thread within the fabric of the story. They're trying to
tell some of the scenes early on in Ring of Fire.
I'm just like, this isn't to do with the fighting,
and this isn't to do with the burgeoning love affairs.

Speaker 4 (35:43):
So do you know what I mean? I don't know.
Oh yeah, they're still fighting my feet.

Speaker 5 (35:48):
I guess there's a few moments, you know, I don't
want to jump jump ahead. I felt I thought the
ending felt weird to me, and uh right, yeah it
seened you And you know, the sex seed the first
sex scene was weird.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
I mean there was a few just like a few
moments like scattered throughout.

Speaker 5 (36:03):
It was like almost like they were I don't know,
padding the run time at points when they didn't really
need to, but.

Speaker 2 (36:09):
Right, yeah, I mean again, yeah, this could have been
you know, just the eighty minute quickie. They've done stuff
like that before without necessarily having to pad it out.
Of course, that could have been you know, George Samir.
I don't know how you pronounced his last name, but George,
who was their sales operative basically PM Entertainments sales operative,

(36:32):
might have said we need ninety minutes or we need whatever.
In fact, this is one hour forty and it could
have just been you know, eighty minutes and make it
nice and quick, you know, and that that might have
helped a little bit. I think that the weirdly enough,
especially this watch around, I do get invested in the
love story even though they have even though their initial

(36:54):
attraction is very like I think even the soundtrack goes
like Bubba b whenever, the like, there's something on the
soundtrack that just immediately indicates like, oh, love at first sight.
But I think once they're allowed to kind of like
get more into the flirtation and there's been a couple
of montages and whatever, I get invested in it.

Speaker 3 (37:18):
Yeah, it's cute.

Speaker 5 (37:19):
You know, it's a up until the sex scene, it
seems like it's harmless, almost you know, teen romance at points,
and and they you know, even she kind of felt
like she was a teenager, you know, kind of like
the way she was balancing between the two guys and
making these like young decisions, you know, being rash about

(37:42):
certain things. And but there's just like some cute moments
between the two of them that I actually appreciated.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
I did not think I would.

Speaker 4 (37:50):
Oh, definitely.

Speaker 2 (37:51):
I mean, let's say nothing for Don's ethics as a doctor.
The fact when his mother tells Maria Ford to go
find him at the hospital, it's no more than thirty
seconds and Donna's got her top off, which I'm like,
even as a flirtation, this is this is potentially one

(38:12):
step too far. But she's game, so it's fine. She
does consent. It's not like it's not like he for
forces it. But I don't know, I can't imagine getting
away with that technique even if I was a doctor nope, nope,
or wanting to, I would not.

Speaker 4 (38:31):
I would not want to.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
So that's a little lod I mean, they kind of
what that's her their second flirty scene. They have the
scene in the restaurant and then she comes look. Well, no,
they have the scene the restaurant, and then he goes
to the closed store or whatever where she's trying on
the clothes and declares his love for her through the

(38:55):
dressing room curtain.

Speaker 3 (38:58):
Yeah, the old lady.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
The old lady is mistaken. Nice bit of comedic business
there by the old lady. Then he she comes to
the restaurant I think after that and sees his mum,
and his mom says, try the hospital. I don't know
why the mom's being or cagy, just tell him where
he is. She's like, maybe you need to go to
the hospital, maybe you're not feeling well. And I'm like,
just tell him he's a doc, tell him he's a top.

(39:23):
And then yeah, she goes to the hospital and within
five minutes he's like, so take your top off. But
it's fine, it's fine, But no.

Speaker 4 (39:34):
I like that.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
I like the little fortune cookie message that she kind
of carries around with her as sort of a totem
to their attraction. The other thing, like the thing that
I probably would have liked to have seen more of,
that I think is really effective in the funeral scene
where they're all wearing white as opposed to yes, the
western Western version of having a black funeral. I would

(39:58):
have liked to have seen those scenes because ultimately that's
the scene where she goes, I really am out of
my depth here. I don't know how to fit in.
I don't know enough about Asian culture. I don't know
how you know, he's trying to be part of American culture.

Speaker 4 (40:14):
She wants to be part of Asian culture.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
He still has a lot of Asian culture to his
daily life, whether it's his mum's restaurant, whether it's the
way they have funerals or family gatherings or whatever it is.
And I think I would have liked he. I know
he teaches her a little tai chi on the beach,
and that's a nice scene. It would have been good,
I think to have had more of that cultural exchange,

(40:38):
just so that because I love I think that scene
where she looks at the funeral and then looks at
Vince Madoco and kind of goes, I love him, but
I'm out of my depth here, like I don't I
don't know that I'll ever be accepted. And is any
love worth a fight to simply be accepted. She recognizes

(40:59):
that to be truly a couple, it's not just the
two of them that have to it. And it's really
effective that scene, and I would have liked to have
seen more of that.

Speaker 5 (41:10):
And Maria does a really great job of you really
get the sense that she feels out of place, just
like some of the looks on her face. And she
did a really great job in that scene. And that
was probably one of these strongest scenes as far as
acting goes for everyone.

Speaker 3 (41:28):
It was really really well done seen.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
Yeah, yeah, I just I think to really get across,
you know, because they kind of do the sort of
East meets West conflict in the movie is very blunt, right,
It's basically like, we've got a racist camp, but we've
got a bunch of racist Caucasians who will do martial arts,
which I love the sort of dichotomy and the hypocrisy

(41:51):
of that which still exists today.

Speaker 4 (41:54):
So I don't know why I'm surprised.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
But the idea that they're like, yeah, we want to
do martial arts, but we Asians, what kind of one
without the other man? Sorry, but you know, that's that's
a little weird. That's a little like post Vietnam stuff,
which I think is a little clunky. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (42:14):
Yeah, it kind of comes from I don't know where
were a little bit, but yeah, it just kind of
almost felt a little a little bit forced maybe.

Speaker 2 (42:22):
Yeah, because I mean, look, I don't know, I didn't
live in America in the in the eighties and nineties,
and obviously there's there's always been racism.

Speaker 4 (42:29):
I'm not saying that there was a.

Speaker 2 (42:31):
Racism, But were the kids of the nineties, I mean probably,
But were the kids in the nineties really still living
in the shadow of now I'm like that probably because
their parents would have been right.

Speaker 5 (42:41):
So yeah, I mean my only you know, the only
reason I was so interested in Vietnam was because of film. Yeah,
That's what it came down to, and is the reason
that I started reading books and you know, about the
war and you know, actual history books was because of
movies like Platoon, because of First Blood.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
Right.

Speaker 5 (43:02):
It was during that mid to early eighties when those
the whole slew of films came out. I mean it
was huge, really, I mean, people just really like lashed
onto those for a long period of time.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
Yeah. I think it's really interesting, more than any other
war that when you know, obviously you'll know this better
than I did. But more than any other war, it
was the one where the veterans came home and felt,
you know, completely unloved by the hippies and then the
post Hippie seventies era that sort of condemned the war,

(43:38):
but along with it condemned the veterans, which since Vietnam,
America learned such a lesson that since Vietnam, the veterans
can't even be called out at all, even if they
are you know, assholes are are happily fighting on a
I think it's only Bill Hicks and the history of
American culture since Vietnam that called out some of the

(44:00):
veterans during Desert Desert Storm and various others for basically
just you know, going out there and just blowing people
up from many, many miles away rather than anyway. But
all I mean about Vietnam, what's so interesting about it
is that the moment there is a reaction to the
veterans being so attacked and put upon and disrespected and

(44:23):
disvalued and so on post Vietnam is that art culture,
movies TV sort of wildly overcompensate to the point where
there are not overcompetent. They just wildly compensate. I guess
to the point where there isn't a movie or TV
show to some extent that comes out between nineteen seventy

(44:43):
five and nineteen ninety that doesn't mention it in some way.
I mean, I grew up watching The eighteen and the
eight Team are Vietnam Vets, and not only are they
Vietnam Vets, but apparently Vietnam told them how to build
all sorts of stuff, and they're skilled in all sorts
of things, you know, which is you know a lot
of the movies that we love, the eighties and nineties

(45:06):
action movies that we love, where Vietnam vet is sort
of a shorthand to being an incredibly skilled person. The
irony of that is most of the people who were
sent off to Vietnam were people who were conscripted and had.

Speaker 4 (45:21):
Very little skill at all.

Speaker 2 (45:22):
Right, But it's but we overcompensated, right, we over compensated.
I think once once, once First Blood came out, I
think everyone was like, oh shit, we better better make
these guys heroes in our in our art, even if
not now. Yeah, so yeah, I think it's I suppose, yeah,
I mean early nineties. Yeah, it's only fifteen years from

(45:43):
the end of the war, So I mean that makes
sense that you would still have like parents who were
but you know, would they I don't know, just the
kids in this just being so like ignorant towards misunderstanding
Vietnamese and and misunderstand you know. I mean, Okay, based

(46:03):
on based on what was seeing now, it's probably not
a stretch, but I don't know. When I watched the movie,
it's it seems heavy handed and clunky.

Speaker 5 (46:15):
Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of little flunky moments and
Ring a Fire, but it has I don't know, there's
there's something about it that I still endeared by. I
guess because I'm pretty sure Ring a Fire was my

(46:36):
introduction to Don Wilson. I'm pretty sure that's the first
one that I seen, and I even remember, within weeks
of seeing it for the first time as a teenager,
I wrote like a four or five page sequel.

Speaker 3 (46:52):
I wish I still had it, but I don't. But
I it was kind of a mashup.

