Profile: Don Niam

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Profile: Don Niam

Date of birth: August 25, 1954 (Akron, Ohio, United States)

Occupation: Actor, kung fu instructor, personal trainer, bodyguard, web designer.

Style: Kung fu

Biography: Don Niam is an actor, kung fu expert and personal trainer most famous for his role as the villain Stingray in the 1993 Godfrey Ho film Undefeatable, which has become a cult classic. Don was born in Akron, Ohio, the youngest of three sons to parents who owned a restaurant business. His father was also a recruiter for the Notre Dame football team. At school, Don was on the wrestling team and graduated with an Associate Degree in Marketing …

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Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny (2016)

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Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny (2016)

Belated sequel to Ang Lee’s Oscar-winning transnational phenomenon Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (released in 2000), although it’s safe to say this follow-up won’t be troubling any award shows any time soon. It’s a cross-cultural wuxia film designed by a committee of investors, funded by American companies Netflix and The Weinstein Company in collaboration with the Chinese state-run China Film Group, filmed in New Zealand and with a cast talking in English. The language choice may be a cause of concern for some, but let’s not forget how both Michelle Yeoh and Chow Yun-fat had to recite their Mandarin dialogue phonetically for …

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Enemies Closer (2013)

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Enemies Closer (2013)

Enjoyable Van Damme flick which sees him reunite with Timecop and Sudden Death director Peter Hyams, who adds a distinctly glossy Hollywood sheen to a rather simple production set in the sticks of the US-Canadian border. Van Damme is flamboyant as the orange-haired villain Xander, an eco-warrior vegan drug dealer spilling psychobabble dialogue in slight shades of Heath Ledger’s The Joker from The Dark Knight. That might be overstating it a tad, because he is never once convincingly menacing and instead much closer to a pantomime villain. But it is still refreshing to see Van Damme play against type and …

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New Dragon Gate Inn (1992)

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New Dragon Gate Inn (1992)

Superb remake of King Hu‘s 1967 classic which pays homage to Hu’s revisionist wuxia approach and stands as a high-water mark in the early 90s rebirth of the wuxia film, spearheaded by visionary ‘new wave’ filmmakers like Tsui Hark, Raymond Lee and Ching Siu-tung, who each take directing credits on this film. This whirlwind of a production provides expert choreography and top performances throughout. Taking a more modernist approach to the story, this version shifts the focus away from Shih Chun’s scholar and instead focuses on the plight of the resistance fighters Zhou Huaian (Tony Leung) and partner Qiu Moyan (Brigitte Lin, …

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Blind Fury (1989)

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Blind Fury (1989)

Hauer is Nick Parker, a Vietnam vet blinded during the war and taken in by a tribe of swordsmen who teach him their blade skills despite his disability. Twenty years later, Nick tries to hook up with an old army friend in Miami only to walk into a ready-made showdown. His buddy owes money to mob leaders and his son Billy (Call) has been headhunted as compensation. Those blind Samurai skills come in handy against a barrage of adversaries, including a brief cameo from Sho Kosugi as a tacked-on Japanese assassin. To be fair, the action isn’t at all bad. …

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Bloodfist II (1990)

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Bloodfist II (1990)

This Bloodfist sequel follows hot on the heels of the huge video success of the first film. World champ’ Jake Raye (Wilson) decides to quit competitive kickboxing after he kills a guy in the ring, only to be lured back into battle when he receives a desperate call from a buddy in Manila. No sooner has Jake landed in the Philippines is he shackled, kidnapped and thrown on a catamaran heading to the forbidden island of Su (Avellana, who confusingly played Jake’s mentor in the first film), where the kingpin has kidnapped the world’s best fighters to take part in …

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Five Element Ninjas (1982)

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Five Element Ninjas (1982)

A perennial favourite, particularly in the west where the film has gathered a cult following despite representing Chang Cheh‘s increasingly hokey, blood-drenched and downright bizarre 1980s output and the tail-end of Shaw Brothers’ kung fu movie dominance. Chang Cheh uses two of his Venoms cast – Lo Meng and latter-day Venom Ricky Cheng (the others were in Taiwan shooting another ninja film, Phillip Kwok’s Ninja in the Deadly Trap) – to lead his own studio-based slasher. The sets, coupled with the outlandish weapons and costumes, add to the overall artifice and cheapen the look of the film, whereas the script …

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Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016)

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Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016)

One-joke rom-zom-com which places the walking dead into a re-imagining of the Austen classic, with the Bennet sisters attempting to find an eligible bachelor in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. There is a neat little joke about Mr Bennet (Charles Dance) sending his daughters to study the Chinese fighting arts at Shaolin instead of a more expensive martial education in Japan, which adds a further dimension to the family’s social ostracism. The sight of blood, brains, bonnets and blades in rural Hertfordshire is a funny enough concept, however the film’s pulse quickly flat-lines when it begins to take the …

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Deadpool (2016)

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Deadpool (2016)

You may remember Marvel’s foul-mouthed antihero Deadpool from a Wolverine origins film back in 2009, played by Ryan Reynolds but doubled by Scott Adkins during his high-wire bout with Hugh Jackman. They completely sidelined the character, gave him strange laser eye powers and cut out all of his fourth-wall-breaking knowingness and sass, which are precisely the elements which make him such a perennial favourite among comic book fans. These are also the elements which make him all but impossible to place on the big screen, or even within Marvel’s own X-Men universe. Aside from lapses into the sort of routine …

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Martial Law (1990)

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Martial Law (1990)

Chad McQueen – son of Steve – takes the lead in this meat-headed straight-to-video punch up. He’s hard-boiled LAPD cop Sean Thompson (nicknamed ‘Martial Law’) who breaks up a bank heist by disguising as a pizza delivery boy and kicking the hoods through the windows. To add further macho points, he wears biker leathers and teaches at a karate school. He has a sensitive side, too: he dotes on his wayward younger brother Michael (McCutcheon) – the black sheep of the family – who has sided with the criminals at Jet’s Gym, owned by David Carradine’s suited kingpin Mr Rhodes. …

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