Kill or Be Killed (1976) is a South African martial-arts film. It came to my attention in a tweet from independent filmmaker/martial artist Len Kabasinski (Curse of the Wolf, Swamp Zombies).
Ivan Hall directed.
“Ah, yes,” says all of the aficionados of South African cinema. “I am quite familiar with Hall’s raison d’etre…”
Kill or Be Killed stars South African Bruce Lee, James Ryan. Ryan may have not had a huge career, but he got to be in a Reb Brown movie (Space Mutiny), and he appeared in From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money, which I reviewed here. That is a solid credit list.
Let’s take a look at Kill or Be Killed, a chop-socky saga that takes us to the highs of Nazi villains and the lows of little person acrobatics. It also has a girl named Olga to ogle.
Here We Go…
The opening treats us to Maurice Binder-style James Bond credits — except we don’t get scintillating female silhouettes jumping around while Shirley Bassey wails. Instead, we get names projected on Ryan’s sweaty, iron thews while he grunts and ki-yaps.
We are not the only witnesses to this homoerotic information dump. Ryan’s conniptions are observed by a former Nazi General, who looks a bit like a bearded Sean Connery, and a little person who is perhaps on loan from Lone Wolf McQuade.
Nazi General is played by Norman Coombes. Oddly, enough, with all of these Bond references going on, Coombes was in the Roger Moore movie, Gold, plus Cyborg Cop II!
The little person is portrayed by Danie Du Plessis. Kill or Be Killed appears to be Du Plessis’s only credit. This is a shame, as he easily has the panache to play any number of Ewoks.
Speaking of which, isn’t it interesting that Ewoks have not appeared in any of the new Star Wars movies? It’s like even Kathleen Kennedy has the brains to know Ewoks are questionable choices.
We should also make mention of Kill or Be Killed’s score. Despite the powers of Google, I cannot find who did the music for this film. Suffice it to say, I am a fan of their bombastic trumpets. When you add all of these elements together, no matter where you are, you will feel like you are sitting in a theater that allows smoking when you watch Kill or Be Killed.
A View To A Kill Or Be Killed
Nazi General lives in a castle in the middle of the desert. The walls of the castle are so white they could be made entirely from KKK hoods. Nice allusion. Kudos to the designers.
A troop of men practice karate within the castle walls. One of them looks like George Costanza. Please, let him be a main character. Can you imagine George Costanza in a karate movie?
I don’t like yelling in public, Jerry.
You yell at your mother and father all the time.
That’s different. That’s Private Yelling George. This is Public Yelling George, we are talking about.
That’s a shame…
A lone woman is also part of the karate guys. She is played by a lovely lass named Charlotte Michelle. Like Du Plessis, Kill or Be Killed appears to be her only credit. I will give her credit for making my cold dead heart feel something for the briefest flicker of time. There, now she has two credits.
Call me Wrenage, Champion of Women’s Rights.
An Angry Karate Man accosts Charlotte. I call him Angry Karate Man because one thing not in the favor of Kill or Be Killed is that it is virtually impossible to keep all of the similar characters straight. Ryan takes offense to Charlotte being accosted by Angry Karate Man. Charlotte is Ryan’s babe.
All of this leads to a karate fight — well, more of a spat actually — between Ryan and Angry Karate Man. The choreography is well done for the 1970s style of wide takes. Plus, the Shaw Brothers-like sound effects are on point. The only criticism is that it all feels a bit disjointed. We will talk more about that later.
Shoot to Kill or Be Killed
All right, let’s sort out the plot of Kill or Be Killed…
Nazi General had his 1936 Olympics martial arts team humiliated by a Japanese martial arts team led by a man named Miyagi. Miyagi bribed the judges with diamonds. Not sure why bribery was needed. Being Japanese should be sufficient enough when it comes to winning karate tournaments…
Decades later, Nazi General decided to sign the greatest fighters in the world to contracts and have a rematch with Miyagi’s team in order to regain his honor. Nazi General plans to get Miyagi to agree to this by bribing him with diamonds. Diamonds are very important in this movie for roughly five seconds.
Ryan, Charlotte, Angry Karate Man, George Costanza are some of Nazi General’s contracted fighters. Ryan and Charlotte want to break their contract, escape, and get married.
Kill or Be Killed then features roughly 5,239 scenes where Du Plessis gathers additional fighters for Nazi General’s team. Nazi General only has seven fighters. He needs twenty. This seems to be the kind of management error that would make one question Nazi General’s competence, but we have a run-time to fill, so, okay, whatever…
Meanwhile, Ryan defects to Miyagi’s team. Nazi General holds Charlotte hostage. People fight. If you kind of cross your eyes and squint while looking at the plot sideways, it all makes sense. Trust me.
