Watch the Shadows Dance (1987)

User Rating:

3.0/10   

Director:

Mark Joffe

Writer:

Michael McGennan (writer)

Genre:

Action

Tagline:

Obsession is the deadliest weapon.

Plot Keywords:

Vietnam War Veteran | Fight Scene | Murderer | Trampoline | Karate

Cast

Tom Jennings	...	Robby Mason
Nicole Kidman	...	Amy Gabriel
Joanne Samuel	...	Sonia Spane
Vince Martin	...	Steve Beck
Craig Pearce	...	Guy Duncan
Doug Parkinson	...	Pete 'Pearly' Gates
Jeremy Shadlow	...	Simon
Alexander Broun	...	Henry
Laurence Clifford	...	Brian Simmons
Paul Gleeson	...	Peter Hastings
Mark Hennessy	...	Aloysius Askew
James Lugton	...	Tote 'Ali' Bent
Chris Truswell	...	'Fingers' Hough
Terry Brady	...	Lt. Trout
Richard Jones	...	Gary Garter

Also Known As:

Nightmaster (USA)

Runtime:

USA:87 min

Country:

Australia | Canada

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

Iceland:12 | Australia:M | UK:15 (cut) | USA:R | West Germany:16

Filming Locations:

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Company:

Cine-Funds Limited

Goofs:

Factual errors: The end credits copyright the film under the title "Tomorrow's News" (aka Outback Vampires (1987)), which was a different Australian film made the same year.

Fallen Idol

***SPOILERS*** Futueristic movie about a number of Austrailien collage students playing Ninja games all night then attending karate/physical classes at 5:AM and by the time they go to their regular classes are too knocked out to really learn anything. Their karate instructor Steve Beck, Vince Martin,has a very strong grip on the students to the point of almost killing themselves in their Ninja night games to impress him. Steve's best student and his biggest admirer is young Robby Mason, Tom Jennings, who Steve is guiding to the champion karate/boxing finals.

A very impressionable young man Robby lost his father at an early age and Steve was the perfect father-figure that he needed so badly at this time. One of Robby's teachers Sonia Spane, Joanne Samuel,is very concerned by her students, especially Robby, being so infatuated with Steve. Sonia knows some things about Steve, by being his former lover, that they don't and those thing can be fatal to both the students as well as Steve.

A highly decorated war veteran Steve is the only survivor of his army unit and has developed very deep emotional as well as psychical scares to the point where he can show no human feelings other then anger and violence to hide the fact he was the only one to survive. Steve put all this violence and aggression into his karate/boxing classes and Sonia sees that those students who are so impressed by Steve are slowly turning into the violent and brutal person that Steve is.

Steve also developed a drug habit in the army and is being supplied with his daily dose by local drug dealer and all around sleaze ball Guy Duncan, Craig Pearce, who also is blackmailing him. Sonia trying to get Robby away from Steve before he's caught up with Steve's secret life that can destroy him as well as Steve. As hard as she tries Sonia can't budge Robby away from his hero worshiping of Steve and it took an incident the night of the big karate/boxing Champiship that Robby was to participate in that finally open his eyes to just what kind of person Steve really is.

Very interesting movie with a young 20 year old Nicole Kidman playing Robby's girlfriend Amy Gabriel who caught on to Steve early in the movie when she saw him and Guy exchanging money for drugs and it almost cost her life for finding that out. The real star in the movie is Tom Jennings who was both strong and sensitive, what ever happened to him?, in his part of Robby Madson. In the end Robby had to face the truth, as well as the fists and kicks, of the person he looked up to for so long.

Robby battles Steve in the abandoned warehouse that he and Steve's students practice on their Ninja/Karate skills that Steve thought them at the end of the film. The movie is hard to follow due to the very dark photography in it making it very difficult to tell who's who in the very thrilling fight sequence between Robby and Steve at the conclusion of the film but if you give it a chance and overlook that you may very well like it.