Post by petrolino on Mar 10, 2024 23:29:30 GMT
'Cyborg' (1989 - Albert Pyun)
The moody revenge thriller 'Cyborg' (1989) details the efforts of family man Gibson Rickenbacker (Jean-Claude Van Damme) to take down wandering sadist Fender Tremolo (Vincent Klyn) before he finds and destroys the cure for a deadly global plague. It was largely created on the fly by filmmaker Albert Pyun in order to utilise set constructions and scouted locations for a project that never materialised. He knocked up a script called 'Slinger' with the hope of casting Chuck Norris as an all-American ranger.
Cannon Films agreed to put the money up but insisted upon the much younger Jean-Claude Van Damme playing the lead, who was also in the running for 'American Ninja 3 : Blood Hunt' (1989) and 'Delta Force 2 : The Colombian Connection' (1990) at the time, so Pyun reduced the dialogue and widened the setting for the story to become more international in scope. Pyun recognised early on that Van Damme aspired to play chiselled archetypes early in his career, in part due to his limited acting experience, so he encouraged Van Damme to inhabit the type of stoic, driven character he'd admired when played by Clint Eastwood or Arnold Schwarzenegger.
'Cannon Films initially intended to make a sequel to the 1987 He-Man film Masters of the Universe and a live-action Spider-Man film. Both projects were planned to be shot simultaneously by Albert Pyun. Cannon, however, was in financial trouble and had to cancel deals with both Mattel and Marvel Entertainment Group, the owners of He-Man and Spider-Man, respectively. Cannon had already spent $2 million on costumes and sets for both films and decided to start a new project in order to recoup that money. Pyun wrote the storyline for Cyborg in one weekend.'
- Wikipedia
"Cannon Films was in deep trouble by 1987. Its boom years, between the late ’70s to the mid-80s, were largely thanks to an eclectic and hurriedly-made collection of B-movies: Chuck Norris action pictures, Charles Bronson revenge flicks, and lots of things with the word “ninja” in the title.
Thanks to its outsider status and anything-for-a-buck approach to filmmaking, Cannon Films became a major name in Hollywood, the grinning faces of its brusque founders – producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus – frequently appearing in TV news reports and tinseltown trade papers.
Thanks to its outsider status and anything-for-a-buck approach to filmmaking, Cannon Films became a major name in Hollywood, the grinning faces of its brusque founders – producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus – frequently appearing in TV news reports and tinseltown trade papers.
But in the mid-80s, Golan and Globus began to change their strategy. While they would still make Death Wish sequels and Chuck Norris pics, they began to dabble in making more expensive films, such as Lifeforce (its $25 million budget being quite lavish for Cannon) and Sly Stallone arm-wrestling picture Over The Top. Around the same time, Cannon began to acquire potentially lucrative properties derived from comic books and popular toys. With them, Cannon planned to break into the Hollywood A-list.
Unfortunately, Cannon’s fast-and-loose approach to filmmaking didn’t really gel with the requirements of a major summer film. They’d made expensive deals for the rights to make a Superman sequel (purchasing the property from producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind for a multi-million dollar sum), a Spider-Man movie and a big-screen adaptation of Mattel’s best-selling He-Man toy line, Masters of the Universe. But when it came to actually making the movies themselves, Cannon was ill-equipped to commit the kinds of budgets their effects, costumes and sets required."
- Ryan Lambie, Den Of Geek
The opening shots of a future New York were captured on sets built for Michael Cimino's crime thriller 'Year Of The Dragon' (1985). The bulk of the movie was shot on location in and around Wilmington, North Carolina. If you like the visual sense of Albert Pyun, it's to the fore in 'Cyborg' which combines industrial, apocalyptic landscapes with deserted beachfronts and urban crime zones.
“Michael Cimino is a blazingly gifted movie maker, he has succeeded astonishingly. Year of the Dragon has an arrogant, electric energy that dares you to look away from the screen for an instant. Do so and you miss a furious piece of action that has bubbled up, seemingly out of nowhere.
Why does Year of the Dragon linger so long and so hauntingly? Because it’s part ‘documentary,’ part grand opera.”
– Sheila Benson, The Los Angeles Times
“You forget to breathe during it!”
- Quentin Tarantino discusses a set-piece from 'Year Of The Dragon'
Factory Trap
'Cyborg' is one of my favourite Albert Pyun films, a minimalist exercise in atmosphere and dynamics. It's also the first Jean-Claude Van Damme action movie I remember enjoying, in part because it melds together elements of science-fiction, fantasy and horror. There's some great special effects work and make-up designs.
I like the casting. Deborah Richter who plays Catholic survivor Nady Simmons is an engaging partner for Van Damme who doesn't talk much. Dayle Haddon plays Pearl Prophet, a kidnapped cyborg they're on the trail of.
I like the casting. Deborah Richter who plays Catholic survivor Nady Simmons is an engaging partner for Van Damme who doesn't talk much. Dayle Haddon plays Pearl Prophet, a kidnapped cyborg they're on the trail of.
Surfer Vincent Klyn is one of the most imposing villains Van Damme ever faced and he was a key member of Pyun's stock company during these years. Van Damme went on to do some of his best work following 'Cyborg', branching out from kickboxing spectacles to make exciting crime thrillers like 'Death Warrant' (1990), 'Double Impact' (1991), 'Nowhere To Run' (1993) and 'Hard Target' (1994), as well as the sci-fi actioners 'Universal Soldier' (1992) and 'Timecop' (1994).
"Cyborg is a very entertaining sci-fi, martial arts film set in a dystopian future where JCVD is the hero trying to save the world future by helping out the female cyborg to get to Atlanta. Cheesy, and maybe a little dated in style, but effective and it wouldn't work in any other way.
Great music score, photography and lighting as well as colours. Considering is a very low-budget (500K) production it shows that great stuff can be achieved without spending as much as ... Jim Cameron."
Great music score, photography and lighting as well as colours. Considering is a very low-budget (500K) production it shows that great stuff can be achieved without spending as much as ... Jim Cameron."
- Andy C, Google Reviews
Factory Trap
