Cyborg (1989)

 

Oh, Albert Pyun, you could always make every penny count double and consequently forget anything resembling a coherent story. But cool visuals a lot of the time, there's that. 

If that sounds like I'm harping on the guy: I'm not. Not really. Sure, his stuff isn't considered high art and sometimes you're hard pressed to actually call some of his stuff 'films', but there's no denying the man delivers a distinct style and atmosphere throughout. This one is no different. 

It's a post-apocalyptic wasteland across the globe, after an unnamed plague wiped out most of humanity. Brutal gangs of extremely buff dudes roam the remnants of the cities in search of pain and misery, as our main villain Fender Tremolo so aptly puts it. 

Oh yeah: nearly all characters are named after brands/parts of musical instruments. Just FYI.

Into this wasteland walks a female cyborg named Pearl, who needs to get from New York to Atlanta, because she has information in her head that might lead the few remaining scientists to a cure for the disease. Of course Fender wants it all because reasons, but she seeks the help of one Gibson Rickenbacker (Van Damme) to deliver her safely. 

I can't help but snigger every time I say Van Damme's character name in full. It is a bit much, I'm sorry. 

However, Fender kicks the everlasting snot out of Gibson and actually even crucifies him at one point and heads to Atlanta. But of course nothing as trivial as a crucifixion can keep our reluctant hero down, so he heads there for a final showdown with his arch nemesis, barechested in the rain. 

This film isn't heavy on story or character development, I can tell you that much. 

Fun fact: the costumes and sets were actually repurposed from a scrapped 'Masters of the Universe'-sequel, one of the previous products by Golam-Globus Productions. But because MoTU underperformed and those two producers were never ones to waste money, they just called up Pyun and asked him what he could do with all this stuff. So Pyun cobbled together this sort-of revenge tale. In record time, I might add. 

If you want, there's a lot you can dislike about this one. The acting is wooden or extremely hammy, the story makes little to no sense, there's no real continuity and the editing can often feel choppy and disjointed. But still: this film is never dull and in all its weird, low budget glory can become almost fascinating. Van Damme barely speaks, which suits the character; his nemesis Fender is captivatingly haunting (really: the look of Vincent Klyn is something else) and the sets wouldn't look out of place in a Mad Max-setting. 

Pyun really did the best he could with the material he had to work with and this film is at times pretty brutal in its fight scenes. It doesn't yet suffer from too much microsecond editing and you can almost feel the kicks and punches. It's one of those almost classic 80s exploitation action flicks that garnered something of a cult status. 

Is it as good as many other Van Damme vehicles from the time? No. Heck, it's not even one of the better action flicks of that time either. But it is one of the more bizarre and fascinating ones out there. It's hard to turn away from, so if you like your stuff a bit on the special side and you know what Albert Pyun can cook up, then this might be for you.