Something to watch tonight: Wednesday 9 April

Blind Fury (Noyce, 1989)

I told myself that I wanted to rewatch Blind Fury after 35 years because we have been watching the new series of Daredevil: Born Again and I was curious how Rutger Hauer’s version of a visually impaired fighter for justice compared with Charlie Cox, but truth-be-told it was just nostalgia.

A couple of times while we were watching it last night, the editor-in chief asked me, “Why are we watching this? Do you have to write about it?” and my only reply was, “I don’t have to, but I want to …” I’m getting a bit tired of streaming services only having titles from this century and one of the missions here at F&S is to encourage viewers to dig a little deeper but, if I’m honest, Blind Fury isn’t the most compelling argument I could make.

A mid-budget contender for the high concept action comedy that was so popular in the 80s – Lethal Weapon 2, Batman, Turner & Hooch and Tango & Cash were all in the box office top twenty that year¹ – it hasn’t aged too well and the uncertain tone suggests a lack of confidence in both the central idea and the central casting.

Inspired by the long-running series of Japanese martial arts films, Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman (and according to the credits, a remake of the 17th film in that series, Zatoichi Challenged from 1967), you can tell that there are hopes that Blind Fury would spawn what we now call a franchise. It wasn’t to be.

Rutger Hauer was a well-known face in this period thanks to Blade Runner and The Hitcher but hadn’t taken off as a leading man. He plays Nick, a Vietnam vet who has been missing in action for over twenty years. Blinded in a firefight, he is taken in by local villagers and trained to be a master swordsman – exposition is efficiently handled during the opening credits.

He returns to the US with a score to settle but stumbles upon a drug conspiracy organised by some dodgy² Reno casino operators (including familiar face Noble Willingham). They have kidnapped his old army buddy (Terrance O’Quinn from The Stepfather) who is cooking up the blue crystals because, if he doesn’t, the crooks will kill his son, Billy (Brandon Call). Killing – or even capturing Billy is proving to be a challenge, though, because Nick is now his blade-wielding guardian angel.

Australian director Philip Noyce had just come off the hit thriller Dead Calm, but there’s an uncertainty about the comedy here that he can’t overcome. Hauer is just too edgy an actor to warm to as a hero, although he’s convincingly blind in many sequences. Still, there’s a lot of referring to eyes and sight here – glasses being stomped on, Billy’s mother (Meg Foster) having the most penetrating blue eyes – which suggests that there was some directorial ambition at work.

Whoever is distributing the current iteration of Blind Fury also lacks a bit of faith in it as there’s a ninja on the poster who does not appear in the film at all!

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Where to watch Blind Fury