(1988)

Submitted by Tornado Dragon


After Ken (Sho Kosugi) rescues his sons, Brian (Kane Kosugi) and Denny (Shane Kosugi), and their escort, Patricia (Doran Clark), from Col. Klimenko’s (Vladimir Skomarovsky) right-hand man, Andrei (Jean-Claude Van Damme), and his henchmen, Ken takes them to the airport and gets them on a pre-arranged flight to Rome in an effort to keep them safe from any further dangers. Afterward, Ken meets with Father Joseph (Bruce French) outside the terminal and tells him that he wants to scout out the Gorky, a cargo freighter that Klimenko and his men are going to be bringing the experimental laser tracking device onto with the intention of taking it to a destination somewhere between Malta and the Black Sea, where a Soviet submarine will be waiting for them.

Ken and Father Joseph get down to the shipyard, and after noticing that the fishing trawler that the Russians have already been using is anchored nearby, they infiltrate the Gorky by posing as crewmen. Once they get aboard, Ken tells Joseph that the freighter will be casting off tonight, so he must do his best to keep it from leaving on schedule. Joseph thus goes into the bowels of the ship and finds the power boxes controlling the Gorky’s communication and navigational circuits, and he sets some small devices on them that will make them all short out at a certain time. Soon after, Ken and Joseph disembark and head to their car, and when Joseph asks Ken what is next for them, Ken tells him that he is going to leave him here and that he must contact Inspector Lino (Joe Quattromani) and tell him to be in the harbor at 8:30 p.m. However, once he accomplishes that, his services will no longer be required. Joseph tells Ken that he can’t take on Klimenko and his men all by himself, but Ken replies that what he intends to do will have a greater chance of succeeding if he does it alone. Joseph tells him that there must be something that he can do, but Ken just walks away from him and then uses his ninjutsu skills to vanish from his sight.

That night, Ken dons some camouflage makeup and clothing and sneaks back into the shipyard. Just as the Gorky is about to cast off, Joseph’s earlier-placed devices activate and destroy the circuits, and shortly after the ship’s captain tells Klimenko that it will take a day at most to complete the repairs, Klimenko spots Ken readying a zipline to help him cross over from the tower he is presently standing on to the freighter. Klimenko sounds the alarm, and Ken gets on board moments later. Klimenko grabs the device and makes his way off the ship in the direction of the Soviet fishing trawler, and though Ken spots him and chases after him, he finds himself held up by a bunch of armed goons on the docks. Suddenly, Joseph appears from behind a tanker truck and tosses a grenade at the henchmen, knocking them all flat and giving him the chance to join Ken. Ken tries to resume his pursuit of Klimenko while Joseph holds off the other armed villains, but he is intercepted by Andrei. As he and Andrei fight each other, the Russians depart in the trawler, and Andrei’s lover and fellow KGB agent, Natasha (Dorota Puzio), calls out to Andrei to show him that they are leaving. This distracts Andrei, enabling Ken to daze him and then get onto the vessel himself, and after Joseph subdues a few of the Russians, he hops aboard as well to continue helping Ken.

Just after Andrei regains his footing, Joseph takes his handgun out and shoots a bullet into Andrei’s right thigh, which causes him to start bleeding badly. Joseph then starts to set plastic explosives all around the boat while Ken looks for Klimenko and beats down anyone that gets in his way. Andrei tries to jump onto the trawler himself, but the combination of the bullet, the blood loss, and the fatigue he is feeling from his fight with Ken has left him with almost no strength to jump, so he winds up falling into the water when he tries. He calls out for Natasha to help him, and though she jumps into the water to do so, all she ends up doing is watching in horror as Andrei gets caught in the path of the boat’s propellor blade and gets shredded to death. Shortly afterwards, Ken finds Klimenko, knocks him out, and takes the laser tracking device, and moments later, he meets back up with Joseph, who tells him that the ship is fully rigged to blow before handing him the detonator for the explosives. Ken and Joseph then jump overboard, and while Joseph gets a hold of Natasha, Ken sets off the explosives, destroying the boat and killing everyone aboard. Ken, Joseph, and Natasha are then picked up in a small boat by one of Ken and Joseph’s fellow agents, and the agent brings them back to shore. Ken and Joseph notice that Lino is waiting for them, and after Ken tells Lino that he has accomplished his task, Lino suggests to him that he get out of Malta at the first available opportunity. Natasha is presumably taken into custody.

Ken finds Patricia, Brian, and Denny outside the Colosseum in Rome, and the movie ends with him happily embracing his sons.

01 hours 33 minutes