The Plot. Her name is Diana Jackson, but you can call her T.N.T. When T.N.T.'s brother is killed by ruthless drug dealers, the beautiful young karate expert goes to the most dangerous part of Chinatown to find the killer. In trouble with the law since she was 13, T.N.T. wants no help from the pigs; but she does befriend a guy named Joe, whose impressive martial arts skills prove useful more than once. In her quest for the killer, she'll meet the white drug lord, Sid; Elaine, his bitchy girlfriend; his suspicious Chinese assistant, Ming; and Charlie, his handsome black assistant with criminal ambitions of his own. Before her search is over, she'll find herself making love to Charlie, trading insults with Elaine, and fighting criminals while nude and in the dark. Just call her T.N.T.This amounts to one of the worst exploration films ever made. And it's not "good" bad. It's just bad.The story-line is random and impossible to follow. The actions scenes are horrible and unreal.There is no direction to speak of and the locales are crumbling.Oh, and it goes without saying that the acting is horrendous.

Diana "TNT" Jackson (Bell) is a fish out of water - a tough, foxy lady from Harlem now on the mean streets of Hong Kong looking for the drug dealers who killed her brother. When she arrives in HK, she wants to go to the section so dangerous, her cabbie won't even take her there. It's a good thing she's a Martial Arts expert. During her quest, she ends up meeting the charming Charlie (Shaw), a cool brother with designs on TNT. Her rivals include Elaine (Anderson), who works for the criminal organization headed by Sid (Metcalfe) - the nefarious syndicate she's trying to bust up. With only her wits and her fists and alone in a strange land, will TNT's revenge be truly explosive? Find out today! TNT Jackson is the earliest Cirio film we've seen to date, and one of the first we had seen by him, period. We would certainly end up seeing many more in the future from this prolific director. The movie is a Blaxploitation classic, and even has some of the themes Cirio would use throughout his career, well into the 90's - namely, the show-stopping nude (or nearly so) fight scene. Hey, if it's not broken, don't fix it. He stumbled upon a winner with that idea, and used it again in such films as Silk 2 (1989) and Angelfist (1993). The movie is certainly entertaining enough, and at a brief 72 minutes, you really can't go wrong. It also features great, funky music by Tito Sotto and some great, pre-political correctness dialogue. For example, many characters refer to TNT Jackson as "that Black chick", and the most dangerous section of Hong Kong is called the "Yellow District". Add to that some amazing 70's hair and fashions, and you have a mild winner.Mild because there's not exactly a lot of substance here, and the fight scenes are sped up, slowed down, and tinkered with in a lot of ways...but it's all in good fun, and we realize Jeannie Bell isn't supposed to be Donnie Yen. The fights are more like the ones seen on the old Batman TV show. Maybe this is all the concoction of J.Lo, a person we were frankly surprised to see credited as Martial Arts instructor. (In case the deadpan humor of that isn't coming across, that's supposed to be a joke. But there is a guy named J. Lo in the credits, which was fun to see). While it's unfair to compare Bell to someone like Pam Grier, who pretty much remains the queen of the Blaxploitation era, Bell can certainly hold her own, appearing in Trouble Man (1972), Black Gunn (1972), and Three the Hard Way (1974), among others.When seeing this movie, make sure you see the DVD included as part of the Roger Corman Lethal Ladies collection, released in 2011. This version blows away any released before it. Throw away your old VHS or gas station DVD's. It's in widescreen, with crisp, clear colors. The movie has never looked better. If you're going to see, or re-see this pleasant-enough entry in the Blaxploitation canon, there has never been a better time than now.

A very feeble cross between a kung fu film and a blaxploitation movie, aimed squarely in the middle of both markets and yet failing as a vehicle for each genre. This is a Filipino-shot movie with the Philippines standing in for Hong Kong, directed by old hand Cirio H. Santiago. Believe it or not, I'm a fan of Santiago's movies – call me a masochist if you will – but even I'll be the first to admit this is one of his worst efforts.The problem is that the film is boring, despite best efforts otherwise. The plot is slim and of the standard revenge format, but most of the production values are terrible. The fight choreography is very poor and there never appears to be any genuine skill on the part of most of the performers. In particular, Jeannie Bell is terrible, completely failing to cut it as both a fighter and a leading actress; it's painfully obvious that her career background is as a model. Best of the actors is Stan Shaw, later a Hollywood mainstay, who's a pleasure to watch whenever he's on screen.Unfortunately, TNT JACKSON has to be considered a failure at the end of it all purely because it's so badly made. Sure, there are a handful of decent scenes in here, and one or two scenes that are memorable for all the wrong reasons, but it's not enough to make this come close to resembling a decent movie in any way, shape or form.

I'd been warned off 'T.N.T. Jackson' but couldn't resist as I'm a sucker for 1970s trash like this. Directed by Cirio H. Santiago, one of the producers of the classic Jack Hill chick in chains movies 'The Big Doll House' and 'The Big Bird Cage' which co-starred Pam Grier, with Roger Corman as executive producer, and a script co-written by b-grade legend Dick Miller(!), how could this go wrong? Well it does. Kinda. Jeanne Bell, who I vaguely remembered from bit parts in 'The Klansman' and 'Mean Streets', is beautiful and is a reasonable actress, but lacks the charisma of Pam Grier, or closer to home, Tamara Dobson ('Cleopatra Jones'). Despite being mainly filmed in the Philippines it lacks the grittiness of the aforementioned Pam Grier vehicles and is closer to the fantasy of the Dobson Cleopatra Jones movies. Only it isn't anywhere near as good. On the other hand it isn't as downright silly as say, 'Black Samurai' starring Jim Kelly (a guilty pleasure of mine), so I can't say it's a complete stinker either. Bell is supported by Stan Shaw ('Truck Turner'), and Ken Metcalfe, who co-wrote the script with Dick Miller, and both actors were better than the movie itself. One thing that really lets the movie down is the fight scenes which just don't convince. In one of them Bell is topless, and that is certainly a novelty, but on the whole they just don't work. 'T.N.T. Jackson' is neither the best nor the worst blaxploitation movie I've ever seen. It's one of those movies that you won't regret watching once, but you are very unlikely to rush to watch twice.