Speaker 5 (46:57):
Between the story from the love story from Ring of
Fire and uh best of the best. Yeah, so I
tried putting you know, like you know, Don Wilson's character
was fighting the guy and had the opportunity to kill him,
and then it turns into this hole, you know, just

(47:18):
like the end of the Best of the Best, you know,
and he kind of has the opportunity to take out
Dahan and he realizes as I kind of tried incorporating
that into my Ring of Fire story, but yeah, it was.
I mean, the movie had an impact on me, obviously
if I wrote a story.

Speaker 4 (47:35):
Oh and I.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
Think there are there are two things that I think
are very bold about the movie, and I think we
should give major credit to pay M Entertainment for this.
One is that you know, you have the eleven time
world champion kickbox You have star of Bloodfest that had
already been a huge success for Roger Coleman and had

(47:58):
already been got I think one or two sequels before that. No,
he was filming Part three with Rich Gradty, the Prison one,
when he got the call to do this one as well,
I think. So I don't know whether Part three came
out before this, but they come out around the around
the same time, and so he was already, you know,
a burgeoning film star, obviously obviously a world champion kickboxer,

(48:21):
to do a movie where really, Don doesn't I mean,
apart from his brother in a playfight and apart from
a bit of tai chi on the beach, really doesn't
fight anyone until sort of the third act.

Speaker 3 (48:34):
Right.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
That's that's some confidence, you know what I mean. That's
some pretty much like, Hey, we got him, but we're
gonna tease him and we're going to keep him till
the end.

Speaker 4 (48:45):
You know, that's the big deal.

Speaker 3 (48:47):
I hate to say it, but I think that pissed
a lot of people off.

Speaker 4 (48:50):
Probably.

Speaker 5 (48:51):
I was kind of going through some of the user
reviews on IMDb, and they were not kind of the movie,
And the biggest complaint was always Don Wilson doesn't fight
until the end, right, But they don't. I mean, I
guess not everybody is like me or you who appreciates
the fact that we get like Dale Jacobi, Stephen Vincent, Lee,

(49:14):
Gary Daniels, Eric Ly and all these fight scenes leading
up to it. I mean, the kind of all stars
in my eyes anyway, So I had no complaints whatsoever.

Speaker 3 (49:23):
That Don didn't fight until the end.

Speaker 5 (49:25):
It was kind of like a like the building, the anticipation,
you knew it was gonna come, right you know, so
that I mean I understood it.

Speaker 3 (49:32):
The smart move. You know, you kind of like, oh, yeah,
what's he gonna do it? That's there, it is, you know.

Speaker 2 (49:37):
Yeah, No, I don't mind it at all. As let's say,
you get plenty of fights, whether it's the bounce in
the ring, whether it's the fights and the or the
beatings that they do out on the street. You get
a big gang fight at one point where they they
kind of tear uput China town and stuff. Yeah, so yeah,
I'm not I'm not missing the action. And also I

(49:59):
think the other thing for us and certainly for me though,
is that while I love action, I love fights, I
love Donna, I love all all the stuff that we
love about PM and eighties and nineties action movies in general.

Speaker 4 (50:14):
Just like I was talking about.

Speaker 2 (50:15):
Earlier with sort of the seventies, you know, black actor
films that came out. They they weren't always like big
action films. They weren't always big sci fi films or
westerns or horror films or whatever. Sometimes they try to
tell like a dramatic story or a story with a meaning,

(50:37):
or a story with a message or whatever. And if
it's done well and the pace is kept up and
there's a little bit of excitement in between. I quite
respect that PM are going no, no, no, We're going
to this is going to be Romeo and Romeo and Juliet,
and we're you know, Donna's going to play this, you know, emotionally,
and Maria Ford's going to play this emotionally, and you

(50:59):
know it's and yeah, it's gonna be cheesy and people
can laugh at it whatever.

Speaker 4 (51:02):
But I'd rather look at it seriously.

Speaker 2 (51:05):
I'd rather watch it as like a movie I like,
rather than just saying it's it's a cheese fust or whatever.
And I think that the fact that they stick to that,
and also for all the racism that's in the movie,
from the bad guys to the good guys. The other
thing that PM Entertainment does, the other bold move they do,

(51:27):
is they give an Asian actor a romantic lead in
a film. There aren't many at this time made within
America that will have an Asian actor in the role,
especially in a especially in a lead, especially in a
hero role, and thirdly in a romantic role. And again

(51:52):
it is a big testament to Don as well that
Don never wanted to do what a lot of other
Asian American actors did. He never did the voice. He
always played himself as and he's an American, he's an Asian,
he was, you know, an Asian American, he was raised
here and so on. So he doesn't you know, Pat

(52:14):
Merita famously, you know, Pat Merita doesn't talk like he
talks in the Karate. But you know, he's playing the
stereotypical kind of wise, old, you know, Asian sage kind
of character. And that's fine. He made good money doing
it whatever, it was his choice. But I always, I
always thought and was always impressed by darn in the

(52:35):
same way that I am about Fred Williamson or you know,
any of those actors that we were talking about earlier.
They never played the stereotype. They always played the character.
And I think that that's refreshing in eighties and nineties
action films.

Speaker 3 (52:51):
Oh absolutely definitely.

Speaker 2 (52:54):
So I give PM big kudos for that as well.
Sure done.

Speaker 5 (53:00):
You know, he just had like this charm he always,
you know, whatever movie it was, he was just like
this really charming guy, you know, a little bit playful
and then obviously you know, a badass. You know, you
don't want to message the guy but he doesn't.

Speaker 3 (53:19):
He doesn't look like a badass necessarily.

Speaker 5 (53:23):
He seems like a you know, your average He looks
like your average guy, like he could be the guy
next door. And then once he rips that shirt off,
chiseled and you know, ready to rip.

Speaker 2 (53:34):
But well that was always that was always the funny thing.
And I think he would say this about someone like
a Van Dam or whatever is that having all those muscles,
you know, when Van Dam would like bulk himself up
so he could play in the same arena as Schwarzenegger
and Stallone and others who were sort of bulking up
in those eighties. Because my movies, it doesn't make you

(53:55):
a better fighter. That's not that's not why. But like
you say, Dom does his shirtless scene, and every movie
he has to do a shirt to see that, every
movie has to tear his shirt off and fight with someone. Yeah,
he's a badass man. He's a bad Eleven eleven time
world champion. That's forty seven wins, most of which are knockouts.
Like it's not it's not that he has wins where

(54:15):
where like they just went the rounds and then like
he won, like he knocked people out, multiple people the
man's a badass for real, you know, trained with Chuck Norris.

Speaker 5 (54:27):
It was kind of cool watching the Blu ray, the
Focus Media one where they has that little.

Speaker 2 (54:33):
Uh yeah yeah, yeah, there's like an n ring bolt
between him and Gary Daniels.

Speaker 3 (54:40):
Yes, you know Expedition fight. Yeah, it's pretty fun to watch.

Speaker 5 (54:44):
You get to see i mean, you know how they
are on screen, but then you get to see in
the ring because how their style is different, you know,
from screen fighting to actual you know, competitive kickboxing.

Speaker 3 (54:57):
So it was it was cool to watch.

Speaker 2 (54:59):
Oh yeah, no, it's it's fantastic and no again, I mean, look,
everyone needs to go and pick up the Focused Media
Blu rays. They either Focused Media website will now ship
them to the US, which is great because right now
brother Belile who dot com who did have the first
batch of them, has now sold out and I don't

(55:19):
see them getting anymore. But there is also a German
company on eBay that is selling them for about similar
price point, sort of the thirty five dollars price point,
and we'll ship within a few days on eBay. So
the Ring of Fire not only got released individually as
Blu rays, but also got a really nice padded media

(55:42):
book with brand new art and a fourth disc that
has Don Wilson fights and training videos and stuff on them.
So that trilogy box that I believe is still.

Speaker 3 (55:52):
Available, Yeah, it's the one that I have.

Speaker 2 (55:55):
Yeah, and it's beautiful, really beautiful, nice booklet in the
middle of it, which you can read with a Google
Translate or any translate on your phone, and really well
written booklets and stuff like that. So ring a fire,
let's go through that, Corey, what are some of your
favorite scenes, standout scenes, best moments.

Speaker 5 (56:13):
Well, I'm gonna have to start out and say Eric
Lee is the MVP of this movie.

Speaker 1 (56:21):
He is.

Speaker 3 (56:22):
He's absolutely hilarious.

Speaker 5 (56:25):
You know, he's obviously the comic relief and it only
builds up more into the second film, but he's he's
really funny here. He has my favorite line in the movie,
you know, during the fight scene, his first fight, when
he talks about I had some of Bruce Lee's favorite drink.
That was really funny, and obviously being on Gary Daniels and.

Speaker 3 (56:49):
But he was just a really fun addition to the movie.
And I've always liked Eric Lee.

Speaker 5 (56:55):
And and actually this is a little bit of a
side note, and Eric Lee. When I did my book
signing in Burbank, I found out that my book signing
was being catered, which I knew nothing about, and.

Speaker 3 (57:09):
Who was catering it.

Speaker 5 (57:11):
Erically, he brought homemade Chinese That is fantastic.

Speaker 4 (57:17):
I didn't know that that's fantastic.

Speaker 5 (57:19):
I was just and they said, you know what, you know,
Eric Lee's bringing food, and I'm just like, I'm not
even putting two and two together. And then you know,
he shows up and introduces himself and I'm like, wait
a minute, you're Eric Lee. And he's like, yeah, can
I get my picture taken with you? I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, hey,
I think get my picture taken with you?

Speaker 4 (57:37):
Right.

Speaker 1 (57:38):
No.

Speaker 4 (57:38):
He's fantastic. What a career.

Speaker 2 (57:40):
He's had just so many great movies that he's been
involved in.

Speaker 3 (57:44):
Oh yeah, yeah for sure.

Speaker 5 (57:46):
So any scene with Eric Lee, I always put a
smile on my face and I I don't know, maybe
I'm in the minority.

