Hey guys today's video is another classic Steven Seagal his second movie
he had a three-picture deal with Warner Brothers this is a second one he started
with it with at the time his real-life wife Kelly LeBrock they actually talked
about doing a movie together all the way back in 1986 just came out 1990 so
there's an interesting article from LA Times I'll talk about as well as other
trivia overall retrospective so if you're so gold fan you'll probably love
the hell out of this if you're not just a gold fan you're probably not here
watching or you just love to hate it so maybe you will watch comment either way
let's get some engagement going on this channel by the way they me in this movie
go way back you'll see it's the DVD so obviously I got it alongside regarding
I'd at least probably get the blu-ray these days but even that's old-school
you know most people probably just stream it or something but I like
old-school media just like I like old-school Seagal so this is classic 90s
action still holds up to this day I watched it in 2020 not too long ago
anybody who hasn't seen it it's worth a watch anyone who has seen it's worth
revisiting so in today's video let's talk about why Steven Seagal is Mason
storm a cop working undercover until his cover was blown so are we really
surprised his cover was blown it's got a video camera it's about two feet long I
would like to point out the technology wasn't that bad in 1990 the film
actually initially takes place seven years prior 1983 and yeah the technology
was that bad I think we all need to just step back for a moment and be grateful
the amount of Technology you can just house in your pocket these days is
pretty much what you had to have a van or an RV to put all that tech in back in
the day speaking of back in the day this film took place for in Seagal's golden
era 1988 to 1991 it was the second film as I
mentioned earlier in the intro from Warner Brothers of the three picture
deal the third film was actually from Fox and we'll talk about that in the
next video but as far as hard to kill goes this was pretty important in the
realm of psychology for instance this was the debut of his
now infamous ponytail something that would become some
with his image overall in fact when you think about Steven Seagal you think
about his ponytail just like when you think of Arnold you think of his muscles
same thing hard to kill would also be the film to debut the word is in his
credit for example Steven Seagal IS Hard To Kill you'll see that used in a lot of
these future films another interesting tidbit about harder kill is the limiters
in the film is actually played by his real-life wife at the time Kelly LeBrock
you probably all know her from weird science she was a model a London model
and they actually met in Japan when he was also her bodyguard at one point now
there's an interesting article in the Los Angeles Times from 1986 so I'm gonna
link in the description of this video talks about the man the martial artist
his upbringing and Japan learning the ways and how there's really no great
Western martial arts movies it talks about the fight choreography he's done
in town on some films also kind of building him up to be the next big
martial arts movie star now the article was written before his first film ever
came out in 1988 which was Above The Law Hard To Kill that came out two years
later in 1990 so this article came out four years prior to that and they kind
of allude to the possibility of Seagal and LeBrock starring in the same movie Seagal
said a lot of people were telling me that they're very excited to get us
together because of the way we look together in our chemistry he goes on to
say in the last year Kelly and I have been offered the moon but we've been
waiting for the right stuff we want to do good film good art now whether or not
you consider hard to kill a good film or even good art it's definitely
entertaining I'd say it's a good film for what it is it's a revenge story it's
similar to Kill Bill it's essentially the story of a victim coming out of a
coma regaining strength training and tracking down those responsible and
killing them that's always a lot of fun how can you not root for the man I think
that's what made Seagal movies likable from a lot of audience members his
character is put in a situation he wants to right the wrongs in this particular
film his family's murder including well I his his child's not murdered but
as far as he knows the kid was murdered with the wife who could not put
themselves in that shoes and just want to get vengeance when I want to get
justice through any means possible through your own means not nothing the
court legal system that just wouldn't be nearly as satisfying in real life or
on-screen but speaking of real life you should probably agree that road the
legal route that is through the legal court systems let the cops do their job
you're not an Aikido master plus other legal implications involved so yeah let
let the cops do their job speaking about the coma the working title for this foam
was called seven years storm he was in a coma for seven years and there's been a
storm brewing for that amount of time that would have been a pretty awesome
title but harder kills equally awesome now interestingly if they'd actually did
go with seven year storm it does continue the tradition of the three word
title that all of his golden era films had three words simple straight to the
point some interesting health notes waking up from a seven-year coma by the
way wouldn't happen nearly as fast as it doesn't hard to kill but of course that
would make for a pretty boring movie the transition would actually take months
and hard to kill the way storm the goals character Hills himself he uses a
traditional Chinese medicine technique called moxibustion now moxibustion is a
form of heat therapy in which dried plant materials called moxa are burned
on or very near the surface of the skin the intention is a warm and invigorate
the flow of Chi in the body and dispel certain pathogenic influences either way
Seagal makes it pretty badass on screen especially one of the more common motifs
you'll find in skull films whether it be eastern philosophy medicine etc now as
far as the script goes psycho second outing rearranges the politics and
action form levas previous effort above the law to create a little bit more of a
mythic heroes journey type film the story opens on April 11th of 1983 the
only reason why they get they don't necessarily say it's April 11th but they
do allude to being Oscars nights so we know it's April 11th
1883 it's very specific and they do mention the oscars a few times so wha
how come you know watching the Oscars tonight the Oscars yeah they ask I hate
the Oscars you're not having a good time huh
I mean who needs the goddamn movies anyway I got a show in here every single
night yeah you got horror sex freaks violence and I don't get a pay no four
bucks either in 1983 we've learned that Gandhi had dominated the Oscars at night
winning eight awards including Best Picture director and actor so why is
this important was this have to do with anything well
setting the opening scenes on Oscar night in 1983 does have a sort of
realistic texture to the film putting the characters into the same historical
