I love direct-to-video B-movies that used to stock up the shelves in video stores everywhere back in the 90's, especially the Awesome beautiful Blockbuster video store.
Billy Blanks was a star of the low-budget action B movie genre that consisted of mainly martial arts stuff & kickboxing.
Billy Blanks in his prime during the 90's was like a seriously shredded Wesley Snipes type & with a tough hood thugged out voice similar to 50 Cent. Blanks was ripped-to-shreds & was a professional ass-kicker that moved into movies & i think he was a decent actor with a tough screen presence but always seemed like a good-hearted guy.
I've discovered & loved many of Blanks low-budget action flicks such as: Talons of the Eagle, Back in Action, Tough & Deadly, TC-2000, Expect No Mercy & Hidden Dragon, i consider those films real fun entertaining gems. Again, i love 90's direct-to-video Action B-movies.
I love Billy Blanks work with Roddy Piper best (Back in Action & Tough & Deadly) they really had a fun chemistry that felt similar to 48 Hrs, Lethal Weapon & Tango & Cash.
Hidden Tiger is definitely a damn good 90's, at times cheesy, action-packed martial arts flick with a top Billy Blanks performance.
Blanks plays a good-hearted, peaceful guy named Nico that teaches local kids to defend themselves & learn respect at his training Karate/Kung-fu/Martial arts type Dojo Centre. Nico is like a father figure as well as the instructor, to the local street kids that live life hard in their hood & Nico wants to teach them something other than how to sell drugs or be in a gang.
I really liked the Nico character & of course Billy played him really well with his natural charisma & screen presence.
The story kicks off with a dark blast when one of Nico's troubled teens gets shot by the local Mafia because Nico refused to pay the thugs for protection. This leads a hurt & vengeful Nico to be trained even better as a fighter by an old mystical warriors trainer played by the always great MAKO (An Eye For An Eye, TMNT, Silent Assassins) & he wants Nico to become the ultimate warrior that can compete in the crime syndicates brutal Death Match fights that they bet on. If Nico defeats the Crime Boss's champion fighter then his gambling empire will fall.
I loved the story of good men taking a stand against a crime syndicate & Nico having to fight dirty in the underworld fight circuit. There's humour mixed in & plenty of awesome fights sequences & training montage stuff. This is a typical low-budget 90's martial arts movie but with a bit more heart & two really great stars of the low-budget genre (Billy Blanks & Mako)
Also Hidden Tiger is filmed well with a decent, at times a little cheesy, score that all encapsulated its era, early 90's & i love it. You can never get those wonderful times again so it's nice, comforting & a boost of Nostalgia when i revisit these types of films.
ALSO this was the last of lead starring roles for Billy Blanks as from here he got bit-parts in a mix of stuff both films & t.v. So there's a litter sadness when you think about like that, & such a shame because Blanks should've been a bigger action star in my opinion. I like Blanks as much as say Snipes or The Rock or Diesel for example. What could've been? Maybe a cool team up with Statham or something along those lines. Just a shame because Billy Blanks was alot better than most of today's action stars & he was just as good as those action stars during his hey day in the 90's.
Anyway i will always enjoy revisiting Blanks films.