Speaker 3 (57:55):
Here, but I actually really enjoyed this.

Speaker 5 (57:59):
The scene with uh when Don and Maria first meet
in the Chinese restaurant. I like the playfulness of that scene,
you know, kind of you know, Don being coy and
kind of not saying anything in her trying to you know.

Speaker 3 (58:14):
Interpret it because he doesn't understand English, she thinks. And
it was a really fun scene.

Speaker 5 (58:20):
It was cute, and I kind of liked how that
kind of set up the way, at least the first
part of the relationship, you know, the dating was this
little fun banter and I like.

Speaker 4 (58:31):
That, Oh yeah, that's that's I love the scene.

Speaker 2 (58:34):
And then I love that later he's sitting in the
kitchen eating his noodles and looking out into the restaurant
when all the you know, the idiots show up and
he watches open the fortune cookie and it's just a
really sweet little back and forth between the kitchen and

(58:54):
the you know, it's again it's one of those scenes
where it's like that's really well edited and really directed
and really what And then there are other scenes where
you're just.

Speaker 4 (59:03):
Like who.

Speaker 3 (59:06):
Who was?

Speaker 2 (59:06):
Who was? Who was you know behind the camera for
this bit, And and Rick Peppin does do some additional
He does the cinematography on this, and he does some
additional directions, so maybe some of the standout scenes were
like it was Peppin rather than Munchkin.

Speaker 4 (59:22):
I mean, I love Munchkin, but you know.

Speaker 3 (59:24):
Oh, yeah, definitely a possibility.

Speaker 4 (59:26):
It was only his second film, so I'm not blaming muchkin,
I'm just.

Speaker 5 (59:29):
Oh no, no, he's still learning the learning the ropes,
trying to find his voice, I guess.

Speaker 4 (59:33):
Yeah, yeah, and and he does.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
I mean, apph Blood it is fantastic, and Ring too,
and some of the others he doesn't great.

Speaker 3 (59:39):
That may have been my favorite.

Speaker 5 (59:42):
One of my second second favorite Wilson p M film
would be Alpha Blood.

Speaker 4 (59:48):
Yeah, but it's it's Don's personal favorite.

Speaker 5 (59:51):
Yeah, it's great mood, I mean, and the fight scenes
are all, you know, all fun.

Speaker 3 (59:57):
I guess.

Speaker 5 (59:57):
Probably my my favorite sequence as action goes would probably
be the actual fight in the Ring of Fire, which
I was hoping would have involved on but it was
that was That's kind of like where the the playfulness
of the movie kind of takes a back seat after

(01:00:18):
that sequence. I think the tone of the movie changes
a bit after that scene.

Speaker 3 (01:00:23):
And uh, I, I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:00:25):
I liked how that worked out, and it kind of
made me a little bit more invested, I guess in
the characters when I well, you know, at first, I
was kind of you know, yeah, you know, just playful,
funny movie. You know, the little, you know, the relationship stuff,
school and all. But then that's when there's like some
sort of a weight shift and there's more at stake

(01:00:46):
in this rivalry is isn't just you know, it's taking
that next step, and that I liked, but I don't
like the way it's handled later shortly after by like
Jacoby's character, there was some weird interactions.

Speaker 3 (01:01:06):
I thought there too. Now that I'm thinking about it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
I almost wish that the whole movie, you know, considering
it's meant to be an underground fight ring right, was
in the Ring of Fire, like the Ring of Fire
was the fight ring right, Yes, you know what I mean,
and that that was throughout the movie. I suppose it's
hard then to do the scenes in the dressing rooms

(01:01:31):
and some of the other scenes that they do, because
you buy the big theater with the fight ring in
it having dressing rooms, you don't buy a sort of
dirt ring of fire somewhere in wherever they are having
places that they could then go and you know, lace
up there, you know what, a boots or whatever, get

(01:01:53):
into costume whatever. But I think you could have worked
around that. I think I think it would have been
grittier film and possibly sell the Romeo and Juliet love
story almost even better if their world was a little grittier.
Their world is almost too clean for a lot of

(01:02:16):
the movie.

Speaker 3 (01:02:18):
That's pretty much what I was trying to get to.

Speaker 5 (01:02:21):
But uh yeah, I mean it was there, but it
wasn't there.

Speaker 3 (01:02:26):
I guess, yeah, the way I felt anyways.

Speaker 4 (01:02:30):
I mean, Ring of Fire is a nice catchy title.

Speaker 2 (01:02:32):
You know, absolutely it's it makes no sense part two
or three, but it's I mean three often goes by
line strike.

Speaker 4 (01:02:42):
I mean, you know it's right.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
Yeah, it's not always called Ring Ring of Fire three,
but no, I feel like that could have been a
good change. I think PM Entertainment, certainly the earlier ones
are always better when they're shooting at night. There's just
a more kind of drama to it, and the more
sort of especially with a going off and the dirt
in the air, and you know, they really could have

(01:03:04):
grimed it up a bit and sleezed it up a bit.
I think that's where the wings Houser movies from this
same period sell themselves better, is because they're grimy and
sleezy and and and grindhousey.

Speaker 1 (01:03:18):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
One of my favorite very early ones is Shotgun, which
is just you know, has vast ways of it that
are just like dirty and grime you want to take
a shower after watching it kind of thing. And I
like those kind of grind Like if PM's going to
start off being a bit grindhouseye, I'm all for that.
I just think that, you know, they went a little

(01:03:38):
soaproper with some of the because they were like, well,
it's a love story, so we've kind of kind of
used these sort of pinks and reds and and you know,
yellows and light colors and have it shot in the
daytime and whatever, and I'm like, no, stick to.

Speaker 4 (01:03:53):
The PM grime.

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
You could have really told like a interesting Romeo and
Julie's Julian story amongst the cd LA streets if they
had gone that way, you know, right right, and then
maybe the montage that they have where like they're up
at Griffith Park Observatory or down on Venice Beach or whatever,
that might have stood out more because it would be

(01:04:16):
like the one daytime sequence in anotherwise, oh yeah, gritty nighttime.

(01:04:40):
All right, So here is the moment you've probably all
been waiting for. It is the first of our interviews
with Don the Dragon Wilson. When I spoke to Don,
we did a fairly long career encompassing interview where he
spoke not just about PM films, but about Roger Corman
and various other things, and spoke specifically about his PM

(01:05:02):
films one at a time. So I will sort of
be breaking that interview up into several pieces over all
the different episodes where we will no doubt cover Don's films.
This is the first twenty minutes of that conversation that
kind of covers his start in the business has felt
work with Roger Corman and coming on board to PM

(01:05:24):
and doing Ring of Fire. That is where that interview ends.
And then you will hear me speaking with director of
Ring of Fire, Richard W. Munchkin, again a section of
an interview I did where I talked to Richard about
a lot of his work with PM, but I've narrowed
it down to just the Ring of Fire stuff for
this particular episode. So enjoy those interviews that are now

(01:05:49):
coming on the show, and don't forget Please please please
rate and review us, rate and review us, rate and reviewers,
rate and reviewers. It really really really helps, especially on
Apple podcasts. The more review you can write an Apple Podcasts,
the better it is for the show. It is a free,
easy way for everyone listening to support us is to
go and write a review or rate the show wherever

(01:06:12):
that is possible. Thanks again all the best and enjoy
this interview with Don the Dragon Wilson, followed up by
a conversation with director Richard W.

Speaker 4 (01:06:21):
Munchkin. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:06:23):
When I first decided to do a PM entertainment podcast,
I hadn't thought anything other than I better nailed down
the name and the Facebook page and the Instagram page.
That's all I wanted. I wanted to make sure that
the PM Entertainment podcast was mine and no one else
was going to take it. I hadn't had the Facebook
page up, I don't think more than a few days,

(01:06:44):
and I certainly wasn't telling her about it. I just
created the page and you shared it on your Facebook saying, oh,
it looks like there's.

Speaker 4 (01:06:52):
A PM entertainment podcast coming soon.

Speaker 1 (01:06:55):
Yea.

Speaker 2 (01:06:57):
By sharing the PM entament podcast on Facebook, not only
did your post get sort of obviously hundreds of lights
and things like that, but suddenly the page got in
a huge influx of followers and people asking questions and.

Speaker 4 (01:07:12):
Things like that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:13):
And yeah, so you were working with Roger initially, as
you've done the first couple of Blood First films, and
then you start with PM with Ring a Fire and
you do a trilogy of Ring of Fire films with them.
So was it was it from those initial releases with
Roger that you that you came on PM's radar or
did you reach out to them?

Speaker 7 (01:07:34):
Now what happened was I had a personal manager and
he's the one I was doing it a week called
for Prison, but the three Fight, I was on the
prison set and I get a message and they say, Willson,
your personal manager's coming here with a couple of producers
and they want to may deal with you during lunch
and I could get yeah, doctor on the sets. So

(01:07:55):
they come and we have lunch and they tell me
they got at low budget movie, never made a martial movie.
It's gonna be I believe it was a twelve day shoot,
and would I do it? And so I looked at
my personal manswer and I said, well, so it's gonna
He's not season very good, and you know it could
it could be a bad thing for my career at

(01:08:16):
this point, I'm just starting out, and he said, look, god,
I've already got clear to them we will co produce,
which means we will be in control of casting. And
you know they picked the director of they didn't pick
a director, but the fight action. You know, I'd have
my own choreographer. We'd shoot the fight action ourselves and
ed it. So he said, by being a co producer

(01:08:40):
and having the creative controls, you can keep the quality
up to the level that I wanted. I didn't want
to do Rogers movies so that, like I said, were
released by MTM and then drop way down because PM
at that time they weren't making very good.

Speaker 1 (01:08:54):
Into a film. I mean their films certainly, you know
everybody there's a learning curtain.

Speaker 7 (01:08:58):
They shot way up and they did a great job,
maybe a great job for me and many many movies combined.

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
At that time they weren't. But I was confident that as.

Speaker 7 (01:09:07):
A co producer and having control over the script and basically.

Speaker 1 (01:09:11):
Every creative aspect of the movies. I even had.

Speaker 7 (01:09:13):
Creative control over the posters of movies. So you know,
I started doing that earlier in my career. On my
third movie was Roger Corman.

Speaker 1 (01:09:22):
I started.

Speaker 7 (01:09:23):
We would call co producers people put the money. I
wouldn't put a penny in the movie, but I would
have what they call mutual approval over every aspect of film,
the casting, the director, the editing. I got to a
point one time where I literally told them I don't
know who did is that he did a poster of.

Speaker 1 (01:09:42):
One of my movies.

Speaker 7 (01:09:43):
I didn't like it, and so I came in the
very next poster and told and gave them some misconstruction
and said, here, let me ask you this.

Speaker 1 (01:09:52):
If you think that's a good idea, well, I end up.

Speaker 7 (01:09:55):
Starting over thirty films and all that were profitable, but
I have three or four really successful direct video movies.
And then one of the producers the great idea to
not put my picture on the box, have a generic
looking person, shadowy.

Speaker 2 (01:10:15):
And not and.

Speaker 1 (01:10:19):
It was called man hunt.

Speaker 4 (01:10:21):
Oh okay, yeah, it was one of.

Speaker 1 (01:10:23):
The blood fists, but it was yes, you could have
a blood fist. Look. I told him, we're.

Speaker 7 (01:10:28):
Supposed to copy the studios. Now the studios have a
star in every movie. And then that starts Tom Cruise,
not that I'm Tom Cruise, but in the video market,
the people renting me they're reading against them. They see
my face that you know it's gonna be martalt action,
and so there's a certain level of quality.

Speaker 1 (01:10:42):
Well if they don't see my name. What it was.

Speaker 7 (01:10:44):
It was during the time when O. J. Simpsons was
on the news of time, you know, the trial was
going on. So what they did is they got a
black model to just have this image so you could
tell it's a black man. And that was the cover
of the original movie.

Speaker 2 (01:10:56):
But like Mad Hunt is like Pot six or Pod
seven or something, blood fists, I don't know, something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:11:01):
I speak of seventh.

Speaker 7 (01:11:02):
But the thing is Manhunt is you know all the
blood is I'm a different character each one one.

Speaker 1 (01:11:08):
Roger, these are real sequels. He goes, Now, no, they're
not there, but this means it's a martial art movie.

Speaker 7 (01:11:13):
Donald's star. Yeah, everything else. He said, I was in
prison one time. I you know, a repole man in
one of them.

Speaker 2 (01:11:23):
Anyway, So with Ring of Fire for PM Entertainment, what's
what's great about that first movie, I think is that
and what surprised me when I sort of went back
and rewatched it because they're they're bringing these blu rays
out in Switzerland.

Speaker 1 (01:11:36):
Yeah, I'm shocked by the quality of it looks better
than I've ever seen.

Speaker 2 (01:11:39):
It looks amazing. And when I rewatched Bring of Fire,
the first one recently, I was surprised at just what
a like a romantic story it is.

Speaker 1 (01:11:49):
It hitched it to me like this. I only have
one fight scene.

Speaker 2 (01:11:51):
Yeah, that's the very end.

Speaker 7 (01:11:53):
I fight, but it's not like fight, fight, fight all.
But there are fights in there, but other people. And yeah,
for me as an actor, it was is a love
story the original which is a game take from because
it's a classic piece of literature, Rubo and Juliet. The
two people love each other, but their families are literally

(01:12:14):
a war story.

Speaker 2 (01:12:15):
Of Yeah, it's like the martial arts West Side Story,
which is the musical Romeo and Juliet.

Speaker 4 (01:12:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:12:23):
Yeah, And I've heard you know, I've heard you talk before,
especially about being an Asian American actor but always wanting
to play, you know, an American character, not not playing
as other actors had, you know, Asian characters with an
accent or something.

Speaker 1 (01:12:41):
Right.

Speaker 7 (01:12:41):
Well, it's not because I didn't want to, because of course,
many Asian actors you can't say chance not popular or
gently or Chalian, fat or any it's not it was
a career move as far as oh I could do
better or make more money speaking English, it was.

Speaker 1 (01:13:00):
I don't believe. I don't.

Speaker 7 (01:13:02):
I have never looked at myself as an actor, and
I didn't want to do it. All the other actors
would do this. If somebody asked you to do a
thick Japanese accent, you get a dialogue, get a dialogue coach,
and he works with you and you and then you
do the thick accent. But I could have done a
movie with Wesley Schneiss and Sean Connery, an a list movie,
had been a major actor in it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:22):
If I would do that, And I said, no, I'm
not going to do that.

Speaker 7 (01:13:24):
I didn't come to hold out, no desire to be
to do or Japanese accenter, whatever, because I wanted to
Japanese accent. Yeah, the studio away to two weeks. I
was in Europe when they offered me the part. And
then when I got back and I looked at it
and I talked to them, they said, this has to
be done in a Japanese back then, and I said,
I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:13:43):
Do that right.

Speaker 2 (01:13:44):
And then the reason why I bring it up is
that in the early nineties, it's actually pretty revolutionary to
have a movie like Ring a Fire where you are Asian.

Speaker 7 (01:13:54):
Americana say that I didn't notice it at the time,
but the Asians say, well, when did this with an
Asian guy? He's the girl, you know, romantically basically to
be a bad guy, but you you're not.

Speaker 1 (01:14:07):
Normally the Asian is the bad guy.

Speaker 2 (01:14:10):
But I was going to say, when it came to
Ring of Fire and you're looking at this script, was
that you know because you said, obviously the initial offer
was that it was a very low budget production and
you weren't sure about Joe and Rick as producers and
so on and so forth. Was there something in that?
And the reason why I brought it up was was
was there something in that idea that you not only

(01:14:31):
got to act more than maybe you were getting to
act in the Corman films initially because they were mainly
action films, but also that there was a romantic aspect
to it.

Speaker 7 (01:14:42):
Yes, the set that came to to talk to me,
I was doing a prison movie.

Speaker 1 (01:14:47):
Yeah, John, there was not a girl in the movie.
There was a reporter, but there's no love.

Speaker 7 (01:14:50):
Interesting, there are no women in prison, So well, you're
doing a prison movie and you're every day you're look,
I'm in those celts for twelve hours of day.

Speaker 1 (01:15:00):
We're just doing scenes in and it's a depressing place
to be.

Speaker 7 (01:15:04):
And just the offer of I said, you mean, I
don't know what to fight to get very of the movie.

Speaker 1 (01:15:11):
You fight, but for the rest of the movie is
a love story.

Speaker 7 (01:15:15):
And I said, yeah, my manager he said we could
keep quality.

Speaker 1 (01:15:20):
I mean, I believe the quality. You know.

Speaker 7 (01:15:22):
You know, as a matter of fact, PM Enginer end
up being a very very good company, and I'm proud
of every movie I made with them. They they did more,
They were more than I expected, the way they did
the music, the post production. Yeah, Joe and Rick turned
out to be great filmmakers.

Speaker 4 (01:15:39):
You know.

Speaker 7 (01:15:39):
George Shawn may he was not a producer, but he
was a distributor. But but anyway, it was two guys,
Rick Pepin Joseph Merye the creative producers, and they did
a great job of them. I have regrets Joe, Joe
didn't direct me in a movie. But you know, I'm
still breathing and Joe's still alive, and we still may

(01:15:59):
do movie together.

Speaker 2 (01:16:01):
Yeah, And but as you say, Ring of Fire considering
it falls very early. You know, it's ninety one, so
they've been PM Entertainment for about two years at that
point in nineteen ninety one. It's it's one of the
ones I think that stepped their game. It was one
of the first where they kind of stepped their game
up another level.

Speaker 1 (01:16:20):
Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah. They made a lot of money on
that movie Black Roger Corman. I think they thought it
was a one off type like it was what they
call it fluke, right.

Speaker 7 (01:16:29):
Yeah, Roger couldn't believe, so he didn't let this too
the same way. He sold it, pre sold it to MGF.
But it made millions of dollars and he was making
them for I believe one point five. So on my
third movie was Roger he said, don I'm gonna do
something i've ever done.

Speaker 1 (01:16:47):
I'm gonna sell on my own DYO. I'm not gonna
let somebody else.

Speaker 7 (01:16:50):
To studt you. I'm gonna start a distribution company. And
he said, you're gonna do the first movie it's called
Future King, and he's not gonna do another one. If
it makes money, I'll have a video company distribution. And
of course it did make money. Did you Gid and
Roger had his company right up until you know, the

(01:17:11):
end of the video market. He still had a company
that would face twenty movies in a year.

Speaker 2 (01:17:17):
Yeah, when you got Ring of Fire and then obviously
the sequels and things. You were going back and forth
at that point between Coleman.

Speaker 1 (01:17:24):
And for Roger and one for PM.

Speaker 2 (01:17:27):
Right, and were both Pazzi's cool with that?

Speaker 4 (01:17:30):
That was fine?

Speaker 2 (01:17:31):
Did they kind of know each other or listen.

Speaker 1 (01:17:33):
Here's the way they saw it.

Speaker 7 (01:17:35):
I believe Roger liked it in the sense that PM
cyber Tracker with the bigges budget movie I'd done up
to that time, but PM put more money into the movie,
So why would Roger not like that? Do you know
what I mean? The deals I did with Roger? I
would sign at the beginning of the year. I would
sign three movies for Roger and three movies for PM.

