x146 AN EYE FOR AN EYE (7/4/98)

MOVIE
Chuck Norris stars in this mumble filled remake of Chinatown. All of a sudden Jake Gittes is no longer a Los Angeles Private Eye but San Francisco policeman Sean Kane. His partner is, of course, killed off by a dog-owning criminal in the opening. Rosalind Chao as Faye Dunaway is either his partner's wife or daughter, or maybe both. At any rate, as the last clean cop on the force, Chuck is fired by a turtleneckless Shaft and is then either hunted down by or hunts down his partner's killers. Christopher Lee plays the John Huston role, only now he runs not only the Pig & Whistle, but a drug smuggling tv news operation called Triad. Mako recreates Pat Morita's role as Jake/Kane's mentor, and to increase the artful ambiguity, somebody who may or may not be Odd Job lumbers around. The climactic scene in Chinataown is now just one of many plodding so-called plot points building up to the drawn out climax. Oh, and every incidental character dies.

I LEFT MY SCRIPT IN SAN FRANCISCO (but 90% of the shoot was in LA)
GersonK> John Denver and Adam Arkin in Starsky and Hutch
TAFKACthulhu> Filmed in "Dark-and-Stormy-Night-O-Vision."
BryanL1> Oh, is the great PROFESSOR Tanaka going to act in our little movie?
Balthayzr> The credits were just changing from yellow to red, officer. I didn't run the light.
BryanL1> He's got an authentic NASCAR moustache.
GersonK> Recorded in KottoPhonic Noise Increasement
TAFKACthulhu> You know, if they did a live action version of The Simpsons, Norris could do a great Ned Flanders.
Balthayzr> Hi-diddly ho! Time to kick yer ass-diddly dass!
BryanL1> Boy, two flashlights and this'd be the X-Files.
TAFKACthulhu> Ms. Bates wants you to quit that horseplay in her hotel.
Balthayzr> What a switch! Shaft is the Establishment Boss, now!!
BryanL1> He's listening to his internal monologue from "The Octagon"
BryanL1> What about the rights of that little girl?
Plumm> I know I came in late, but Chuck's character is a Jewish proctologist, right?
lando5> What about the lefts of that little commie?
BryanL1> Yep, Jamie. That's why his arm's in a sling. Someone twitched and broke his finger.
BryanL1> It's Spock's funeral!
TAFKACthulhu> "Of all the souls I have encounter in my travels... his was the most...(sniff)... oily."
Plumm> Fred McMurray IS The Shaggy Norris!
Bice> Chuck Norris *is* Dr. Doolittle.
BEMaven> Hope Kane beats the information out of himself.
Balthayzr> 'Chuck? This is your neighbors. Please put on a shirt."
TAFKACthulhu> Heroine traffic is light on the I-system today, with back ups up to..."
Balthayzr> How to Pick up Women. lesson one-be forceful.
Plumm> Yeah, like a postal truck would be driving around after dark.
TAFKACthulhu> Looks like Odd-Job needs changing.
BEMaven> There's always time to pack when you're being stalked.
BryanL1> You know, I'm beginning to think this ISN'T a documentary on the life of Linda McCartney.
Plumm> I dunno, Bry, it *does* seem to have a lot of coke and bad photography.
Balthayzr> How nice. San Fransisco is clearly marked.
Plumm> It's Rand McNally's world, Balth. We're just passing through.
BEMaven> His boat changed into a car?
GersonK> It's a boat of car
Balthayzr> CrimeBoat! In Color!
lando5> THUNDER...IN...PURGATORY!
BryanL1> Sean Kane? Say it fast and it sounds like canned chow-mein. Shankain Chow-Mein, the San Francisco Treat.
Balthayzr> Anyway, the shock of the killing healed up Chuck's arm.
GersonK> Mr. Norris' hair by Moe of Beverly Hills
Plumm> Comedy Partners is still in negotiations with Chuck over the hair rights, actually, Gers.
Balthayzr> I'm guessing about the strangulation, since the marks from the rope around her neck riuned some of the evidence.
Plumm> Steve Buscemi IS Mick Jagger IN BBC's "Columbo!"
BryanL1> I've been doing some checking. Turns out Charlie Chan had an entire Chan Clan. And they solved mysteries and played in a band.
Plumm> Some bastard ripped the turtleneck off Shaft's sweater!
TAFKACthulhu> Errrr she didn't know the number to 911?
GersonK> "And don't bother with 911 anymore, here's the real number"
Balthayzr> She called 411, but they didn't know, either.
Balthayzr> Typical Chuck movie. hide the holes in the plot by hiding the entire plot.
BEMaven> I want to see the car turn into a boat.
Balthayzr> I just wanna see Chuck drive into the water.
TAFKACthulhu> Who wouldn't?
Balthayzr> Kato? Where are you, you yellow bastard?
Balthayzr> Movie Rule #255 - People from other cultures must be introduced with music from their cultures.
BEMaven> They take turns breaking sentences in half.
BryanL1> He's the model for the bottom guy on all the totem poles, isn't he.
Bice> This looks like a shot of Easter Island.
Plumm> ChiPS Vs. Walker!
BryanL1> Triad. You'll like ad!
Plumm> Chuck Norris movie rule 43: Always punctuate lulls with the casual beating of foreiners.
Bice> Benji, the Rabid.
Plumm> This was the worst interpretation of Ellison's "A Boy And His Dog" EVER!
TAFKACthulhu> Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-nah! Chuck Norris!
Bice> Psychotic Boxing. Watch for it in the Olympics in '00!
BryanL1> Dog's barking morse code for "Call my fucking agent, NOW!"
Balthayzr> Yep. Even the dog's outacting him. sad, really.
TAFKACthulhu> Well Fido.. your not in my weight class... but OK (BAMM!)
BryanL1> Man, Chuck rents a lot of porn.
Balthayzr> Those are all of Chuck's earlier films. They're gonna torture a suspect with them.
Balthayzr> Chinatown. Why did it have to be Chinatown.
TAFKACthulhu> Come to Chinatown... ask for Kaine....
Balthayzr> Pavarotti as a crime boss?
GersonK> Tony Rosato is Stuart Pankin as the Gayest Pimp in 'Frisco
GersonK> The Supreme Court just upheld Hooker-John confidentiality
BryanL1> Good for the Supreme Court!!! I mean, in a strictly Constitutional sense, of course.
Plumm> Confession has changed since Vatican II.
Balthayzr> Yea, all these back-alley confessions going on....
Plumm> Chuck's a regular lobotomized Bizarro Frank Pembleton with his interrogations.
ONEMSTie2> what's that, girl?? we're in an alley?? that's a police siren.??
Balthayzr> Think the whorehouse will validate our parking?
GersonK> Oh good, the movie is stopping for dinner
BryanL1> I've never had Hamburger Helper made with canned anchovies before.
Balthayzr> Wow, you could cut the sexual tension with.......oh, I don't care. Just cut it. GersonK> Hot oiled Chuck
BryanL1> At least his face is already covered with KY Jelly.
Plumm> Tab! Sassy crisp taste, ooh ya gotta love it!
BryanL1> When you're out of private slits, you're out of private pier.
Plumm> Walker in Paradise!
Balthayzr> Sulu Sea? Well, we know what buisness he went into after trek got cancelled.
lando5> Sulu: Master of Navigation...boffo ratings in Micronesia, though.
GersonK> setting course for crap now captain.
Balthayzr> Watch out for the barrels, they explode when you shoot them.
BEMaven> Clever. They hid the drugs in illegal explosives.
Balthayzr> Great. Now, it's The Pink Panther.
lando5> No...Clouseau was Sherlock Homes next to Chuck.
Plumm> Inspector Clouseau, Texas Ranger.
BryanL1> What if they filmed a big action finale and nobody brought lights?
Balthayzr> Left, up, down, both kick buttons....
Plumm> Now that's what I call a sticky heroin situation!
Balthayzr> What the.....EVERYONE'S the bad guy?
Plumm> Professor, please strip my guests.
Balthayzr> The Professor did it in the TV station with a trick shoe.
BEMaven> If we all clap loudly, the movie might end. If not, at least we'll drown out the dumb dialogue.
Balthayzr> No, then Norris might think it's applause, and make more movies.
GersonK> BEM - the sound recorder already drowned out the dialogue for us
GersonK> Odd Job vs. Cornjob
BEMaven> Three Stooges fu.
Plumm> Ultimate Standing There Championship!
GersonK> So, they were gonna do a sequel called A Tooth for a Tooth, weren't they?
BryanL1> Great. Now I've got the image of Richard Roundtree "taking advantage of" Chuck Norris. Thank you, movie.
Balthayzr> So, what did we learn? BryanL1> We learned that we're running out of Chuck Norris movies to Homegame.
Balthayzr> I learned not to take dogs with me on hits.
BEMaven> I learned to be sorry when the action hero doesn't mumble.
Balthayzr> I learned the Golden gate Bridge had a lot to do with this plot.
BryanL1> I learned that you can have a houseboat and still be cool.
Ironf> I learned that having a busted satellite really, really, really, sucks.
Balthayzr> I learned that illegal fireworks don't get searched, and thus are a good place to hide drugs.
BEMaven> I learned that calling Chuck Norris at home can be lethal.
Balthayzr> I learned that Norris can beat anyone just by kicking them enough.

