Ring of Fire

1991, 1080hd

Johnny's comments:

Ring Of Fire is a 1991 martial arts thriller where a doctor Johnny (Don 'The Dragon' Wilson) falls for Julie (Maria Ford) who hates that her fiance Brad (Dale Jacoby) has gotten closer to her crazy, martial arts obsessed brother Chuck (Vince Murdocco) and gotten him involved in the underground fight scene. Slowly but surely Julie falls for Johnny and rethinks her marriage to Brad. Meanwhile, Johnny's cousin gets himself into trouble with the local white boys and various people get jumped until it escalates to street warfare which ends up involving Chuck and Brad. Then Julie dumps Brad for Johnny and Johnny's cousin is killed in a ring of fire fight and then the racism stops being casual and becomes the only thing until a baffling ending which I'm not sure is an ending. The movie is fairly corny and there's a bunch of nude scenes from Lisa Saxton that feel shoehorned in until the street war boils over and then what was a few bad jokes and occasional slurs becomes nothing but racist antagonism in the final act that creeps up so quickly you hardly recognise the change in tone. It's still less racist than the other Don 'The Dragon' Wilson movie I've watched, Red Sun Rising but it's a close call in the end.

I also watched the sequel to Ring Of Fire, subtitled Blood And Steel and there's nothing to cap in that movie. Blood And Steel turns into a flagrant rip-off of The Warriors in the L.A. underground and all the racism of the final act of the first movie is forgotten as the two sides band together (and seem rather harmonious considering how the previous movie ends) to get Julie back from a bunch of violent robbers who are pissed off Johnny foiled their heist. They even get help from a black veteran who comes in handy at navigating the underground. At least this movie see Don 'The Dragon' Wilson fights a fair bit in this movie unlike only doing the climatic fight in the first movie. And I'm always up for a 'Warriors' knock-off even if it's as flagrant as this is.

Lisa Sexton film clip (samples below)

Maria Ford film clip (collages below)