Kill ‘Em All Or Be Killed
I once sorted out all of the construction units of about 1,500 miles of overhead electric line and 1,000 miles of underground electric line. This sounds like intelligent work, but it’s not. It is simply sorting out a gigantic Excel file with an infinity of rows and columns into something resembling orderliness.
Nevertheless, that job was easier than sorting out the second act of Kill or Be Killed.
This is not to say the second act is particularly complicated. It is not. Yet, trying to put it into written form is complicated. This goes back to my previous comment about the disjointed nature of Kill or Be Killed.
The second act is basically a near-endless sequence of karate exhibitions combined with attempts at comedy that are as broad as Lizzo’s waistline. It features Du Plessis traveling the world and trying to fill out the rest of the Nazi General’s roster spots. He encounters an array of fighters who blur together in a smear of punches and kicks.
All of this is intercut with Ryan and Charlotte’s plight and whatever else the filmmakers decide to throw in that may or may not be bound by the rules of logic or time. For example…
Kill or Be Killed Montage
Angry Karate Man gets in an apartment-destroying fight with Charlotte and a random girl who decided to stop by and give her a karate lesson one day.
Du Plessis’s best friend is a hand puppet.
A surveyor dryly delivers the line, “One lump or two.”
A man catches a fly with chopsticks, which interestingly predates The Karate Kid by eight years. Was The Karate Kid influenced by this movie? Possibly, especially considering the leader of the Japanese team is also named Miyagi.
“Oss” is said 1,329,712 times.
Both teams form lines and clap. One half expects Duane to dance down the aisle between them.
Du Du Plessis attempts to hit a karate man who talks like Yoda over the head with a large clock.
A man punches a watermelon.
An ancient creature rises from the depths of the ocean to enslave mankind. Just kidding. I made that last one up.
So, rather than try to do a play-by-play of the second act, let’s just move on to the tournament part of the movie. My brain goes all H.P. Lovecraft-protagonist-faced-with-a-horror-beyond-all-comprehension at the thought of trying to boil Kill or Be Killed’s second act into written form.
License To Kill Or Be Killed
One fun part of the tournament is how Nazi General brings in a ringer. Ringer is a mountain of a man, a Caucasian Bolo Yeung. He pummels a guy and stomps on him like he is a bunch of grapes.
“I cannot allow fighting like this!” Myagi protests.
Moments later, another random dude stabs a different random dude in the chest with a Sai and no one says anything. So, edged weapons = fine. Stomping = unacceptable. The rules of this tournament seem to be similar to the rules of arguing with a lady friend.
One would think this would all culminate with Ryan fighting Ringer in the final match, but, see, there you go, trying to bring logic into things. Stop that. Instead, we get deluged with many random-guy fights, interspaced with Ryan fighting Angry Karate Fighter in a dungeon. Here Ryan employs his signature movie, which is kind of whistling before he strikes.
In the interest of DEI, a black dude also puts in a brief appearance. This kind of destroys suspension of disbelief because one figures there is a no way a black dude will not dominate an athletic event, but he disappears as quickly as he appears… kind of like an absentee father vanishing into the night…
For the final battle to decide it all, Nazi General has a trick up his sleeve. He forces Ryan to fight Charlotte. Okay, I have to admit, that is a clever twist.
Will Ryan beat Charlotte? Will Charlotte beat Ryan? Or will their love prove the victor? The answer, of course, is that the tournament is forgotten and we end up with a prison break, a car chase, and a final battle in the desert.
Makes total sense when you think about it…
Watch Or Be Watched?
Kill or Be Killed is certainly ambitious. It has many elements to like. The problem is an age-old one. The sum of its parts do not equal a solid whole.
Ultimately, the movie feels like a bunch of karate guys got together and decided to make a movie, but they didn’t know how to tell a story. Kill or Be Killed could also be called ADD: The Film. The movie is all over the place and can’t seem to pick a narrative line.
Characters come and go from one moment to the next. Scenes come and go from one moment to the next. The mind jams up as it tries to connect them all. The Big Idea of the movie is a karate tournament, but it ends up being more of a Big Suggestion in the final analysis.
The fights are well done. Ryan is a suitable action star. All of the other performers are more than capable for a movie of this kind. The people building this film simply didn’t know how to put it together. They mistook activity for achievement. One admires the effort, but Kill or Be Killed needed to work smarter, not harder. It doesn’t kill me to only give it an average grade.
