In their ninth and final film collaboration, star Charles Bronson and director J. Lee-Thompson tackle the serious theme of child prostitution and invest it with all the depth of a shoot 'em up arcade game. This extremely dislikeable little thriller is badly written, lazily acted and carelessly directed. It is typical of the vulgar garbage churned out by the Golan-Globus production duo throughout the '80s – these Israeli cousins produced 90 or so titles, but only about 10% of their output is worth the time of day. Kinjite: Forbidden Subject belongs in the other 90% - nasty, exploitative, brainless rubbish that any half-respectable viewer will do their damndest to avoid!
Japanese businessman Hiroshi Hada (James Pax) is transferred to Los Angeles with his family. Meanwhile, L.A. vice cop Lt. Crowe (Charles Bronson) is busy trying to bust a child prostitution ring in the city headed by sleazy low-life Duke (Juan Fernandez). Crowe is a fairly angry and unstable cop – he's wildly over-protective of his teenaged daughter, and increasingly disgusted by the slimeballs he's assigned to arrest. Furthermore, he hates the way that L.A. is becoming a multi-cultural city with its heavy influx of Japanese immigrants. When Hada's teenaged daughter is kidnapped by Duke's gang and forced into a life of sexual abuse and degradation, it is Crowe who is assigned to get her back. He must put aside his prejudices against all things Japanese to bring the bad guys to heel. But throughout his quest for the girl, Crowe finds himself questioning how far is enough when you're out to bring sex traffickers and paedophiles to justice?
Such serious matters really deserve a better treatment than they receive in this trashy potboiler. Child prostitution, sex trafficking and cultural differences all weighty themes, for sure. Certainly not the sort of thing that should be exploited for the sake of a bit of trigger-happy entertainment. Bronson looks utterly bored by his role and the action sequences are depressingly dispirited. Bronson and Thompson never were renowned for their subtlety, but Kinjite is pretty tasteless even by their extraordinarily low moral standards. There are a couple of positives in the film, though they hardly make the overall thing worth watching. One is Fernandez's astonishingly slimy turn as the villain (not great acting, but if there was an award for the most thoroughly rotten character to grace the screen he'd be a hot contender!) And then there are the film's occasional "did-I-just-see-what-I-thought-I-saw?" scenes – such as Bronson anally assaulting an offender with a dildo, or forcing a bad guy to swallow his Rolex watch
Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects is thoroughly obnoxious and offensive stuff, and a sad end to the long directing career of J. Lee-Thompson (how could the man who gave us The Guns Of Navarone and Ice Cold In Alex have also made this?!?)
Japanese businessman Hiroshi Hada (James Pax) is transferred to Los Angeles with his family. Meanwhile, L.A. vice cop Lt. Crowe (Charles Bronson) is busy trying to bust a child prostitution ring in the city headed by sleazy low-life Duke (Juan Fernandez). Crowe is a fairly angry and unstable cop – he's wildly over-protective of his teenaged daughter, and increasingly disgusted by the slimeballs he's assigned to arrest. Furthermore, he hates the way that L.A. is becoming a multi-cultural city with its heavy influx of Japanese immigrants. When Hada's teenaged daughter is kidnapped by Duke's gang and forced into a life of sexual abuse and degradation, it is Crowe who is assigned to get her back. He must put aside his prejudices against all things Japanese to bring the bad guys to heel. But throughout his quest for the girl, Crowe finds himself questioning how far is enough when you're out to bring sex traffickers and paedophiles to justice?
Such serious matters really deserve a better treatment than they receive in this trashy potboiler. Child prostitution, sex trafficking and cultural differences all weighty themes, for sure. Certainly not the sort of thing that should be exploited for the sake of a bit of trigger-happy entertainment. Bronson looks utterly bored by his role and the action sequences are depressingly dispirited. Bronson and Thompson never were renowned for their subtlety, but Kinjite is pretty tasteless even by their extraordinarily low moral standards. There are a couple of positives in the film, though they hardly make the overall thing worth watching. One is Fernandez's astonishingly slimy turn as the villain (not great acting, but if there was an award for the most thoroughly rotten character to grace the screen he'd be a hot contender!) And then there are the film's occasional "did-I-just-see-what-I-thought-I-saw?" scenes – such as Bronson anally assaulting an offender with a dildo, or forcing a bad guy to swallow his Rolex watch
Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects is thoroughly obnoxious and offensive stuff, and a sad end to the long directing career of J. Lee-Thompson (how could the man who gave us The Guns Of Navarone and Ice Cold In Alex have also made this?!?)