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Vietnam, the 1970s: Young Adam (Quang Nguyen) discovers the body of his girlfriend (Sarah Linebaugh), raped and murdered, and upon finding the culprit Ho (Kevin Tan) nearby, he gathers the people of his village to exact justice - but someone from the crowd pulls a gun and shoots Ho in the face.

Flashforward 40 some years, to rural USA: Adam (now played by Adam Nguyen) travels through the country looking for work  - and drifting through a small town, he sees Bonney (Mark J. Zillges) and Tull (Newton Miller) getting in trouble with a bunch of bullies. And when he takes out the lead bullie Shelby (Justin D. Clements), they give him a job as a farmhand in gratitude. And they need a fighter like him, too, as Shelby is the son of local rich guy Hogan Dodd (Chris Van Cleave), who believes himself above the law (and pays the police to further that belief), and who of course wants revenge for that. And the more martial arts-savvy Adam successfully defends himself, the more furious Dodd gets.

But there's another side to the story, too: You see, back when, Ho didn't die when shot in the face, he only got horribly disfigured, and now he (played by Hoy Lee) wants revenge, and thus springs Carey (Ethan Marten), a highly psychopathic hitman from prison to get him just that. Carey in turn hires bounty hunter Booker (Eric Roberts) to track down Adam, and tracking him down he does, but he and his bumbling sidekicks (Jonathan Marten, Seth Marten) soon figure Ho is too dangerous client for them to handle and try to take care of him - something that completely backfires.

Somehow, Dodd catches wind of Carey closing in on Adam, and he invites him to join him and his men on their raid of Bonney and Tull's ranch to smoke out and eliminate Adam - which was a good choice, because while Adam takes out Dodd's men pretty much by the dozen, Carey, despite being a psychopath, is also a man with a plan ...

Eyes of the Roshi is actually a pretty cool low budget martial arts movie, first and foremost because it treats its audience to more than just men kicking and beating each other senseless - ok, there's plenty of that, too, and it's well done, but what really makes the movie work is that it peppers its rather simplistic basic genre plot with plenty of unusual plottwists, fun and eccentric characters, cool dialogue, and a bunch of scenes that are just whack in a good way. And of course, a strong cast, with Eric Roberts once more proving himself to be the king of cool, also helps making this a more than worthwhile experience.

And in closing, it needs to be added that the fact that most of the key actors are well beyond the typical age for action heroes is really refreshing.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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