and cultural type context that we live in but outside of that there's also a
little subtext here Verne in his books Seagalogy really breaks it down he doesn't
think it's a stretch to guess that the writer chose Oscar night 1983 as a way
of comparing Mason storms Seagal's character violent retribution to
Gandhi's nonviolent protest Mason never himself finds out about Gandhi winning
the Oscars but his friend at the police station does and cheers for Ben
Kingsley's when shortly before he was shot dead it seems to indicate that
pacifism can only go so far that we are dealing with violent people and at some
point you need to decide that enough is enough and bring violent retribution to
the enemies the way Mason storm does now whether or not the screenwriter actually
did intend that or if we're just looking a little deeper than we should be
there's a lot of action films where the level of subtext is pretty sophisticated
that we may not necessarily notice possibly on a subconscious level but
usually it takes somebody to point out and for you to connect the pieces and it
just makes the film that much more fascinating to think about even though
it's really just a popcorn in this case looks like you won the
Oscar tonight star now all those scripts go through many rewrites and there's
usually a final draft come production time a lot of times a film actually
veers away from the final script and that might be due to the editing
post-production where they shot several scenes and decided to use something else
uh editing is after all considered the final rewrites other times the scene
might have just been too hard a shoot so Vern points out in his book psychology
one of the spectacular action moments in the script that I'm sure turned out to
be too hard to shoot was one where storm runs across a row of parked cars leaves
meteor like a night Eagle setting what looks like a new world record in the
long jump and cracks the guy's neck killing him instantly
now the best part of this awesome move is that it would have been the first
time his son saw him in seven years that would have made quite an entrance
here's how the actual scene plays out
actually really prefer the scene in the film I get a much more satisfying fight
scene out of it as opposed just an instant
oh she's still a loser I always found that line to be a little odd how does
getting ambushed in the middle of the night by an armed gang and your wife get
murdered make you a loser hey Google give me the definition of a loser here's
the definition of loser a person or thing that loses or has lost something
okay I take it back I guess that guy's right
are you still kind of a scumbag and apparently the devil II love the
symbolism there so here's a sweet bonding moment with his family here
you'll find several these kind of moments in early segal feelings in you
another thing you'll finance the girl films is even though he's a cop he's
sort of a rebel within his system so you'll see him running from cops here
there's also in his first film above the law there's a similar moment as well and
there's a good reason that he did that in above the law because he did just
throw a man through somebody's a glass with them speaking of breaking glass and
windows that's another pretty common crime since
the gold movies here and hard to kill for example the see these guys throwing
these shelves of bottles in a liquor store they'll see this guy's head
through a Chinese cabinet and then these guys kick through the windows of a hotel
lobby if there's one thing that all this broken glass has in common it's pretty
damn entertaining
what's a reference of books psychology one more time because there are two
pieces of pure Seagallian dialogue that seemed like Seagal himself could have
improvised them the bit about his past as a white boy raised in the Orient and
also the classic superior attitude speech Vern mentions in that book
Seagalogy that he was happy to find that neither of these were in the script
which supports his theory that Seagal makes this kind of stuff up on the fly
when the cameras are rolling and I believe what Vern really likes and
respects about this is one there two pretty badass speeches into it just
gives you more insight into the man himself Segal man myth legend with that
said I do want to play those two Clips here because these are some of my
favorite parts of the film over there to learn how to fight as you can imagine I
remember once at my first martial arts teacher niece's so why do you come to me
and I say I say yeah to learn how to fight it's just oh so you want to hurt
people but you want to be great I say yeah be great
this then first learn how to heal people to be great third people is easy no no
no you did the right thing that wasn't the time now is the time we're outgunned
and undermanned but you know something we're gonna win and I'll tell you why
superior attitude Superior State of Mind
we'll get him buddy believe me
every fucking one of them let me know what you guys think about those scenes
in the movie by the way in the comments below
so with any great action movie especially of the 80s or 90s era there's
usually going to be some memorable one-liners and this one in particular
comes to mind
I just love how the script describes us by the way storms vengeance look I think
Seagal nailed that oh and here's another gem of a one-liner
now in an ironic twist of fate the main villain in the film Senator train is
enjoying the lovely evening in the hot tub with his hot date he had plans go to
the ballet now a lot of guys in general will do whatever they can to get out of
going to the ballet in this case senator Trent should have just went because his
fate staying at home was much much worse we're not gonna make the ballet tonight
is a pretty worthless adversary to students ago the actor himself is not
William Sadler in fact the same year this came out he was the main villain in
Die Hard 2 there's actually a karate master in that an international
terrorist he put up a pretty damn good fight against Bruce Willis a martial
arts master now unlike Seagal himself at least the character was but I guess
overall it would have been a little bit cheesy if the senator was this karate
master that put up a fight against ago the climax the heart of kill is rather
interesting Seagal sneaks into senator Trent's mansion and dispatches his goons
and it becomes rather sadistic he's basically writing threatening messages
on the walls he's stalking the police captain as well as senator Trent and
overall he's just toying with us before of course breaking bones and stuffing
shotguns and mouths usually in an action film the main villain of the hero fights
at the end puts up the biggest fight but like I mentioned it doesn't really make
sense for the senator to be the type of opponent that he was the type of
adversary that he was and he die hard - even though it's the same actor and that
actor William Sadler can certainly pull off that role it just wouldn't make
sense in this instance so anyway that's the video guys Steven Seagal the
Eastwood Bronson Norris of the 90s a pleasant surprise
not my words by the way that was actually from from USA Today but anyway
thanks for watching please subscribe hope to see you guys next time for more
to go and in the future we're gonna do a lot
of Van Damme movies as well breaking them down.