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Released by: Visual Vengeance
Released on: February 25th, 2025.
Director: Tim Everitt, Thomas Sartori
Cast: Simon Rhee, Phillip Rhee, Arlene Montano, Mike Elkan, Howard Jackson
Year: 1984
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Furious – Movie Review:
Everyone knows that the best martial arts movies are made by first time directors in mid-eighties California and offer “red hot karate action!” Case in point? Tim Everitt’s 1984 action epic, Furious, which tells the story of a martial arts master named Simon (played by a real-life Simon named Simon Rhee) whose sister Lim (Arlene Montano, a former Miss Philippines!) is murdered in a cave by mystical warriors in funny fur hats, spurring him to take it upon himself to figure out what happened to her and why. This quest leads Simon out of the treehouse where he lives into the bowels of the city where, with he meets the mysterious Master Chan (Phillip Rhee), he sets out to make things right and quench his thirst for righteous vengeance.
But there’s more! Along the way, Simon uncovers a sinister plot that involves a mystical amulet that has been split into pieces, one that was worn by Kim and the other in Simon’s possession. Chan schemes to get his hands on both parts of the amulet and from there, things get weird with the fate of the world hanging in the balance! Oh, aliens too!
Shot in a week for nineteen grand without an actual script, this is a movie that offers you almost everything you could want from a Z-grade no-budget action film. There are, sadly, no naked ladies, but this is more than compensated for by the presence of a talking pig, an exploding skeleton, cleaver wielding maniac in a chef's outfit who screams in a high pitch, a levitating villain, a giant dragon's head, a Chinese restaurant where a shirtless guy practices swordplay to the delight of old ladies and children, a bad guy who laughs.... and laughs.... oh how he laughs, and a weird DEVO band periodically rocking the fuck out throughout the movie.
“Let’s see if our hocus pocus can beat this ninjutsu!”
Featuring a wonderfully bonkers narrative explained much more through visuals than through dialogue (there’s an almost shocking lack of dialogue in this movie), Furious is as fast-paced (it’s quick at only seventy-one-minutes in its running time) and action packed as it is absolutely bonkers. At the same time, the martial arts set pieces in the movie really do kick all kinds of ass. Director Tim Everitt was smart enough to let the two Rhee brothers handle all of this and they do a great job. Their martial arts credentials are one hundred percent legit and these guys absolutely knew what they were doing. After you see them strut their stuff here, you’ll understand why they went on to work on big budget Hollywood productions like 1998's Blade, 2021's The Dark Night Rises, 2013's Olympus Has Fallen, 2020's Mulan, and TV shows like Cobra Kai, Iron Fist, Daredevil, and Fear The Walking Dead to name only a few. 1997's Beverly Hills Ninja, starring the late Chris Farley, should also be mentioned. If the camerawork doesn’t always capture the action and intensity inherent in the Rhee’s performances, it’s still obvious to anyone paying attention that these guys are not to be messed with.
The plot gets thrown out the window fairly early on in the film, but it never seems to matter. Loaded with gratuitous chickens, a wholly inappropriate but somehow completely awesome score, some of the strangest characters you’ll ever see in a martial arts movie (and that’s saying something) and a completely unique mix of martial arts combat scenes and confusing elements of misguided mysticism, Furious is truly one for the books. There’s nothing else out there like this, long may it reign.
Furious – Blu-ray Review:
Visual Vengeance brings Furious to region free Blu-ray on a 50GB framed at 1.78.1 and offered up in AVC encoded 1080i high definition using a “new SD master from original tape elements.” This looks about as good as it probably can, given the source material available. The image is fairly soft and looks very much like the tape-sourced production that it is. Detail can’t rise above the source material, nor should it. That said, it’s all very watchable. The film’s wonderfully garish color scheme is replicated well and black levels are decent enough.
Furious gets an English language Dolby Digital 2.0 mix, with optional subtitles provided in English only. Audio quality is on par with the video quality in that it’s limited by the source materials but perfectly acceptable given the film’s low-fi roots. Most of the time the dialogue is perfectly audible and the movie’s surf music soundtrack sounds pretty solid. An optional French language Dolby Digital 2.0 track is also included.
An archival commentary with co-director Tim Everitt gets the extra features moving, going over the film's budget, how the magician made his way into the movie, taking advantage of the on-camera tricks that an old school magician friend of his brought to the movie, having to use all of the footage they shot since they had no money, working with the Rhee brothers, locations that were used for the film, working with Thomas Sartori, shooting the right scenes, working with local martial arts talent on the film, where some of the ideas for the movie came from, how the Rhee brothers rarely agreed on how the fight choreography should play out, casting friends in bit parts, trying to tone down some of the comedic elements in the movie, using props from the Devo-inspired band featured in the movie and the connections they had to the film, what he feels works about the movie and what he feels is "kind of lame," getting stalked in Los Angeles by a lunatic that they worked with on the film, what was planned out in advance versus made up on the fly, the post-production process, if the movie is a comedy or not, how they managed to get some helicopter shots in the film and loads more.
