"Into The Sun"

[Steven Millan]

                Following up on my most recent discussion of Steven Seagal's recent direct-to-video movies(which have ranged from action-packed to bending toward the extremely bizarre),his latest is what was originally planned as a remake of the 1974 Robert Mitchum(Paul Schrader scripted)outing "The Yakuza",as Japan-based CIA agent Seagal sets out to investigate a governor candidate's assassination by a young Yakuza(with Thai connections) that is taking over the familiar local turf,until Seagal steps in to slowly snap a few necks back,but the sluggish plot is saved by the last 20 minutes' "Kill Bill"-inspired swordplay/mass killing finale,which echoes the end of the original "Yakuza",as Seagal and his fellow fighters(including a young lass)swordfight,slash, and hack apart the baddies.

             Yep:more Seagal swordplasy,like his last three films,even though he takes the scriptwriting chores here,which echo back to his slower,earlier films,and even adds several of his own songs here,includign the end credits song.

             If you're a Seagal fan,go out and see it,since he's now hard-at-work on his latest production,that being Samo Hung's big screen return in "Dragon Storm",which Seagal is producing and co-stars in(in a small role).

[Yaddo 42]

When Biography ran a recent episode about Seagal, this was the upcoming film the show was built around. Hailing his return to the land he loved to make a film that was a labor of love for him, blah blah blah.... The show was funny since it played up his association with and training in Japan when he was young but didn't bother to mention his first wife, who was Japanese, and only mentioned his children from that marriage (or any other) near the end of the show.

I've considered renting this one, if I don't wait for it to turn up on USA (probably by the end of the year considering the route his films take these days). The aborted remake of "The Yakuza" aspect interests me, since I enjoyed that film so much.

So what's his music like these days? What little I've heard years ago sounded like bad country rock. Like someone who listened to a lot of the Eagles and the 80s era "Let It Roll" Little Feat (dancing on the grave of Lowell George). That Biography episode did say that his first album was a huge hit in France. Guess they needed their own Hasselhoff.

Seagal and Sammo Hung? Didn't that man suffer enough working with Arsenio Hall? Won't it make Seagal look even slower and fatter, if he acts with someone who isn't exactly reed thin but who is still very fast and athlethic and a much more dynamic martial artist than him?