Profile: Jerry Trimble

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Profile: Jerry Trimble

Date of birth: May 12, 1961 (Newport, Kentucky, United States)

Full name: Jerry Foster Trimble, Jr.

Occupation: Actor, stuntman, martial artist, youth speaker.

Style: Kickboxing, taekwondo, boxing.

Biography: Jerry Trimble is a former world kickboxing champion and has appeared in over 50 films, TV shows and commercials. Jerry was born in the small US town of Newport, Kentucky, to parents Patricia and Jerry Trimble, Sr. At the age of 12, he was inspired to take up the Korean martial art of taekwondo after watching the Bruce Lee film, Fist of Fury (released as The Chinese Connection in America). He studied under Richard Hamilton at the American …

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Tiger and Crane Fists (1976)

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Tiger and Crane Fists (1976)

Wang Yu‘s kung fu films are punctuated by an earnestness which make them apt fodder for a spot of retrospective lampooning, particularly when he creates characters who use steel claws on a rope as their weapon of choice, and protect their weak spots by wearing metal nipple clamps. This may be why Steve Oedekerk singled out this straight-laced obscurity for some postmodern spoofery in his hit US comedy, Kung Pow! Enter the Fist. The story, such as it is, points at a generational rift between the schools of Tiger and Crane. Lung Fei plays a powerful, impenetrable Manchu fighter with vague connections …

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Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001)

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Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001)

Epic action movie which makes stunning use of its French locales to create a vivid and enjoyable spectacle. Crying Freeman director Christophe Gans pulls out all the stops with this cracking yarn which has only recently received a just and dedicated cult following. It’s the kind of film you could live in for weeks. It is fundamentally a supernatural film, set in the regal refinery of 18th century France, and following the Chevalier de Fronsac (Samuel Le Bihan) and his native American friend Mani (Mark Dacascos). They are sent by the King of Gévaudan province to investigate the suspicious killings …

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SPL (2005)

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SPL (2005)

This melodramatic action thriller was a runaway hit in Hong Kong. As Chinese cop movies go, it is more in keeping with the glossy, serious tone of something like Infernal Affairs than a light-footed yarn like Jackie Chan‘s Police Story. Sammo Hung is smartly re-cast as a gangland kingpin with a sharp suit, cigar and ponytail, playing a remorseless crook and family man with a penchant for golf. Simon Yam is the police chief on his case and the front-runner in a quartet of bent cops whose desperate attempts to nail Sammo see them fabricating evidence and disrupting the course of …

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Bridge of Dragons (1999)

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Bridge of Dragons (1999)

Here’s some wham-bam gung-ho violence before bedtime, starring two of the action genre’s most popular performers. Power Rangers director Isaac Florentine reunites the snarling villainy of Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa with the beefy heroics of Dolph Lundgren for this B-movie; they pair had previously worked together on 1991’s Showdown in Little Tokyo. The premise is slightly puzzling: a futuristic fairytale in period costume. Here are the key points: Lundgren is a soldier indebted to a sadistic general (Tagawa) who vows to marry a spunky kung fu princess (Valerie Chow) in order to install himself as rightful ruler. She escapes his grasp to …

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The Princess Blade (2001)

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The Princess Blade (2001)

Melodramatic, plodding sword film based on a manga with choreography by Donnie Yen. Set in the near future, a young girl – gifted with exceptional fighting skills – vows to avenge the death of her mother, murdered at the hands of a governmental hit squad. The film has strong artistic intentions: the bleak cinematography gives the action a cold aesthetic and gory fight scenes in warehouses and forests make up the best parts of the film. However, the adventure is hampered by an uneasy romantic subplot which seriously slows the pace.

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Sucker Punch (2011)

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Sucker Punch (2011)

Fresh from the visually ravishing, spandex-heavy adrenaline rush of comic book based hits 300 and Watchmen comes Zack Snyder’s first original thought-piece. The movie – a schizophrenic action film about a group of young women in a mental asylum who imagine themselves as dancers at a twenties-style nightclub as part of a weird therapeutic escapist fantasy – was universally panned by critics. Snyder’s story is a garbled mess and his characters are paper-thin, but the film’s downright craziness kind of works in its favour. Snyder’s great imagination shines during the film’s four key action sequences, all of which centre around increasingly …

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Return to the 36th Chamber (1980)

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Return to the 36th Chamber (1980)

A sort of proxy sequel to The 36th Chamber of Shaolin featuring much of the same cast and crew and directly referencing the original, although in a much more playful manner. The premise centres on the rights of workers, depicting a group of Han Chinese at a Canton fabrics factory who are docked pay by their new Manchurian owners. The staff strike but are bullied into accepting the cut, before taking matters into their own hands. Their opportunistic friend Chieh (Gordon Liu) dresses up as the enlightened monk San Te (who Liu played in the first film) in order to …

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Legend of the Wolf (1997)

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Legend of the Wolf (1997)

Donnie Yen‘s directorial debut is a visually ravishing if borderline pretentious action film with some nice location shots, smart lighting and design. The story uses an extended flashback to recall Donnie’s past as a post-war wondering amnesiac hero known as ‘the Wolf’ who, while in search of a girl in a ransacked village, becomes embroiled in a violent bandit fight. As his memory returns, the Wolf has to face some unpleasant truths when the gangsters slay the townsfolk and kidnap his girl. Hyperactive editing during the fight sequences quickly irritates and ultimately distracts from Donnie’s expert head-kicking. The film was …

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Breathing Fire (1991)

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Breathing Fire (1991)

This engaging action movie set in sunny California starts with a bang. Villain Michael Moore (Trimble), father of bratty martial arts enthusiasts Tony Moore (Saavedra) and adopted son Charlie Moore (Quan, from The Goonies), secretly orchestrates a bank heist with his kung fu cronies and steals millions of dollars’ worth of gold. The boys have no idea their daddy’s a baddie until Vietnam war vet Uncle Dave (Neil) shows up, protecting the only witness to one of Mr. Moore’s crimes. The acting is amazingly bad, the script should have been proof-read, and the directing is pedestrian, but this super low …

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