A second commentary features Justin Decloux of The Important Cinema Club and Peter Kuplowsky of the Toronto International Film Festival and the Laserblast Film Society. They talk about screening this movie in Toronto, why they love this movie as much as they do, the films VHS release, the location work in the film and what it brings to the production, how so many of the people involved in the movie went on to have legitimate careers in the industry, how the eccentricity of the movie is the main draw, some of the other credits that the filmmakers have under their belt, how the movie compares to films like Twin Dragon Encounter and Dragon Hunt and the work of the McNamara Brothers and other martial arts films made around the same time and other details surrounding the film and their experiences with it. There's a lot of enthusiasm here, it's infectious.
Moving along to the featurettes, we get High Kicking In Hollywood, an interview with Co-director Tom Sartori that runs fifty-three minutes. He starts by thanking everyone who has watched and enjoyed the film before then going on to discuss how he wound up meeting and then working with Tim Everitt, his background, how he got into film and television work, the film's shooting schedule, making the film on a very low budget, wanting to make a movie where they could do all of the sound in post, working with the Rhees, location work (including the treehouse which was full of ants!), shooting on an Arriflex Camera, his own cameo in the film, the use of Devo suits, shooting the fight scenes, the film's VHS release and why it took a while to come out after being finished, the use of fake names in the credits and plenty more. Lots of great stories here.
The Kung Fu Kid is a fifty-three minute interview with Co-director Tim Everitt that covers how he and Tom Sartori came to work together, where his career was at during this early period, marketing the film, different people that they worked with on the picture, making the movie without much of a script, different martial arts films that he'd seen that influenced some of the decisions making, realizing as they were putting the film together that they had a lot of explaining to do in terms of the plot which lead to the inclusion of the talking pig, the editing and post-production process, the gear that they purchased to make the movie, memories of shooting specific scenes, how much work had to go into making the movie, cutting costs wherever they could, padding out the movie with fake credits, the film's distribution history and popularity in Australia, choosing locations for the film, the disdain that a lot of people had for the movie when they first started working on it and the cult status that the film has achieved over the years.
The North American No-Budget Martial Arts Cinema Primer, a video essay by Justin Decloux that runs for twenty-one minutes and goes over the phenomena of the sub-genre and how these films compare to Hong Kong classics and the influence of the Hong Kong movies on North American productions. He then goes over a few of the zero-budget independent action films that were made without studio backing, such as The Deadly Art Of Survival, Death Promise, The Instructor, Treasure Of The Ninja, Blood And Steel, Lost Faith, the McNamara Brothers' Twin Dragon movies (these need a Blu-ray release yesterday!) and others, touting what makes them unique, interesting and worth watching.
The Rhee Brothers Career Overview is a second video essay by Decloux running ten minutes and going over the evolution of the Rhee Brothers' respective careers, how the martial arts in Furious are genuinely impressive, how they went on to make bigger movies in Hollywood, connections that they made early on that became helpful, some of their early projects including Bruce Lee Fights Back From The Grave and Silent Assassins, projects that they worked on together and solo, some of their standout work both in front of and behind the camera, the dedication that the brothers have shown throughout their career and more.
Up next is an archival Scarecrow Video Podcast with Tim Everitt from 2013 running twenty-nine-minutes. This covers a lot of the same ground that Everitt covers in his commentary and interview, going over the history of the film, his work on it, the people that he collaborated with, the circumstances surrounding the making of the movie, the use of propulsive music (stolen Soviet recordings!) throughout the film and other fun stories from throughout his time in the early days of his career.
We also get three minutes of Furious New Wave Band - Behind The Scenes Super 8 Footage, presented without sound but showing the Devo style band in action, the Scorched Earth Policy: Full Six Song EP from 1987 showcasing some of the band's work, a twenty-one minute video recording of Cinema Face live in Concert from 1986, twelve minutes of Tom Sartori 1980's Music Video Reel and a trio of Tom Sartori Super 8 Short Films - Allegiance (a seven minute piece presented without sound set during the Civil War), Bum Doubt (a twelve minute piece where a bum wakes up and tries to find a job in New York City featuring some great vintage footage of the city from back in the day) and Hong Kong Flew (a five minute short that is essentially travelogue footage showing off eighties-era Hong Kong from a street level).
Finishing up the extras are two original trailers for the feature, a Visual Vengeance trailer for Furious, menus and chapter selection options.
Visual Vengeance has also, once again, included some fun physical bonuses here as well, starting with a folded mini-poster tucked away inside the keepcase, as well as a sticker sheet of vintage VHS-style rental stickers and a throwing star keyring! The disc also comes with some nice reversible cover sleeve art featuring original VHS art on the reverse as well as, for the first pressing only, a limited-edition slipcase designed by ‘The Dude.’
Furious – The Final Word:
Furious is an absolute goddamned masterpiece of no-budget B-movie insanity. Visual Vengeance brings the movie to Blu-ray looking as good as it probably can and on a disc absolutely stacked with extras that explore the movie’s strange history. This one is just a whole lot of fun and comes highly recommended!