(01:17:59):
So now I already there's no auditioning for movies, and
nobody in Hollywood does their career that way.

Speaker 1 (01:18:06):
You know.

Speaker 7 (01:18:06):
I had friends of mine, very experienced friends in the
film is Chris Penn with my best friend? Yeah, they say, well,
how husbands everything go? With the mars Art movies, I said, why,
I signed six movies for this year. They go six
for one year. I said, yeah, now I'm gonna do
six this year. I signed three and three for Roger.
They go, nobody does their career, nobody signed. You don't
mean to have scripts. I said, no, we don't have
scripts or budgets or co stars. I said, I signed

(01:18:31):
multi picture, Dyos and uh PM and they didn't restrict me,
like if I wanted to do a movie with Let's
say I did some other movies for other producers you know,
are just single one off. And Roger just asked me
if I would just show him the contracts before I
signed the first one.

Speaker 1 (01:18:49):
It was an Indonesian company and there was a lot
of money. It was a lot of money their own.

Speaker 7 (01:18:56):
And so Roger looks at it because don I'm gonna
give you my advices, you can give them. Gives you
one said, my advice is to pass on this film,
and he was They offered me three hundred sixty dollars
to do a movie and it takes like a month,
so that's not a bad payday for one month. And
writer said, this movie, they're gonna pay you your money
to your money, but they're gonna put no money in

(01:19:16):
the stars freaking with you. No money in the post production. No, no,
you know, the script is not that good. In other words,
they're gonna make a poor quality product, which he said,
hurts what I'm trying to do with you. I'm trying
to keep the level of product to a certain level
to keep your the same income coming in off your videos.

(01:19:37):
I thought about it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:37):
I said, you know, this.

Speaker 7 (01:19:39):
First time advised me. I said, this guy's producer over
three hundred films.

Speaker 1 (01:19:42):
You know he did.

Speaker 7 (01:19:43):
I don't know how many he ended up before he got,
but here's the hundreds of I said, you know what,
I don't think it's bad by you know, he's probably right.
That doesn't seem to be a good script. And I'm
shooting in Indoonesia.

Speaker 1 (01:19:55):
Of all places. So I passed on it.

Speaker 7 (01:19:57):
And it was the best decision I could have done,
because I saw other actors who just went for the
money and they would make a good movie and it
could be popular and they'd have a little bit of
nain credibility and then to blow it all in the
next couple of movies because they got.

Speaker 1 (01:20:11):
Offered big cash to be in them.

Speaker 7 (01:20:13):
And Chris Penn, one of his advices at this time,
don't sign. Don't get excited because the price tag is big.
They're gonna pay you a lot of money.

Speaker 1 (01:20:22):
I said, why.

Speaker 7 (01:20:23):
He explained me to because if they had Mark Sportsac
directing it, and they had some you.

Speaker 1 (01:20:28):
Know, great writer, they had a great co stars, they
went offer you a dime. The better the better the movie,
the less they have to offer any actors because they
all wanted to line up.

Speaker 7 (01:20:38):
And be in the movie. If it's a movie that
has nothing else in it but you, and you're gonna
get your money. And nobody's saying they're not gonna gonna
stiff me, and they're not gonna put the much money
in the rest of the movie.

Speaker 1 (01:20:49):
They're not. They don't have it.

Speaker 7 (01:20:51):
And that's why in the very beginning of the the
movies you never saw me and Sipia works film. Now
we had the same agent and we're very good friends
because we both had amounts of money that film companies
couldn't afford. Both of us in one room moved. I
have a lot of coincidence with Bruce Lee, first of all,
but this is one of them. We both fought the
same comic book character. Now that's pretty bizarre right. He

(01:21:12):
thought with Robin, and I thought Robin. He's known as
a little dragon. I'm known as a dead dragon. He's
right handed, but fight falt Paul, which is left handed,
and I'm right handed.

Speaker 1 (01:21:21):
Fight south fall.

Speaker 7 (01:21:21):
His favorite technique was a sidekick. My favorite technique was
a psychic. He's part you know, he's not one hundred
percent eight. His mother was half and half. She was
half British. I believe he's an Asian.

Speaker 1 (01:21:31):
Now I'm a nick.

Speaker 7 (01:21:32):
There's just many, many questions. Here's one bizarre one. I
read his book, which was co written by his wife
and him. But they had a favorite TV show that
they would watch in college. He'd rush home from classes
to see this show. It was General Hospital. When I
moved to La, the very first job I got was
on General Hospital. I worked there in the bad to

(01:21:53):
Asian bad gats three months. But here's the kid here
of a coincident. This is where like guys like elon Musday,
we're probably living in a simulation. This is probably a
computer program made alien rais and they're just enjoying themselves.
Kind of your eye, our lives, our reality is their entertainment.
Because brutally all his life. He wanted to have his

(01:22:15):
own film company, and when he got to the point
he had done entered the drag and everything, started his
own company and he named it.

Speaker 1 (01:22:22):
He died doing the film for Game Death, but he
named it Concord.

Speaker 7 (01:22:28):
Now Roger Corman who starred me in my first film,
the name of his company was Concord, except spelled with
an E at the end. Brutally Spilt is without the E.
But that is a bizarre coincidence. David Kearney, David Charity
and I got not friends, we know each other. So
we're signing autographs together somewhere, I think it was New

(01:22:50):
York and he goes, God, you know I've done more
movies than the other actor, Proger Forman.

Speaker 1 (01:22:55):
I go, jam, how red mean he's done? He said seven.

Speaker 7 (01:23:00):
Twelve, So I'm pretty sure I did started more movies
for Roger than Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:23:06):
I was looking up because I thought maybe you'd done
the same for PM, because you'd done I think you
did eight with them. But then Gary Daniels, because Gary
Daniels did a couple of like very small bad guy
parts in like two or three before he got the
lead in a PM. Gary Daniels ended up doing twelve,
but I think three of them or four of them

(01:23:29):
are very early roles where he's just I mean he's
in Ring of Fire for five minutes.

Speaker 4 (01:23:35):
I think, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:23:38):
And I ended up passing him to be the bad
guy in my next movie, which was like this four Yes,
guy trying, Yes, we have come out quite Yes. Gary
had the great book.

Speaker 2 (01:23:47):
Yeah and so so Gary did more PM films than you.
But you started as a lead the first PM film
you did. You didn't have to come. He didn't do
a bit.

Speaker 4 (01:23:58):
Yes, you were a lead straight away.

Speaker 2 (01:24:00):
So in Wing of Fire you were saying earlier about
how as a producer you got to kind of have
a little insight into the character. Yeah, so talk about
forming your chemistry with your leading lady than Maria Ford
and and bringing her into I had known her before.

Speaker 1 (01:24:16):
I knew her from Cormanck. She had already worked with
Roger Corman.

Speaker 7 (01:24:19):
As a matter of fact, we had done a movie together.
She actually, uh, she had a role, but she didn't
have any dialogue. She was dancing, and the bad guy
is a murders women and he ended up murdering Maria Ford.
So that was okay, real first movie or me and
earlier we didn't have scenes together.

Speaker 2 (01:24:36):
It's just what movie was that done?

Speaker 1 (01:24:39):
Future kid?

Speaker 7 (01:24:40):
She's in that and she gets killed, and I think
she did a great job what she was supposed to be,
you know, kind of a young attractive girl movie with.

Speaker 2 (01:24:51):
A big success for them as someone who had been
used to being sort of the action star and now
sort of having a little bit of romantic scene to
play and things. Was there anything she taught you having
been an actor in those kind of scenes before?

Speaker 1 (01:25:07):
Was there?

Speaker 2 (01:25:08):
Did you do any acting courses with the other people
that you spoke to a lent on to learn about
chemistry and playing romantic pots and things like that.

Speaker 1 (01:25:17):
I later or not. I took acting classes on the
first to LA and that was nineteen eighty five.

Speaker 7 (01:25:23):
From nineteen eighty five to relieve GID around nineteen ninety, Yeah, fire,
I had been taking acting lessons and acting because in
eighty eight I started real movie I started, but eighty
eight by then, yeah, because I did take actings and
not just.

Speaker 1 (01:25:41):
One class I took.

Speaker 7 (01:25:42):
Different acting can be compared to karate martial arts because
there's different styles. Different styles has come through. There's karate,
the tekwando, there's jiu jitsu. There there are many styles
of Marshall Fish styles of acting. I learned that that
that some instructors are like to do things away, and
so I had gotten a little bit of experience over

(01:26:04):
the years that I was out here. You know, I
started in eighty five, I said to be an actor,
and I guess I did a priory.

Speaker 4 (01:26:13):
Now'll let you know this done.

Speaker 2 (01:26:14):
I'm not kidding you. We've had Sinceia on the podcast.
We have Joe and Rick on the podcast. We've had
on the podcast, We've had speak with jeff' speakman on
the podcast. We had all sorts of people on the
on the podcast so far. And every time I put
an interview out every time, it doesn't matter who it
is that it could be, as I said, it could
be Cynthia, Jeff Speakman, it could be the lead of
the movie, it could be the producer whatever. Someone always

(01:26:36):
says on Facebook, They're like, great, when are you going
to interview Don Wilson. So what's what's amazing is that
we've managed to do it. You and I have sort
of been friends on enough on Facebook for years anyway,
So I always sort of thought in the back of
my mind Donald probably do it again, which is great,
and thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:26:54):
Yeah, I'm sorry I take it so long, but do
darn you know we got it. We finally got it
worked out.

Speaker 2 (01:26:59):
Oh yeah, no, definitely, definitely, And thank you for persevering
my pleasure.

Speaker 1 (01:27:03):
There's no actor anywhere can't use more.

