They don't really make films like Death Machines anymore and that's a bit of a shame. It seems to have a bit of a mixed reputation if the reviews on here are anything to go by but for me this is an unqualified success on account of just how entertaining it all is. Its story centres on three fighters – the death machines - who are directed by a female crime boss by way of a mind control drug. She then uses them to carry out a series of hit jobs on her enemies. For reasons that remain unexplained, the death machines are bullet proof.From the outset, you have to give some credit to a film whose three central characters are named in the credits as White Death Machine, Black Death Machine and Asian Death Machine. And you also have to give plus points to a film whose master criminal is an East Asian lady with huge hair. She directs proceedings that amount to a series of scenes of the death machines taking out a variety of shady rival criminals. These set-pieces are connected together, often without much of an explanation. But sometimes sense can be over-rated and sheer nonsense can be so much more fun. I find it hard to understand how so many people can have found this movie boring. As far as I'm concerned, it moved along at a cracking pace and threw plenty of action and insanity at us from start to finish. There are lots of martial arts fights; heads and arms are chopped off; a truck is driven through restaurant window and a bulldozer flattens a man in a phone booth; an aeroplane is taken out by a bazooka; a banker is blown up by a time-bomb and a professional hit-man is thrown off a roof; an assault on a karate school is attempted with predictably action-packed results; there's a biker bar-room brawl; we have a shouting police captain and a 'hero' who is beaten up easily by an angry pensioner. I'm pretty sure there was a lot more than that as well. This is great fun basically.

Everyone on this site is bashing Death Machines, but its cool. I understand. Some of you just haven't taken the time to look under the surface and see just how deep this movie is. I'm talking Moodys deep, man. Really deep.Three racially diverse assassins, unstoppable, even with bullets, unless you shoot the white assassin in the head, then he lets out a girly scream and gets arrested. What does it all mean? That unstoppableness transcends all racial and social boundaries? I don't know. Evil mushmouthed, giant-haired Asian dragon lady, the mastermind behind it all. Are all Asian women with gigantic wigs evil? The blackmailing henchman who carries incriminating photos in a wicker basket? Who is he really? The wimpy by-default hero who takes karate lessons only to have his hand cut off then have disappointing sex with his nurse-turned-girlfriend? Why did the director turn him into a human water fountain? The religious old guy who gives the white assassin a hamburger? Was he a direct descendant of the similar character from "I Accuse My Parents"? Like I said, deep. Think about it.

Director Paul Kyriazis' "Death Machines" is so unrelentingly silly and incompetent as to rate as a true hall of fame see-it-to-believe-how-bad-it-is turkey. It's so silly, in fact, that one has to wonder if the filmmakers had their tongues in their cheeks the entire time. Now, granted, it could have been even more entertaining on a lovably clunky level, as it's somewhat overextended, but sometimes the padding is absurd enough to generate some real chuckles.This martial arts / action / exploitation piece of sludge stars Ron Marchini, a student of Bruce Lee who also produced the film, as one of three "death machines" (the other two are a black and an Asian) who've been given a drug that controls their minds, and apparently also makes them impervious to bullets. Thus they make handy assassins for Madame Lee (Mari Honjo, who sports an enormous wig and whose facial expressions are truly gut busting), a dragon lady villainess. But when the trio of killers massacre the students at a karate school, the lone survivor, Frank Thomas (charisma-free John Lowe), vows vengeance. Good old Frank's not about to let the fact that they chopped off his hand deter him at all.So much of this is gloriously goofy. Let's start with our "hero", Mr. Thomas, who actually gets his ass handed to him by a rowdy old barfly. Yet somehow this turns on Mr. Thomas' new lady friend! One incredibly, deliciously moronic set piece has Marchini sitting down for a nice nourishing burger at a restaurant and being hassled by annoying bikers. Another fine bit of comedy has a target for assassination, a bank manager, handcuffed to his file cabinet while a time bomb in his office ticks away - yet his secretary takes her sweet time while helping out.From the super funky and funny music score by Don Hulette (dig that piano during a fight scene) to the thoroughly amateurish acting, "Death Machines" sizes up as a real hoot and a half. If you love silly schlock, you know you're going to be in for a good time with those opening credits. And it all leads up to a resolution that will leave you with a smile on your face. As low budget '70s cheese goes, this is a movie worth a look.Seven out of 10.

A multi-racial trio of lethal and indestructible ace martial artist assassins - white guy (beefy Ron Marchini), black dude (brawny Joshua Johnson), Asian man (lithe Michael Chong) -- go around the city and bump off various folks for their evil dragon lady boss Madame Lee (a hysterically campy and vampy Mari Honjo, who can barely speak English and mumbles all her dialogue). Boy, does this deliciously dippy and dreadful dreck possess all the right wrong stuff to qualify as an enjoyably awful piece of gut-busting schlock: we've got fumbling (mis)direction by Paul Kyriazi (who also co-wrote the nonsensical script), lousy acting from a lame no-name cast, a token hot naked babe, crude cinematography by Donald Rust, hilariously inept fight choreography (sidesplitting highlights include the death machines wiping out an entire school of karate students, the white guy beating up dozens of cops while escaping from a police station, and our deadly threesome opening up a king-sized barrel of hurting on a biker gang in a diner), slipshod editing, excessively bloody tomato paste-style violence, and a stupid "it ain't over yet" sequel set-up (non)ending. Bonus booby points are in order for Chuck Katzakian's alarmingly overblown portrayal of hot-tempered crime boss Mr. Gioretti and the supremely wired'n'wonky zoned to the funky bone synthesizer score by Don Hulette. In fact, this uproariously messed-up movie often plays like an unintentional (?) parody of a cheesy 70's drive-in action flick. An absolute cruddy hoot.