Brian Trenchard-Smith – 1988 – Australia
The droll king of Australian genre films, Brian
Trenchard-Smith, has a special knack for cramming so many eccentrically
miss-matched elements into his films that you can’t help but smile. He always manages to fold in a good share of
timely social commentary as well, which gives his films a satirical bite that
most mere exploitation films lack. In Day
of the Panther, bland
beefcake Edward John Stazak plays Jason Blade, a white martial-artist and government
agent working undercover as a goon for a Hong Kong
triad, but is really struggling to take down a weasely crime lord. The Blade character returned in a sequel, also
by Trenchard-Smith; 1989’s Strike of the Panther. In between all the adequately choreographed
fight sequences, we are treated to such bizarre sights as an anarchist street
gang that wears rubber Halloween masks, ridiculous Miami Vice-inspired pastel-colored men's' suits, and a hilarious
seduction in a gym in which a woman does a work-out dance routine while Blade
pumps iron and smirks.
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