Expected more

Admirable film.

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Sleazy Charles Bronson movie about an LA detective (Bronson) out to rescue the daughter of a Japanese businessman (James Pax) from a child prostitution ring. This is the movie where Bronson sodomizes a pervert with a piece of wood. Offscreen, thankfully. We only see him make the threat and then hear the screams. Later he forces a pimp to eat his watch and sets the same pimp up to be gang-banged in jail! Not to mention the "accidental" murder of the pimp's partner. Bronson may not be blowing away bad guys with a gun in this one but he's still as tough on crime as ever.In the first part of the movie, there's some unsettling subtext that is fumbled around with regarding Bronson's feelings toward his daughter. It's implied through several scenes before one character actually voices it. Then the movie never follows through on addressing this, leaving some deeply disturbing implications just hanging out there. That and the awkward way the racial and cultural issues are handled knocks some points off. This movie had two ways to go that could work, both very different. It either could be a dramatic film examining the cultural differences between Japan and America, as well as the relationships between fathers and daughters -- OR -- it could be a Death Wish-style shoot 'me up where Chuck Bronson litters the streets with dead pimps. Sadly, the movie chooses a weird middle ground: not smart enough to deftly handle touchy issues but not fun enough to be a good pulpy actioner. This was Bronson's last movie with Cannon Films as well as his last with longtime collaborator J. Lee Thompson. Danny Trejo has a bit part as one of the prisoners at the end salivating over the chance to rape the pimp. Bronson completists will want to check it out but everybody else don't bother.

For Golan-Gobus and I can only think it was produced as a favor to Bronson who, by 1989, had perhaps suffered brain damage from too many "Death Wish" movies (actually he was very effective in "Yes, Virginia ...", 1991, so maybe not).Whatever, here he's a cop unloading tons of vigilante-style justice to a lot of bad guys in what is a very boring paranoid's, or bullied 9-year-old's, wet-dream.What makes it boring is that everything is a set-up, predictable and poorly depicted. Same with the dialog: almost a parody of tough-guy-cop-gone-over-the-top movies. But none of the action scenes, non-action scenes, dialog, pacing, or acting rises to that level. Just a really bad and pointless waste of film.

Having seen their collaborations "10 to Midnight", "The Evil that Men Do", "Murphy's Law", "Death Wish IV", "Messenger of Death" and now "Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects", I can't help thinking that Charles Bronson and his buddy director J. Lee Thompson didn't give a damn about moral values anymore during the 1980's. Both gentlemen were in the very final phase of their long and respectable careers, and they still wanted to make some action movies together, but it feels like they remained stuck in the gritty and exploitative 1970's. All their 80's films are excessively violent, uncompromising in themes, politically & morally incorrect and often downright racist and offensive. "Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects" is all of the above, and even worse. Actually, it would have been better for both Bronson and Thompson that this film had never been made. It's a vile film, stuffed with sickening undertones and harsh xenophobic dialogs. Charles Bronson also didn't appear to be the least bit interested in playing yet another tough copper character and noticeably has trouble memorizing his lines. I mean, he was never the greatest actor in the world, but if you compare his performance here with films like, say, "Mr. Majestyk" and "The Mechanic", it's more than obvious that he was tired of his typecasting. And still the racism and Charlie's uninterested performance aren't the worst things about "Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects". This film has a completely incoherent, implausible and downright dumb screenplay! Los Angeles Police Lieutenant Crowe and his partner Eddie, although both clearly past their lawful pension age, are on the trail of super-gangster Duke, who's running a perverted network of underage prostitutes that he picks up from the streets or even kidnaps from their schools. Parallel with the plot, the film also introduces the sleazy Tokyo businessman Hiroshi Hada. Although married and father of two daughters, he fantasizes about fondling school girls on the metro and American prostitutes. When he travels to LA, you automatically expect that he will team up with Duke or at least become his most loyal customer, but no. Duke kidnaps the Japanese guy's oldest daughter and enrolls her into prostitution. Just before that he touched the private parts of Crowe's teenage daughter on the bus, but all of a sudden that doesn't matter anymore. The script is a ridiculous mess, no wonder Charles Bronson looks so confused. If you like "wrong" 80's action movies, the film is nevertheless worth checking out, even if only to see a handful of preposterously absurd and unintentionally hilarious sequences. For example, Crowe and his partner want to frighten one of Duke's accomplices by holding his upside down from a hotel balcony but then accidentally drop him for real! The look on their faces is priceless. The most jaw-dropping scene, however, takes place inside Duke's fancy Cadillac. He intends to bribe Crowe by offering his $20.000 gold Rolex watch. What does Charlie do? He makes him EAT the watch! And, as you can imagine, it's not a charming sight.

despite the fact that most critics hailed this movie as trashy and sleazy i thought it was a slick and well-made film. again this vehicle stars bronson as a worn out cop hot on the trail of a small time pimp by the name of duke and trying to put him out of business. while the movie tries to send out a strong message, i felt the subject matter could have been handled better if the script had been revised a few more times. there were too many story lines being told at one time and by the end of the movie, i think the writers were trying to tie up all the loose ends. i did however was entertained by several scenes from the film. the first was the opening sequence where bronson and his partner bust into an apartment complex after being tipped off that a supposed under aged prostitute is entertaining a client. in typical bronson style, he punches, kicks and beats up the john to teach him a lesson about abusing and taking advantage of young girls being forced into the sex-trade. but the best scene is where bronson trails the pimp, duke, one night and takes him hostage. duke tries to bribe bronson into leaving him alone by offering him a diamond studded watch. bronson doesn't bite but with a dead pan expression says, 'i'd like to shove this up your ass, but i don't want to get my hands dirty'. he than menacingly orders duke to open his mouth than forces him to eat the watch. funny stuff. i highly recommend getting the 4-dvd pack of bronson's collaboration with director j. lee thompson. lots of violence, nudity to keep viewers interested.