Speaker 2 (01:27:08):
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being the first
guy to promote the pm M sertainment podcast that helped
me get get it started. That meant so much to
me and it really means a lot that you did
this interview, and thank you for your time today. So
once Joseph and Rick FM pm you obviously moved over
there with them and you made a number of their
most popular titles for them, starting with the Don Wilson

(01:27:31):
starring ring of Fire. Can you talk to me about
how that movie came about because it's sort of West
Side Story with roundhouse kicks?

Speaker 4 (01:27:38):
Am I correcting that?

Speaker 2 (01:27:39):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (01:27:40):
Yeah, that's it's West Side Story, except instead of the
dancers when they kick, they hit somebody in the face.

Speaker 1 (01:27:47):
Right.

Speaker 6 (01:27:48):
So, so the way it came about was Joe called
me in for a meeting and he said, now this
is in December, okay, and he said, we want to
Sho movie in February, and it's going to be a
kickboxing movie. We had never done a kickboxing movie, so
this was going to be new and we want you

(01:28:10):
to direct it, and but we want to do it
in February, you know, can you do it? And I said, well, yeah,
I'd love to. Can I see the script? And Joe
said yes, right after you write it. And so I
was planning to go home to Chicago for the Christmas holidays.
I called my brother and I said, rent every kickboxing

(01:28:32):
movie you can find. We need to write a kickboxing
script during the two weeks while I'm there. And I think,
rather than try to reinvent the wheel, we should just
take something that we know already works. So let's do
Romeo and Juliet with kickboxing. And so that's what we did.
And I had never seen a kickboxing movie before this.

(01:28:56):
But so while I was back there, we wrote the
script in December. We shot it in February, and screened
it in July.

Speaker 2 (01:29:04):
Fantastic.

Speaker 6 (01:29:06):
It was a very fast process.

Speaker 2 (01:29:08):
Yeah, and Don Wilson had already made a couple of
bloodfist movies, obviously with Roger Coleman, so I suppose he
was pretty used to the sort of budgets and ideas
that PM worked with. Could you talk about working with
Don Wilson the first time you worked with him, because
you made several pictures with him in the end, what
he brings to a movie and if any of the
sort of hacks that he used with Coleman kind of

(01:29:29):
made their way into the way you ended up making
Ring of Fire.

Speaker 6 (01:29:32):
Well, first of all, he was great to work with,
I mean, just so professional and yeah, just a great
guy to work with. And yes, he had made the
Bloodfist movies with Corman and they had done well, and
that's exactly why PM wanted him, right and they signed
him to a three picture deal, I believe, and I

(01:29:54):
believe he felt after Ring of Fire that he was
making better movies at PM than he was with Corman.
The one thing that I thought was funny that came
from Corman was he had a Corman put a stipulation
in his contract that he had to be shirtless in

(01:30:15):
I don't at least X number of scenes, and that
carried over to PM. And it was really funny because
there was always the discussion, all right, now, how are
we going to get Don's shirt off? Right, and you'll
notice he'll get into fights with people and somehow grads
will grab him and rip his shirt off, you know,

(01:30:38):
And he physically changed his body because as a fighter,
he you know, he was much leaner as a fighter,
and so he kind of bulked up and became more
ripped for the movies he was doing so and Don
said that that that slowed him, slowed him down. It

(01:30:59):
didn't help. It actually hindered to be bumped up. And
you have to make weight, you know, so that's an
issue too.

Speaker 2 (01:31:08):
Yeah, And obviously Ring of Fire also contains smallish role
with Gary Daniels, who would often would obviously go on
to get his own career leading man career with PM Entertainment.
Who broke Gary on it? Was he already sort of
within the PM mix at that point?

Speaker 1 (01:31:24):
No, No, he was not.

Speaker 6 (01:31:25):
In fact, I believe he got his SAG card on
that movie. And I don't remember if he had this
amazing photo that you know, actors submit their head shots,
but he also had this photo of him doing this
one hundred and eighty degrees splits and between two logs

(01:31:49):
or something like that, and you know, he just had
a great look. Maybe he came from Don I don't
really remember, but I just thought, Wow, he's got a
fantastic body. He's a great martial artist. He's a good
looking guy.

Speaker 2 (01:32:06):
You know, he's sort of the British Vandamn in a way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no,
that's fine. And obviously, you know, Kickboxer and those kind
of No Retreat, No Surrender was sort of the movies
that I'm sure inspired Joseph and Rick to want to
go down the route of making Ring of Fire.

Speaker 6 (01:32:25):
Oh yeah, Blood Fist and yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:32:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:32:31):
Maria Ford, who's the co star in the movie, she
had madely worked in horror and dance before this. Did
you come across her in your dance career or talk
about casting and working with her?

Speaker 6 (01:32:45):
Joseph found her. He saw her in a Corman film
and said, you know, you should, you should see this girl.
You should audition her. And so she came in and
gave a really terrific audition. So, yeah, Joseph found her.

Speaker 4 (01:33:02):
They're both great.

Speaker 2 (01:33:03):
They have great chemistry in the in the film. Considering
you know, I don't think either of them were necessarily
used to being the romantic, sort of the softer, more
emotional romantic leads, but you, I think, considering you know,
he's a fighter, and it's the movie is obviously sold

(01:33:23):
on sort of the fighting aspect of it and the
either whether it's in the ring or in the actual
ring of fire.

Speaker 4 (01:33:30):
At the end of the movie.

Speaker 2 (01:33:31):
You were quite brave, I think, to have so many
scenes where they are, you know, vulnerable, emotional and genuinely romantic.
It felt to me like you were trying to really
tell the romantic story as much as you were the
fight sequences.

Speaker 3 (01:33:45):
I was.

Speaker 6 (01:33:46):
And again, you know, when you're writing a script, you
sort of you know you were. And if I could
go direct anything right now, it would be a romantic comedy,
you know.

Speaker 2 (01:33:58):
And so that's more you'll take.

Speaker 6 (01:34:00):
Yeah, that's yeah, yeah, absolutely, and and so and that
is what really drew Don to the script was the
fact that, I mean, it was unheard of to have
an Asian leading man and he ends up with a

(01:34:20):
white girl. Every Asian actor in Hollywood showed up to audition,
and I was like, people that I had not called
in just all these Asian actors would show up and say,
I hear you know about this movie. I was like,
how did you hear about this? And one of the
guys said, every Asian actor in town knows about this movie.

Speaker 2 (01:34:44):
Yeah, well he was unheard of. What do we think

(01:35:13):
about the masquerade ball? What do we think about that? Interesting?

Speaker 5 (01:35:17):
I think Vince Vernaco just came in second as one
of the greatest martial arts dancers, right behind Van Dam.

Speaker 4 (01:35:26):
Yeah right.

Speaker 2 (01:35:27):
Definitely a lot of kids in ninety one having masquerade
bulls in a gymnasium somewhere, are they?

Speaker 5 (01:35:35):
I wish I would have known that, because I think
I feel like I missed out on something right.

Speaker 2 (01:35:41):
Also, hardly anyone is wearing a mask. I mean everyone's
dressed up, but hardly anyone is wearing a mask. I
feel like they've missed the only Dawn understands the point
of a masquerade ball. Clearly, he's the only classically trained
guy who understands about mask balls, I guess, But I
mean it's a It's a fun sequence because obviously you

(01:36:03):
know him and Maria get the moment and then the
the It introduces him as a threat to Jacobe and madoncco,
but also a lot of stuff to put together. Well,
we haven't ask every boy I was gonna be in costumes.
We're gonna have streamers, and lights and music and everything
like that. It seems like an expensive scene for PM
entertainment when they could have probably done something else. But

(01:36:27):
because I don't know how much it maybe it was
Munchkin who was like, well, I'm known as the dance
or die guy.

Speaker 4 (01:36:33):
We should put a dance in this.

Speaker 2 (01:36:35):
Say anything else, Corey about the movie that you really
am passionate about.

Speaker 4 (01:36:42):
All that you were critical about.

Speaker 5 (01:36:45):
I my, you know, I have my little gripes, but overall,
I just didn't like how roughly it ended, right. I mean,
it kind of seemed like there should have been maybe
one more sequence after that or something, because it seemed
like they were setting up something else to happen and
then he just carries.

Speaker 3 (01:37:06):
Her off and it's over, and yeah, it felt awkward
to me.

Speaker 2 (01:37:13):
I don't know whether I would enjoy the movie as
much if if there was a Romeo and Juliet ending
and they both died. But you could have had I mean, yeah,
I don't know, because there is there's that nice moment
where he's carrying her out of the ring and he's
almost taller and higher than everyone else.

Speaker 4 (01:37:30):
He's like walking out on this platform.

Speaker 2 (01:37:32):
Yeah, and there's definitely like this momentum building and it's
almost like he's finally solved you know, race relations in
Los Angeles or whatever, and everyone's gonna be like, well, shit,
we can't play with Katanas anymore because we keep we
cut our sister in half or whatever, but or almost
cut our sister in half.

Speaker 4 (01:37:52):
But then you're right.

Speaker 2 (01:37:53):
It just they hold on that for so long that
you think, oh, this must be going somewhere right right,
and then it ends, and you almost you almost want
what you want, and it would be very cheesy, but
what you want is Jacobi to come up to Don
and like shake his hat, like what this is?

Speaker 4 (01:38:15):
How you end it?

Speaker 1 (01:38:16):
You?

Speaker 2 (01:38:16):
You have her in the hospital. He rushes her into
the hospital. He's a doctor. He saves her life whatever
it is, stitches her up. She's all in recovery in
the room. You see her brother by the window. Don
comes through the swinging doors, see he sees the brother

(01:38:37):
is finally realized what he's done and that she but
that she's gonna be okay. And then the brother finally
turns to Don and says, all right, I get it,
thank you, Welcome to the family or something, you know, whatever,
some cheesy or you know handshake or right, because.

