Man oh man was I waiting to catch this one.

Short backstory: I hold grindhouse days occasionally at my house, complete with trailers I find throughout the Interwebs. One day, I came across the trailer for a little film called “Bare Knuckles.” As soon as it finished playing, I knew it was going to be a hit at the party.

Immediately, Captain Cool and I started trying to find it. Years later, I move into a new apartment, sign up for cable, and lo and behold on my On Demand service is a little film called “Bare Knuckles.” I literally jumped for joy.

Yeah, cool story bro.

So, I’ll admit I was a little deceived though. On the IMDB page for the movie, the synopsis makes it sound like the killer offs random women with killer kung fu! Unfortunately, unless by “kills by kung fu” they meant “stab with a knife whilst screeching like a cat,” then it was a total lie. Luckily, the movie more than made up for this deception.

For starters, when the movie begins, Zack Kane is making short work of some tough hood. After beating him to a bloody pulp, Kane takes him to the police station. Then he works out for a while, then he plays the flute. All accompanied by the pimpest soundtrack since pimp came to pimptown.

This is all within like five minutes, by the way. This is how the movie STARTS.

Soon Kane is whipping out witty responses and ass-beatings left and right. From smashing some tail in a gay bar to…well, actually, getting beat up pretty bad (and apparently almost raped?) in a gang’s hideout, to…well, getting beat up again by the killer…

Come to think about it, Kane spends most of the time on the ground, unconscious. He’s thrown in a trunk, knocked off a train overpass and down a drainage ditch, stabbed…not really so much of an ass-kicker as he makes himself out to be, I guess, but oh well. The point is, he keeps on trying, and makes snappy remarks in the face of danger and death. He’s an inspiration to us all.

The killer in the movie is some rich douche that has major mommy issues. Seems she likes to get her rocks off at the expense of her son, so he lost it and now kills young women to get revenge on her. Again, not with kung fu unfortunately, but with a knife. And yeah, he screeches like a cat! Not exactly sure where that came from. I was reminded of the duck-quacking killer in Lucio Fulci’s New York Ripper; wonder if Fulci got the inspiration from this animal-based lunatic. Probably not.

Anyway, not that the kitty-cat killer doesn’t know his kung fu. He’s definitely better than our hero Kane, but doesn’t quite have the…will, or something, that Zack has. His trainer and bodyguard and dead women hider, Kido, played by some guy named “Jace,” is quickly outmatched by the nutcase and is forced to keep quiet about his ward’s deeds while sporting another rockin’ 70’s stache. The only thing higher than the cool ‘stache count is the manly hairy bare chest count.

The “love” relationship in this movie is pretty ridiculous too. Kane saves his main squeeze early in the movie from some guy who likes to RUNALLHISWORDSTOGETHER. About a day later, they’re in love and “old friends.” Kane might also want to find some new friends; his partner, named Black (you now, cause he’s black), takes off about midway through the movie because he doesn’t want to get shot at anymore. Instead of some heroic last minute intervention where he realizes the error of his ways and helps Kane save the day, he is GONE. We seriously never see or hear from him again. In fact, the only thing he does is shoot a guy and help Kane beat up a gay dude. Then he’s outta there because he doesn’t want to mess up his outfit. Nice, thanks Black.

After a few beat-downs and an inexplicably exploding car, though, Kane walks off into the sunset. But he’s still super pissed and starts throwing trash for no reason. Presumably because he knew there would never be a Bare Knuckles 2, which is enough to make anyone mad as hell.

Go find it immediately! You shouldn’t have as tough a time as we did, as apparently there’s a super cheap DVD out there packaged with some Tom Skerritt movie. It’s probably sitting in the Wal-Mart discount bin as you read this. One day, Bare Knuckles will get the real release and recognition it deserves.

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