10/10
THE BODYGUARD with naked kickboxing!
22 January 2012
Singer/stripper Delilah (Jessica Mark) is stalked by a creepy ex- mercenary (Jimmy Broome), who likes to leave severed fingers in her dressing room. Justifiably spooked, she hires private eye Brit Alwood (Charlie Spradling) for protection but that ends rather quickly when the psycho shows up in Brit's office minutes after the hiring and kills her. So it is up to Jo Alwood (Maria Ford), Brit's stepsister, to take on the job and stop this killer. Not only that, but she has to deal with sleazy mafia type and former adversary Sonny Luso (Bob McFarland), Delilah's funder who is upset she is too racy and wants her to be more "like Peggy Lee" (what!?!).

I can't believe how long this B-movie masterpiece has eluded me. I don't want to oversell it, but this is about as perfect an exploitation film as you can get with director Charles Philip Moore (DEMON WIND) cramming in everything he could. Essentially a riff on 1992's popular THE BODYGUARD (and essentially a remake of Moore's earlier BLACKBELT [1992], a BODYGUARD ripoff with Don "The Dragon" Wilson that went into production when news of Costner's vehicle hit and beat it to release by 6 months), the film ups the violence and nudity to insane levels. If a fight isn't happening on screen, most likely one of Delilah's nudity filled shows is. Moore reaches the pinnacle during a nighttime assassination attempt where Ford thwarts the goons with her kickboxing skills while clad only in a g-string. It is the type of thing you would expect from a HK production (ESCAPE FROM BROTHEL did it in 1992), but not readily seen in US stuff. The bloody shootouts (done in glorious slo-mo) also echo the HK style at the time. The production tried to get the Philippines to stand in for Hawaii but it doesn't really work.
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