Speaker 5 (01:38:56):
The girls absolutely that would have been the perfect end,
you know, or maybe like a like a Schwarzenegger and
Carl Weathers, you know, right, yeah, yeah, just like that
one something just to just need it a little bit
something feel more complete, I guess, a perfect ending.

Speaker 2 (01:39:16):
Yeah, even if you didn't want to pay for a
big hospital ending, you could literally have Don carry Maria
out of the ring, have Vince Madoco and Dale Jacobe
get back in the ring and say, from this moment on,
there'll be no more you know, rivalry between our two
gangs or whatever, like let us fight together or what

(01:39:38):
I don't know, like some you could even have him
say something in the ring that would have at least
given because the closure you don't get is between the
two gangs. You get, right, you know that Donna Marie
are going to end up together and that's fine, and
you know that he's gonna stitch her up because he
winks at her.

Speaker 4 (01:39:55):
You know, he's like put pressure on it. He winks
on her.

Speaker 2 (01:39:58):
That indicates he's gonna, you know, help her, and she's
gonna be okay, she's gonna live.

Speaker 4 (01:40:03):
But you need Dale Jacoby to be like I no
longer hate the Asians.

Speaker 2 (01:40:08):
You know, you need it. I no longer want to
fight my brother, you know what I mean, Like he
there's gonna be that thing that I'm lacking.

Speaker 5 (01:40:16):
Yeah, because I mean it was just kind of you know,
she gets hurt immediately, you know, everyone stops what they're doing.
You see everyone shocked, and then Don sends them off
to get bandages or get help or whatever, and then
he just picks her up and then it's over. I
just felt like something should have happened there. That was
let's say, that's my biggest ripe as far as the

(01:40:36):
ending goes.

Speaker 2 (01:40:37):
Right right, because I mean, at this point, yes, he
beat him in a fight, but at this point Jacoby
has killed Don's brother and sliced the love of his
life's stomach oping. There's gotta be a resolution there, and
there is no resolution now. If the resolution happened in

(01:40:58):
Ring of Fire too, fine, But Ringing Fire Too is
a completely different story.

Speaker 3 (01:41:03):
That's true.

Speaker 4 (01:41:06):
The Maria Ford's still in but mm hmm, it's just
did Kobe come back in that one? Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:41:12):
I'm trying to remember the no Fords in it. I
feel like he is. I know, Eric Lee isn't it.

Speaker 2 (01:41:19):
He is Jacobe, isn't it so? And as as is
Vince Modocco. Okay, So I I just watched these earlier
in the year when the Blu Ray came out, and
it's surprising to me that I don't remember. So, I mean,
I know she gets kidnapped and you know whatever, But
but yeah, I clearly need to go back and watch
the second one as well. I mean, it's it's a

(01:41:40):
great franchise for PM. I mean, I would have absolutely,
I would have definitely watched a fourth and the fifth
and a sixth, like no problem.

Speaker 3 (01:41:48):
I agree.

Speaker 2 (01:41:49):
He was kicking out blood fists over at Roger Corman
like there was no tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (01:41:53):
So yeah, it's true.

Speaker 2 (01:41:55):
But obviously some of the stuff that Don does then
is like Magic Kid and a couple of the other
kind of family ones, right, and then Cyber Track at
one and two, which we'll have to cover at some point.

Speaker 3 (01:42:05):
And those are good movies too. I actually really like those.

Speaker 4 (01:42:08):
Yeah, really good, really good.

Speaker 2 (01:42:09):
So okay, then in terms of grading this, where do
you grade it out of.

Speaker 4 (01:42:17):
Five?

Speaker 2 (01:42:17):
And within sort of PM films, where does it full
for you? Within PM entertainment film?

Speaker 3 (01:42:21):
I would have to say it's kind of. I mean,
if we're going overall PM, it's kind of mid level PM.
I mean, I don't I like it.

Speaker 5 (01:42:30):
It's maybe a little bit above mid level I'd go,
I mean, because it's definitely not my favorite Don and
Wilson PM film, but it's definitely far better than a
lot of some of the lower tiered action movies or
heard you know, the Bighini summer movies, or you'll kind

(01:42:51):
of like the eyeball PM stuff. So I'll probably put
it maybe twenty top twenty five ish, top thirty ish,
something like that.

Speaker 4 (01:42:59):
Yeah, and I would agree with you. I mean, I
give it. I give it at what I would call
a generous three out of five.

Speaker 2 (01:43:05):
I call it a generous three out of five because
it's probably a two and a half out of five
if I'm being very strict. But there is something that
you're right, there's something charming about it. There's something that
wins me over in it. There's enough Eric Lee brilliance,
there's enough Dale Jacobe douchebaggery, there's enough you know, there's

(01:43:27):
the funeral scene. There's like enough in it that just
gives it that extra half. So it's a good three
out of five. In terms of where it falls in
my PM films, you know, it's I would say, yeah,
top thirty, somewhere in the top thirty probably makes sense.
Top thirty, top thirty five maybe, And considering they made,

(01:43:48):
you know, almost one hundred movies, that's still still in
the top third of their output that I've seen so far.
You know, I've watched about fifty five. I've watched about
half off their movies or whatever.

Speaker 5 (01:44:01):
Yeah, that's where I'm kind of teetering, you know, right
about the halfway point.

Speaker 2 (01:44:05):
Do you is there a way to rank it? Do
you think within Don Wilson movies?

Speaker 3 (01:44:09):
Oh, there's so many down Wilson movies, but.

Speaker 4 (01:44:14):
He did seventy something.

Speaker 5 (01:44:15):
I think, yeah, I would even put it in a
similar place physician as far as Don Wilson, you know,
maybe top twenty five somewhere in there.

Speaker 2 (01:44:26):
I also think we lost, you know, by by him
being so identified as an action star rightly, so, I mean,
that's that's the world he comes out of, and that's
what I do enjoy watching him. Do I do think
we also lost? And I think, you know, this is
always the short sighted this of Hollywood, because they always
just want to put people in a box and keep

(01:44:47):
them in a box. But you're right, he's so charming
and so able to handle some of the more playful scenes,
almost better than Maria Ford does to some extent that
give him three or four more either romantic leads or
comedic leads or whatever. I could see Don having a

(01:45:08):
little bit of that in the way that in the
way that Schwarzenegger did. Like Schwarzenegger could do comedy and action,
Stallone in his early days was very able to do
drama and emotion as well as the action. You know,
Stallone goes more towards the action at a certain point
in his comedic movies don't hit, but like these guys

(01:45:30):
have the chops, I think, And it's a little sad
that we don't get to see more Don Wilson movies
where he's a little bit more of the charismatic romantic lead,
because while I know he's a badass and I love
his action and fight scenes, his heroic acting or his

(01:45:51):
you know, badass acting, is almost not as strong as
his playful romantic act.

Speaker 3 (01:45:58):
Yeah, I agree with that. I would like to have
see more of that, Oh for sure, me too.

Speaker 2 (01:46:02):
But he does a great job and Maria Ford does
a great job with a with a with a gentler
role than than she's probably more you know, she's probably
more used to playing like the femme fatale or the
sexy right whatever. No, I think that's really nice. And
I think, as I said, the fact that we get
a movie in the early nineties that has a positive

(01:46:23):
portrayal of Asian culture an Asian hero that is very
rare and and you know it should be yeah, definitely
Champion more than it is.

Speaker 3 (01:46:34):
I think it's probably overlooked.

Speaker 1 (01:46:37):
Right.

Speaker 5 (01:46:38):
People don't even you know, they want to get nitpicky
about the movie itself that they kind of missed the
point of you know that you just you know, you
didn't didn't see that American films.

Speaker 3 (01:46:51):
I mean I can't even you know, I can't even
begin to think, right, you know, at least during that
time period anyways.

Speaker 2 (01:46:58):
Right, Yeah, I mean you think about it like, well,
like I said, Pat Marida and James Hang, these guys
are all playing either character parts or villain parts, or
they're not necessarily always playing like negative stereotypes or even
even positive stereotypes. They do a lot of variety, but
you know, there aren't there aren't many that are doing that,
you know, outside of like I said, actual movies made

(01:47:20):
in as like or whatever. Yeah, that's that's a different animal.
But in terms of Hollywood movies, yeah, I mean I'm
hard pressed to even rattle off ten or twelve as
actors that were in Hollywood. You know, they have anywhere
near the career of Don Wilson. So you know, fair
play there, man, I mean, he really did. He really
parlayed us into a terrific career. And if anyone listening

(01:47:40):
to this this is their first Don Wilson movie or
their first awareness of Don Wilson, I can't imagine it is.
But if that is the case, strongly recommend, Like the
first five Blood Fists are fantastic. Yes, I can strongly
recommend the Ring of Fire trilogy. Alpha Blood is great.
I even like Night Hunter. It's really good, a good

(01:48:02):
fun movie.

Speaker 4 (01:48:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:48:03):
I wish Terminal Rush with Rowdy Roddy Piper had been
a little better.

Speaker 4 (01:48:06):
I wish that.

Speaker 2 (01:48:07):
I wish they'd done more pair ups like he did
with Lang or whatever. That would have been great. And
Redemption is a good one.

Speaker 3 (01:48:15):
Red Sunrising that was another really good one.

Speaker 2 (01:48:17):
Red Sunrising Vinegars Sondrome put that out as well. That's
that's another great one. And YE would have loved like
Chris Penn's in Redemption right because they were best buds.

Speaker 4 (01:48:27):
Yep. I would have loved to have seen a few like.

Speaker 2 (01:48:29):
Why is there not five or six Buddy carp or
Buddy Criminal or Buddy whatever movies with Chris Penn and Don.

Speaker 3 (01:48:38):
Wilson, Like how opportunity right there?

