Synopsis: Jack Dameron, the adopted son of a great Asian trading family, lives the perfect life and his star is quickly rising in the family business until he's framed for his wife's murder. He must find the real killer before the cops get him.

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Views: The wonderful Richard Norton stars as the adopted son of a crime family, taken in by Papa Fung after his parents were gunned down and killed in Bangkok. It's a position that has since made him a very successful businessman and student of the martial arts. While he is favoured by his adoptive father, he is equally hated by his stepbrother Chang, who spends all his energy in bringing Norton down no matter what. Although married to a successful lawyer, Norton starts to see his life crumble around him after he is falsely accused of murdering his mistress. Soon released on bail, Norton sets out to find the true murderer which leads him to a deadly showdown against his jealous brother!

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More popularly known as Deathfight, Anthony Maharaj's Rage screams 90s B-movie on many levels but actually isn't a terrible watch. I have to admit, I'm not a fan of American martial-arts flicks from this era as most of them focused on these deathmatches or underground tournaments – and usually with ridiculously dressed fighters who are surrounded by overly dressed snobs, most of which have no interest in what they are watching. I know a small number of affluent people and not one of them have been to an underground death match to my knowledge. Must have been an American thing and thankfully it doesn't last too long here! The production values of Rage are as expected, similar to that of a Cannon action film with some questionable moments of cinematography and drops in sound. Having run my own film festival for over a decade now, I've seen many independent movies over the years (a lot of which are better than this), and while watching Rage caught certain scenes that reminded me of many first-time directors' debuts – with stilted dramatic moments and overacting. Of course, a lot of this is down to Tom Huckabee's script – his first real action-drama screenplay - and Anthony Maharaj as the director, of what would be his fourth film at the helm. While he definitely has an interesting history, Maharaj never really became the kind of director cinephiles would be talking about. His first credit came in about in 1970 as the assistant director of The Caribbean Fox – the first film to be produced by a West Indian production company – although his parents had been pioneers in the Indian film industry for many years before. Soon after, Anthony established his own film distribution company and began to distribute films by Golden Harvest, Shaw Brothers, Samuel Goldwyn, and Orion Pictures, with the former two probably kicking off his interest in martial arts films later in his career. After producing and working as assisting director on films like Final Mission and Naked Vengeance, Maharaj made his directorial debut with the Vietnam action flick, Return Of The Kickfighter – released in the UK as Mission Terminate. This would be his first time working with Norton and while it's not an amazing film, I still enjoyed watching it (on VHS) and was surprised to see Hong Kong legend Dick Wei co-star as well as Bruce Le. The pair would continue to work together in Not Another Mistake, another Vietnam-based action story, the fun Future Hunters which would see Norton star alongside Robert Patrick from Terminator 2, the great Hwang Jang Lee, and Bruce Le once again. And then there was The Fighter which was also made in Bangkok. This film would see Richard go up against his former co-star from Force Five, Benny Urquidez, and wasn't bad from what I can remember.

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I'm a huge fan of Richard Norton and most likely first saw him in the awesome Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars, then China O'Brien soon after. I wasn't even a teenager at that stage, but remember keeping an eye out for his name as I grew my video collection of Hong Kong and martial arts movies (which now sits at 4000+). While he already had an amazing career as a bodyguard to the stars throughout the 1970s, Norton's first real film role came about in 1980 when he worked on the stunts for the Chuck Norris flick, The Octagon from Cannon Films. From there, the martial artist-turned-actor would go on to work on films like An Eye For An Eye, Force: Five, Gymkata, Forced Vengeance, and American Ninja, before the great Sammo Hung brought him to the east for a career-changing role in the aforementioned Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars and fantastic, Millionaires Express – his first film with the wonderful Cynthia Rothrock. That same year, Norton would star in the super fun Magic Crystal from Wong Jing, before heading back west for a few years where he would work on many of Anthony Maharaj's projects as well as star alongside Rothrock in a number of great titles. From there, Richard Norton has become a staple name in action cinema, going up against some of Hong Kong action cinema's greatest names, as well as working behind the scenes on stunts for many Hollywood blockbusters such as The Green Hornet, Mad Max: Fury Road, X-Men: Dark Phoenix, The Suicide Squad, and many more. In Rage, Richard Norton's fighting skills are only matched by fan-favorite and Eddie Murphy lookalike, Chuck Jeffreys – with both of them handling the films fight choreography. And while they really aren't anything too exciting, the fights in Rage still entertain and are definitely typical of this period with the battle between Norton and Jeffreys being the best one, of course. The pair first starred together about 5 years prior in the Norton and Rothrock flick Fight To Win, which makes for an entertaining watch, with Chuck joining Cyndy once again in Honor & Glory before re-teaming with Norton the following year on this. His career has continued since with impressive performances in films like Superfights and Bloodmoon but has seen him slip behind the scenes for stuntwork on many great titles like Twelve Monkeys, Blade, Gladiator, Spiderman, The Equalizer, and much more. Their co-stars in Rage don't do too bad with Karen Moncrieff, who plays Norton's wife, probably doing the better job. Discount Mathias Hues lookalike, Ron Vreeken, plays another typical bad guy who gets to rumble with Richard. It was definitely a thing for these muscled fighters to have long hair in this era, something Ron was recognisable for from American Samurai with David Bradley and Mark Dacascos, as well as his role in Rage And Honor 2: Hostile Takeover, where he would go up against Norton and Rothrock. Ron would star alongside Norton soon after in the action-thriller Under The Gun, before going on to do stunt-work on films like Mission Impossible 2, Ghost Ship, and Pirates Of The Caribbean. Popular Filipino actor Franco Guerrero stars as Chang, the evil stepbrother of Norton's. Franco kicked off his career as an actor in 1970 with Edgar Loves Vilma and has since gone on to star in a host of kung-fu action movies including 7 Crazy Dragons, Cleopatra Wong, Return Of The Bionic Boy, and first starred alongside Norton in Maharaj's Return Of The Kickfighter, Not Another Mistake, and The Fighter before this. And finally, the beautiful Tetchie Agbayani plays a small role as Richard's bit-on-the-side, before getting murdered – the first time they would have shared the screen since the corny, but very fun, Gymkata back in 1985...

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Rage will hardly go down as one of the greatest action movies ever, but it isn't all bad and quite watchable. There's no denying Richard Norton's wonderful screen presence and it's always exciting to see him in action. I doubt I'll ever watch it again, but I certainly didn't feel like I wasted my time with Rage!

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Overall: Typical of it's time, Rage tries to be a little more mature and has its moments but may only find love from true fans of Richard Norton!