Showdown in Little Tokyo is exactly what you’d want it to be, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some… mishaps. Consider the first two scenes. In the first scene, The Swedish Behemoth Dolph Lundgren, AKA Kenner, swoops into an underground boxing ring that is about to get shot up by five Yakuza.
Pretty invigorating stuff. So Kenner fights off these five Yakuza and pursues them outside, into the middle of a busy street. He takes a couple shots as their car closes in on him before he jumps over the speeding car flat-footed.
Like I said, invigorating stuff.
Anyway, the very next scene, seemingly the next morning, Kenner is flirting in Japanese with a middle-aged teashop keeper that he presumably knows, and wouldn’t know it, these five Yakuza guys, who have apparently been driving all night because they arrive in the same car and the same clothes, pull up to the teashop and demand tribute from the nice little teashop keeper.
Naturally, Kenner intervenes, but in the moment where the five Yakuza see Kenner, nobody acknowledges that they literally just had this same fight the night before.
Dolph—I mean, Kenner—proceeds to kick all their asses while holding a cup of coffee that he doesn’t spill before Brandon Lee shows up and the Yakuza get away in the exact same car that Kenner jumped over.
I’m sorry, but wouldn’t those five Yakuza see this giant Swedish man in the middle of Little Tokyo and be like, “Oh yeah, he’s the guy that improbably jumped over our speeding car flat-footed.” I mean, there are five guys here. Surely one of them would have looked at his buddy for verification. There can’t be that many 6’5” Swedes jumping over Yakuza vehicles in the world, let alone in Little Tokyo less than 12 hours from the last time they saw a 6’5” Swede in the near vicinity.
Not only that, but Kenner—I mean, Dolph—never notes that he saw these guys at the underground boxing ring either.
Also, bonus “Lost-ish Thing” from the same scene. How great is it that Dolph and Brandon both agree that the five Yakuza get away and then Brandon looks down and goes “oh, here’s one,” and sure enough, there’s one unconscious Yakuza literally under his feet. Convenience, meet negligence. Negligence, meet convenience.
Josh Sippie: I’m the Director of Publishing Guidance at Gotham Writers. My work has appeared in McSweeney’s, I have an ongoing Fiction series (about Yoda!) at Hobart and a forthcoming humor column at Points in Case.