Speaker 4 (01:48:41):
Yeah, I'm sure they would have loved to have made
it happen.

Speaker 3 (01:48:43):
Oh yeah, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:48:44):
And I if it would have taken a Rodriguez or
a Tarantino or someone to have highlighted people like that,
I kind of wish, you know, I kind of wish
people like that had cast Don or Cynthia or someone
in a movie that would have least got bigger attention.
You know, I already I think we've I don't know
whether we've talked about, but I've already voiced my upset

(01:49:07):
that after Expendables won, we didn't start adding for sure,
these guys to the Expendables franchise, and instead we get
a bunch of fucking no name children that have nothing
to do with anything in the second and third ones.

Speaker 4 (01:49:23):
I don't need a Hemsworth in it.

Speaker 2 (01:49:25):
You know, in the second one, we have a female
lead in the in the second one, that could have
easily been Cynthia. Didn't need to be or Michelle Ye
or someone like, you know, some kind of prominent female
action hero. Even if it was Linda Hamilton or someone
it would have been fine.

Speaker 4 (01:49:42):
But I would have.

Speaker 3 (01:49:42):
Heard that in part four they go for a Megan Fox.

Speaker 1 (01:49:45):
That was it?

Speaker 4 (01:49:46):
Oh god, yeah, what the hell?

Speaker 1 (01:49:48):
What the hell is.

Speaker 3 (01:49:51):
I mean, what, you know, she's done it, she's got
her her her market. You know, she's fine. But you
know that was a huge which missed opportunity, right.

Speaker 2 (01:50:01):
I think I think expendables half of expendables too, expendables
three and expendables.

Speaker 4 (01:50:06):
For are huge missed opportunities.

Speaker 2 (01:50:08):
Yes, I just think it's very and I think that
when there was talk about an expender Bells, I'm like, yikes, Like,
we don't need an all female expendables movie. Just put
women in with the guys.

Speaker 4 (01:50:24):
Like what the ah?

Speaker 3 (01:50:26):
Yeah, why not? We all know that somebody like Cynthia
could go toe to toe if not, you know, wipe
the floor with half of them, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:50:35):
Oh, I mean, put put her in. Put her in
a genuine fight, she'd wipe the floorist alone.

Speaker 5 (01:50:40):
But but I was kind of excited. She has a
role in its somewhat prominent film coming up here. If
I'm not mistaken, Richard Stanley's new movie.

Speaker 2 (01:50:49):
If I'm not, Yes, she's in a Richard and I
I'm interested to see how that goes. Because wasn't Stanley
like me too? Pretty badly?

Speaker 1 (01:50:59):
He was?

Speaker 3 (01:51:01):
I mean, I don't know, I mean, I don't know
the whole story.

Speaker 5 (01:51:04):
Yeah, but apparently according to him or and I think
there's another article or something that.

Speaker 3 (01:51:12):
Kind of exonerated him.

Speaker 2 (01:51:14):
Yeah, maybe, I mean whatever. I mean, everyone's got skeletons.
And I'm not listen, I'm not dismissing me too.

Speaker 4 (01:51:20):
Stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:51:21):
I'm just saying, uh, point a finger and you'll hit
someone with a horrible background. That probably made art that
we loved. And I loved Color out of Space. I
thought his love Crafty and Nick Cage movie was phenomenal.

Speaker 4 (01:51:36):
I really loved that. So yeah, Cynthia, I watch her
that Black Creek was great, love. I loved her in that.
So yeah, lots to be excited about anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:51:45):
Man, Yeah, I don't know where Yeah, I put it
put this movie in the same kind of it's it's
squarely in the middle of Don's or top third of
Don's output. I think, yeah, that question, well, well, thanks
him so much, Corey. Is that anything else you want
to say, anything else you want to touch on? And

(01:52:05):
is there anything else you want to promote? Tell people
how to find you, et cetera.

Speaker 4 (01:52:08):
Et cetera.

Speaker 5 (01:52:10):
I mean, you can find me, you know, on my name, Facebook,
on Instagram, Cory Daney, whatever. But also you can learn
more about what Real Black Renaissance is doing on their
Instagram page. You know, you can find out more about
riverbend and stuff Instagram is it's just Real Black Renaissance.

Speaker 3 (01:52:30):
And then it also, I'm not sure when it's coming out.
I believe later this year.

Speaker 5 (01:52:35):
There's a book coming out about the Monster Times. Have
you heard about the Mother?

Speaker 2 (01:52:41):
I have old I know about months time, but I
didn't know seventies zine or whatever.

Speaker 5 (01:52:46):
There's a book that's kind of taking a look back
at you know, what they'd accomplished and everything. And I
contributed some a couple of little pieces, and I did
an interview with Daniel Roebuck.

Speaker 3 (01:52:57):
For the book.

Speaker 4 (01:52:58):
Nice.

Speaker 3 (01:52:59):
So yeah, that'll be out sometime later this year.

Speaker 2 (01:53:03):
How did you not just sit there and I was
down your roadback about dudes for like forty five minutes.

Speaker 5 (01:53:10):
Well, the only reason is because I had previously, Oh,
you had Dan and I I must have interviewed Dan
at least ten to eleven times. But at this point
so we know each other relatively well. And the very
first time I interviewed him, dudes was a main part

(01:53:30):
of our conversation. And he actually asked me to send
him because I told him I had the Dude's soundtrack
and vinyl. Yeah, and he asked me to send it
to him, and he said he signed it for me,
So I did.

Speaker 4 (01:53:43):
I sent it to him.

Speaker 5 (01:53:44):
Didn't hear anything from him for six months, and then
I get a text that says good things come to
those who wait, and he sends me a picture and
it's him, John Cryer, Katherine Mary Stewart all holding up
my record and they all had signed it. Oh man,
that's a bad one of the coolest things you know,
somebody you know, I guess you know it celibate celebrity

(01:54:06):
had ever done for me. And he's he's always been
super nice like that. So yeah, I was honored. He
would talk with me again for this uh this book.
And he's like a huge Monster kid. He's a huge
fan of He was for weeks leading up to the interview,
he was sending me pictures of all his old issues

(01:54:27):
of Monster Time.

Speaker 3 (01:54:28):
So it'll be a good read when it comes out.

Speaker 2 (01:54:31):
Oh nice, excellent, and yeah you'll move your book from
Vietnam to Van Dam.

Speaker 4 (01:54:36):
Just called a German translation, right, it was just for
these things?

Speaker 5 (01:54:38):
Yes, yes, yeah, that was a I was kind of
taken aback when it was shared by Ui Bowl and
off his social media.

Speaker 3 (01:54:49):
I wasn't expecting that.

Speaker 5 (01:54:52):
Say what you will about his films or whatever, but
I I have a soft spot for that guy.

Speaker 2 (01:54:57):
Oh yeah, I listen, you know, everyone always I'm a
big States and fan, and people will always say that
his Uh Bowl movie is the worst movie ever made.
I'm like, have you actually watched it? It's a ton
of fun, it's mad as bulls, and I fucking I
just enjoy it.

Speaker 4 (01:55:14):
I just think it's it's great.

Speaker 2 (01:55:16):
Like people put this stuff down, but I'm like, this
is just fun, silly, insane filmmaking that that you would
have that cast.

Speaker 4 (01:55:25):
I mean, Burt Reynolds is in that movie.

Speaker 3 (01:55:29):
Yeah. I mean, and he got to admire guy who
just he made the movies that he wanted to make.
Yeah you don't like it? Fuck you? Yeah, it was
just it was this little attitude.

Speaker 4 (01:55:41):
Listen.

Speaker 2 (01:55:41):
I yeah, I mean, too many people wanna. I love
it when I see people go, this was the worst
movie I've ever seen. I'm like, you have not watched
enough movies.

Speaker 3 (01:55:49):
It's true, very true.

Speaker 2 (01:55:51):
You genuinely not watched enough movies. You know that the
same kind of people who will then exalt Hack Snyder's work. Anyway,
my pet peeve is Zack Snyder. But anyway, you should
get your German book or version of German book. I'll
let Cloudio or Rick at Focus Media know that the
book has been released in Germany because he can finally

(01:56:14):
read it.

Speaker 4 (01:56:14):
I mean, I'm sure he'd be.

Speaker 5 (01:56:15):
Oh, yeah, I'll have to do that, because actually I
did it. I helped put Audio in touch with Rick Nice.

Speaker 3 (01:56:23):
So they did it. They told me he finally did
his interview with him.

Speaker 2 (01:56:26):
Yeah, I've got to edit all my interviews. I have
so many interviews. I got to edit them all together
because Cloudier wants all those versions of those things as well.
I don't know what dis he'll put them on, but
I'll I've got to edit them all together, because at
the moment, I just pull out the pieces I want
sticking in the podcast and move on. But I guess
he wants me to spend hours editing.

Speaker 1 (01:56:49):
I'll do that.

Speaker 2 (01:56:50):
I'll do that for him because he's been very kind
and got me in touch with some people. I wouldn't
have got Jeff Speakman on the show without him, so
and Kathleen Kinmont think I got hold of through him
as well. And I've put him in touch with people
as well. He's I've put him in touch with a
few people as well, So it's all good man. The
PYM entertainment crowds seem like good people, so it does

(01:57:11):
definitely all right. Man. Well, look, thanks ever so much
again for being on the show. Well, thank you having
you back to talk more. Whatever you want done, trace
the Lord's whatever you want at any point, and the
best of luck with all your endeavors.

Speaker 3 (01:57:23):
Thank you, and whenever you're ready, I'm ready. So much
fun appreciated.

Speaker 1 (01:57:31):
You are now leaving the Entertainment Podcast

Speaker 5 (01:58:03):
To s

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Episode 15 - Ring of Fire

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 15 - Ring of Fire