Death Promise (95 minutes)
"Filthy rich landlords get away with murder. It's time they pay for it."
We can pretend Labor Day is the end of summer but, really, we’ve got a couple more weeks of heat waves, humidity, and hopefully lots of ice cream. Summer was busy (when is it not?) and so I want to thank you all for keeping up with me and my silly little movies. It truly means a lot to me that you stop by here every week to read my writing. There’s more writing and video content on the way as I look to expand on my work here, so stick around. If you’re new here, welcome!
This week’s movie is brought to you by Frank’s love affair with Vinegar Syndrome, a film restoration and distribution company specializing in films from the 60’s to the 90’s. We recently had no fewer than a dozen restored films arrive on our doorstep and I had the fun task of picking out which one we watched first. After the success of Piranha, the pressure was on to select something memorable. I picked Death Promise (1977, 95 minutes), a kung-fu grindhouse film little known to almost everyone except Tarantino (of course).
Though shot and released in 1977, the plot of Death Promise is still relevant and one I think most New York City residents (if not most of the country) can relate to at this very moment. At the opening we’re introduced to Charley Roman (Charles Bonet), a karate master and tenant of a rundown building in Brooklyn. Charley and his dad Louis (Bob O'Connell, but credited under “Rocky Crevice” which is just an amazing tidbit of information) spend their time fighting off thugs sent by Iguana Realty, a shadow corporation dead set on running everyone out of the building so they can develop the land. (Sound familiar?) When Louis is murdered, Charley methodically seeks revenge against every member of Iguana Realty, picking them off one-by-one until he reaches the top of the food chain and is surprised to find someone he knows very well…
Tenants and landlords have feuded since the dawn of rental buildings, especially in New York where tenement buildings gave way to the nation’s first luxury apartments AND public housing units. Apartment living is a part of New York’s DNA and Death Promise puts into play all of a renter’s worst fears. The hot water being turned off, electricity cut out, thugs hired to drop off boxes of rats -- seriously I can see most people believing even now that the landlord is purposely dropping off vermin to scare us out of our few rent stabilized residences. It does seem plausible! But if it gives light to our worst fears, it also gives us a revenge plot that delights and delivers.
As Brian Orndorf points out in his review, it is no surprise that Tarantino loves this movie as its skeleton so closely resembles that of Kill Bill. Orndorf writes, “[Death Promise offers] a similar tale of vengeance featuring an episodic climb to justice and a to-do list of targets, with the bad guys connected in a secretive chain of evildoing.” With help from his friend Speedy (Speedy Leacock), Charley uncovers the truth behind Iguana Realty -- a group of terrible men from all walks of life bound together only by their greed. The cast is as diverse as New York City itself and focuses on the battle between the Haves and Have-Nots. The board of Iguana is serves as a microcosm of every wrongdoer in 1970’s NYC. A drug dealer, a mobster, a judge, and a wealthy guy I can assume is a nepo-baby. They’re led by a guy named Mirsky, who seems to be the brains of the operation at first, but we quickly learn is just another henchman, delivering news to a shadowy figure petting a cat.
The plot and character motivation after Louis’ death gets murky at best. Charley goes to his martial arts instructor, Shibata (Thompson Kao Kang), to share what he knows about the realty company. Shibata urges him to go overseas to further train in martial arts with Master Ying (Tony Liu) instead. Shibata has taught Charley all he knows and was also the best friend of his father, Louis, so Charley has no reason not to trust him. The audience however becomes aware pretty early on (whether intentionally or not remains to be seen) that Shibata is the shadowy cat petting leader of Iguana Realty.
While Charley is out of the country Speedy locates every key player in the plot against Louis and when Charley returns Speedy presents his findings to which Charley immediately refuses his help. What? This dude just spent 6 months doing recon while you were on a training vacation and now you tell him it’s not his fight?
Speedy ultimately convinces Charley because of his own revenge plot against the drug dealer, Jr. Jackson (Abe Hendy), who supplied the drugs that killed his younger brother. As I am writing this now I am realizing just how much was going on in this movie. I swear it all felt simple when I was watching it! So while the training scenes with Charley make little sense and serve little purpose, they do give us our third member of the revenge squad, Sup Kim (Bill Louie), who is a comedic and charming addition who stole every scene. After ticking through the list with some inventive kills featuring archery, poison, and rats, our heroes arrive to take down the ultimate villain who, as we now know, is Shibata, Charley’s very own instructor. (The rat death scene of Jr. Jackson will haunt me forever. Speedy essentially seals his head in a bag full of rats and lets them tear him apart.)
I need to pause and mention the costuming for this movie. I looked up the man credited with this genius, Philip Caggiano, but it seems Death Promise was his only film credit. And that’s sad, because our heroes looked amazing end-to-end in this movie. At first I wondered if they were just dressing themselves but things got better with each scene and I knew someone had an eye on this. From several colors of Adidas Sambas, to bright disco tops, to light washed denim bells, to mesh tank tops-- I was enamored. And yes this is what I am going to spend time on because I don’t know anything about kung fu movies or fight coordination. Except I can say, it was convincing and energetic and interesting to watch. These guys absolutely knew what they were doing.
The final showdown takes place on a rooftop with dingy, seventies New York City as our backdrop. Speedy and Sup take on Shibata’s sons while Charley has a final and bloody fight with Shibata himself. A classic “student becoming the teacher” moment. In the end, Charley wins by chucking Shibata off the roof. I have never laughed or screamed so loud in my life. The dummy is perfectly hysterical and the moment was really rewarding.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I selected this from a pile of roughly 20 movies, but I knew I wanted to see a revenge plot against NYC landlords. And Death Promise did not disappoint.
Can we talk about the 35 year old ancient karate master in the East whose hair is essentially painted gray?