WACHU TALKIN' 'BOUT NORRIS?
"I get a little nervous when someone tries to kill me"
"Ah, Sh________!"
"Do not be precipitous! Concentrate!"
"You rolled on me!"
"Hey! Try me."

TORU TORU TORU
Balthayzr> Bluto-san, No!!!!!!
BryanL1> Odd Random Task Sumo Bugkiller.
BEMaven> He's not Oddjob...more of Lump Sum.
GersonK> Even High Lob is cowering?
GersonK> Cod Suet
Balthayzr> The Big Dumb man with one Big Shoe.
GersonK> So, he finally defeated Big Load?

Sumospotting
There was a tiny little debate over whether the large Asian henchman might have been the actor who played Oddjob in Goldfinger (1964) or Random Task in Austin Powers (1997). As it turns out, he was neither. After a career in professional wrestling, Professor Toru Tanaka broke into films with in An Eye For An Eye. He's gone on to play roles as diverse as the "sumo guard" in Volunteers, the "sumo servant" in The Revenge of the Ninja, and the "sumo wrestler" in Police Story: Monster Mansion and the role many people feel he was born to play - "Professor Toru Tanaka" in Bad Guys.

Harold "Oddjob" Sakata a.k.a. Josh Togo	Professor Toru Tanaka	Joe Son

This career path could not vary more wildly from that of Harold "Odd Job" Sakata a.k.a. Josh Togo, who after a career in pro wrestling broke into films with Goldfinger and went on to play characters like "Dino", "Big Buddha", and "Ito" in cinematic gems such as Goin' Coconuts and Mako: The Jaws of Death, and the role many people feel he was born to play - "Harold 'Odd Job' Sakata" in The Phynx. And he won a Silver Medal for light-heavyweight weight-lifting in the 1948 Summer Olympics.

Joe Son on the other hand, may or may not have been a pro wrestler. But we'd like to think he was. In addition to playing Random Task, he also played Chang in Viper and an apparently different Chang in Shootfighter : Fight to the Death.