Manu Tupou Movies

Two small screen veterans of American television, Corin Nemec (Parker Lewis: Can't Lose) and Ernie Reyes, Jr. (Sidekicks) co-star with Ultimate Fighting Championship mainstay Kimo in the chop-socky extravaganza The Ultimate Fight. Shishir Inocalla stars as Pinoy, a martial arts pro who travels from Asia to America and lands in the middle of a blood-curdling gang war. Backed up against the wall and forced to single-handedly take on the members of the Crazy Dragons gang, Pinoy temporarily staves off his aggressors - and saves the life of Jesse (Reyes) in the process. The two forge a deep friendship, and Jesse introduces Pinoy to his father (National Tae Kwon Do champion Ernie Reyes, Sr.). But then the Crazy Dragons return, surrounding Jesse's house and threatening the safety - and sanctity - of his family. Jesse, Pinoy, and Kimo (playing himself) must then team up against the Crazy Dragons in a take-no-prisoners martial arts battle - where only one side will walk out alive. Reyes, Jr. directs, from a script he co-authored with Manu Tupou. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

A yuppie couple find themselves marooned on a desert isle with only the company of two others--a native girl and her American boyfriend. Stripped of their accustomed world of gadgetry as well as most of their clothes, they find the situation prompts them toward a more introspective mode, and they examine the nuts and bolts of their relationship. ~ All Movie Guide

Set in a grim post-WW III America, this sci-fi fantasy tells the story of a woman attempting to sell black-market computer chips that allow patrons to experience the nearly forgotten pleasures of sex and drugs. She is hanging out with the gang she works for in a local nightclub when the police raid the joint. She manages to escape and decides to double cross her gang and sell the chips for herself. But first she must escape both the police and the gangsters and make it to the New York underground. She is helped out when she runs into Plughead, an android covered with electrical outlets. He uses these to tap in to the fantasies of other people. The soundtrack by Deborah Holland provides a highlight. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This made-for-cable thriller stars Powers Boothe as a former policeman whose son (C. Thomas Howell) has fallen prey to a band of white supremacists. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

First telecast September 14, 1984, the weekly TV series Hawaiian Heat starred Robert Ginty and Jeff McCracken as Mac Riley and Andy Senkowski, a pair of Chicago cops forced to leave the City of Big Shoulders when Mac's police-officer father is accused of taking a bribe. Moving to Honolulu, Mac and Andy are hired as troubleshooters by Major Oshira (Mako) of the city's police department. In this 2-hour opening episode, our heroes' first mission is to pose as drug buyers in order to smash a gang of heroin smugglers. A lot of Hawaiian Heat's thunder was stolen when the remarkably similar Miami Vice premiered two days later. By the end of the 1984-85 TV season, Miami Vice was one of the top-rated series in networkdom, while Hawaiian Heat had already expired after 13 epsiodes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This film showed up on TV as Forbidden Paradise, but you can't fool us. It's really The Hurricane, producer Dino De Laurentiis' ill-advised remake of the 1938 Sam Goldwyn production of the same name. The story of the casual cruelties imposed by the white ruling class on the natives of the isle of Manakoora had the advantage of timeliness in 1938; forty-one years later, the story plays like a Gilligan's Island amateur production of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Playing the old Jon Hall role of the native lad whose rambunctiousness incurs the wrath of the provincial governor, the uniquely ungifted Daton Kane makes Hall look like Sir John Gielgud. Even the expensive hurricane finale (which ate up most of the film's $22 million budget) isn't one-tenth as exciting as the corresponding sequence in the earlier film. The saddest aspect of the 1979 The Hurricane is that it was directed by Jan Troell, who showed flashes of brilliance in his earlier The Emigrants and Zandy's Bride; perhaps significantly, Troell hightailed it back to Sweden after wrapping up his obligation to Dino De Laurentiis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A Man Called Horse stars Richard Harris as Lord John Morgan, an English peer cast somewhat adrift in the American West. Captured by Sioux Indians, Lord Morgan is at first targeted for quick extinction, but the tribesmen sense that he is worthy of survival. The Englishman passes many of the necessary tests that will permit him to become a member of the tribe, the most grueling of which (and the one used most extensively in the film's advertising) is the Sun Vow Initiation. That's where his lordship is hung from the roof of a huge teepee with hooks through his pectoral muscles. Much of the dialogue is spoken in the Sioux language, though the film's much-vaunted "historical accuracy" is not altogether consistent, as witness the casting of British stage luminary Judith Anderson as Sioux woman Buffalo Cow Head. A Man Called Horse spawned warrant two sequels. Originally rated "GP" in 1970, it has since been re-rated R by the MPAA. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hawaii hadn't even begun filming when director Fred Zinnemann was replaced by George Roy Hill; similarly, the role intended for Charlton Heston ended up being played by Richard Harris (though Heston would eventually star in the 1970 sequel, The Hawaiians). Based on James A. Michener's best-selling novel, the time frame of which was spread out over several centuries, the film concentrates only on the years 1820 to 1841. Still, Michener's basic point, that the virginal sanctity of the Hawaiian islands was forever shattered by the incursion of the white man, remains intact. Max Von Sydow stars as Abner Hale, an imperious minister who settles in Hawaii with his wife, Jerusha Bromley Hale (Julie Andrews). While Abner expects the islanders to adapt to him rather than the other way around, Jerusha goes out of her way to understand and appreciate her new neighbors. She eventually seeks comfort in the arms of her former lover Rafer Hoxworth (Richard Harris). Despite the lush location footage and such spectacular highlights as pagan ceremonies and an outsized typhoon, the scene most filmgoers remember is Julie Andrews' agonizingly convincing childbirth sequence. All told, it took seven years to translate Hawaii from script to screen -- and almost that long to make back its 15-million-dollar cost. In the early scenes of Hawaii (the 171-minute version, rather than the 151-minute reissue), Bette Midler plays a bit part as a ship passenger. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide