Blind Fury (1989)

 Hellooo, 80s! Growing up during that time, if you wanted some action, you got that in spades. Heck, it felt as if every week, there were scores of actionfilms being released and even though most of them have been lost and forgotten to the sands of time (often rightly so, I might add), some films just stick with you for some reason. This is one of them. 

'Blind Fury' is nothing less than a reimagining of a Japanese story starring a hero called Zatoichi, who is a blind samurai. Here, they changed it up quite a bit, but it does leave you with an entertaining action flick with oodles of humour and a very charismatic lead.

Heck, it's Rutger Hauer, of course he is going to be charismatic. 

Hauer is Nick Parker, a soldier who gets blinded during the Vietnam war. He is adopted by a local village and they take it upon themselves to train him to cope with his blindness and even teach him how to swordfight by using his sense of smell and hearing in order to be accurate. 

Skip forward 20 years and Nick is back in the US, looking for his former friend Frank. He comes across Frank's wife and son, but she is killed by some thugs. It turns out Frank has gambling debts in Reno and the owner of a casino wants him to create designer drugs in order to pay off his debts. But to make sure Frank complies, they want to kidnap his son. Nick takes the kid with him and they head for Reno to find Frank. On several occasions, the thugs try to take the boy away, but they are thwarted, because everyone underestimates a blind man. Eventually though, they manage to get the kid, but now Nick and Frank head over to the villain's lair to get the boy back.

Also, there's a swordfight with legend Sho Kosugi for no real reason other than that it looks cool. 

So yes, this is perfect 80s action cheese in most respects, but several things make this one stand out, most notably stuff that Rutger Hauer does. Never one to be half-assed about his job, he spent months learning how to move and react like a real blind man and if you start to pay attention to this, it is pretty bloody impressive how he pulls it off. You might not notice it the first time around, but Hauer legitimately seems to be blind, even though he isn't. He doesn't fall for the 'seeing person pretends to be blind', but makes it all as close to real as he can get it (which is pretty darn close). He also studied swordfighting and most (if not all) scenes of him wielding the blade are done in camera. Next to that, he is just incrediby funny at times.

Mister Hauer, you are sorely missed and I still feel you never quite got the recognition you should have gotten. 

True, there are certain things that are a little off. Brandon Call as the young boy starts out as a really annoying little shit. By the end, you get the emotional hook, but still: you have to slog through about 30 minutes of him being a total arsewipe. The henchmen are also very cookiecutter (especially Lyle and Tector are grating) but they're here for fodder anyway. Randall 'Tex' Cobb sticks out, but that's more thanks to his iconic look than his acting chops. The plot is also mediocre, but most of the time, no one watches these films for a riveting plot. 

By the way: both hairstyles and music are incredibly dated and place this firmly smack dab in the 80s. Cue the synthesizers and the sort of-mullets. Oh, and high collars, let's not forget those. 

But still: 'Blind Fury' is a much better action flick than it usually gets credit for. This is almost all thanks to Rutger Hauer, as I can't state enough how awesome this man could be. 'Blind Fury' is a lot of fun and it deserves more recognition.