Matty kicks back with one of the late, great Albert Pyun’s finest — and happiest — productions.

Although the wonderfully bonkers Knights (1993) was stricken by production difficulties and the shooting of Ravenhawk (1996) plagued by financial problems and producer interference, Albert Pyun and Kings Road Entertainment had, for the most part, a harmonious working relationship — so much so that Pyun dedicated his subsequent Filmwerks masterpiece, Mean Guns (1997), to Kings Road’s founder, Stephen J. Friedman, following the mogul’s death on 4th October 1996. All in all, Pyun assembled five films for the shingle between early 1990 — when he was hired to direct their sequel, Kickboxer 2: The Road Back (1991) — and summer ‘93. Of them, three arrived in rapid succession over a single six month period, with the May ‘93 production of Kickboxer 4: The Aggressor (1994) and July ‘93 shooting of Ravenhawk preceded by the lensing of BRAIN SMASHER…A LOVE STORY at the back end of January [1].

Tellingly, Brain Smasher was cited by Pyun as a personal favourite; a picture where he was afforded complete creative control and, alongside Dangerously Close (1986) and Mean Guns, one of the few to exhibit his vision in near totality. The film is certainly among the sorely missed auteur’s finest texts [2], and the delight he experienced throughout its making is evident on screen.

A joy to watch, this cheeky riff on John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China (1986) finds Pyun pushing the pleasure button at every opportunity, unloading the laughs and spectacle with a command emblematic of an artist operating at the peak of their powers — an especially interesting point considering the contrasting trajectories of the film’s stars, Teri Hatcher and the top-billed Andrew Dice Clay.

Indeed, for a moment, Pyun served as the middleman for a talent on their way up (Hatcher jumped straight into her breakout role in TV smash Lois & Clarke: The New Adventures of Superman after Brain Smasher wrapped) and another on their way down (Clay’s previous cinematic venture, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane (1990), flopped at the box office and a planned stand-up special was axed by ABC, leading pundits to declare the controversial comic’s career over). While Pyun never quite manages to ignite their chemistry as he should, Hatcher and Clay — as a surprisingly tenacious damsel in distress and the wise-crackin’ bouncer, the eponymous Brain Smasher, who comes to her aid — attack the helmer’s self-penned and highly quotable script with gusto. Their game turns provide robust footing for the rest of Brain Smasher’s cast — an ensemble that includes Pyun regulars and semi-regulars Brion James, Tim Thomerson, Nicholas Guest and Charles Rocket; and marks the debut of future Pyun staples Deborah Van Valkenburgh and Yuji Okumoto — to spark off, with Okumoto in particular shining as the film’s antagonist.  

Structured in line with Pyun’s oft-used journey/odyssey/chase framework (cf. Cyborg (1989), Adrenalin: Fear the Rush (1996)), Brain Smasher’s breezy, easy-to-digest plot — in which Okumoto’s gaggle of kung fu monks track fashion model Hatcher through the streets of Portland, in pursuit of a magical lotus sent to her by adventurer sister Van Valkenburgh — is bolstered by a wealth of imaginative and stylishly assembled set pieces. The music-driven break-up/brawling sequence is a resounding highlight, but it’s the silly and often deliciously strange background details (such as the surreal dance routine that occurs as Clay traverses a nightclub crowd) and the richness of Pyun stalwart George Mooradian’s sumptuous location photography — noir-ish shadows, dry ice, wet-slicked floors, bursts of neon, nighttime-Portland-as-a-dreamworld — that reward return visits.

Initially pegged for a U.S. theatrical run by Kings Road and Pyun’s Kickboxer 2 distributor, Trimark (whom Pyun hopped into bed with on Hong Kong ‘97 (1994), Spitfire (1995) and Heatseeker (1995)), Brain Smasher bypassed the big screen and premiered on tape via their home video offshoot, Vidmark, instead. It landed on 17th November 1993 — the same day Knights hit American stores via Paramount — and was issued on cassette in the U.K. by Columbia-TriStar a week later.  

USA ● 1993 ● Action, Comedy, Romance ● 88mins

Andrew Dice Clay, Teri Hatcher, Yuji Okumoto, Deborah Van Valkenburgh ● Wri./Dir. Albert Pyun

[1] The Pyun/Kings Road slate in order: Kickboxer 2; Knights; Brain Smasher; Kickboxer 4; and Ravenhawk. Incidentally, Friedman asked Pyun to tackle Kickboxer 3: The Art of War (1992) but he was busy shepherding Nemesis (1992) for Imperial Entertainment. Pyun’s uber-compromised Steven Seagal programmer, Ticker (2001), also began life as a Kings Road project before Nu Image swept in and took it over.
[2] As an aside, in terms of rankings, it baffles me that the likes of this and, say, the aforementioned Mean Guns are repeatedly ignored in favour of The Sword and the Sorcerer (1982) and Radioactive Dreams (1985): a pair of sloppy yet weirdly beloved stinkers that are continually hailed as Pyun’s crowning achievements.