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Death Dimension - aka “The Kill Factor”/”Freeze Bomb” (1978)

Dir: Al Adamson

Dr Mason (T.E. Forman) has created a ‘Freeze Bomb’ for initially good weather controlling reasons (!) but the project has been hijacked by the evil criminal mastermind ‘The Pig’ (Harold Sakata, he of James Bond, ‘Odd Job’ fame) who wants the bomb as a weapon (shown during an unintentionally funny scene where four men have snowflakes exploded over them, supposedly freezing them to death!) to sell to the highest bidder.
But crafty Dr Mason has put all the specs for the bomb on a microchip which he has inserted into the scalp (!) of his assistant Felicia, who has run away.

Martial Arts operative Detective John Ash (Jim Kelly) is brought in on the case by Capt. Gallagher (ill fated ex-Bond George Lazenby) and with his Chinese Kung Fu friend Li he is joined by Li (the hysterically monikered Myron Bruce Lee) they are told to find Felicia before ‘The Pig’ and his henchman do and stop him selling the deadly ‘Freeze Bomb’…

 

The late Supremo of Schlock Al Adamson (who would hop between whatever genre was popular at the time, directing everything from horror films to gang movies, to westerns, to action flicks) once again teamed up with ‘B’ Blacksploitation star Jim "Enter the Dragon" Kelly (following 1977’s “Black Samurai”) for this weird and wild mix of spy flick and Kung Fu action film.

Although obviously made on the cheap, Adamson was by now a dab hand at making the most from nothing and he makes sure that there is as much ‘scope’ on the movie as possible, including sequences in cable cars, speed boats, planes etc.
Hollywood is not going to break a sweat of worry, but given everything “Death Dimension” is actually pretty damn well made.
Watch out for one badly staged scene though where Felicia's is very clumsily tied up by a sunglasses wearing goon and makes no attempt to escape despite the guy having obvious difficulty in wrapping the rope around her. It’s bad, but it at least supplies a laugh.

A film like this is lives or dies by it’s set-pieces and as such Adamson has crammed in as many set-piece moments as possible in the hope that some will hit the mark. And in fact most of them do.
A few moments worth mentioning:
A scene in the wonderfully weird brothel based compound of ’The Pig’ delivers what have to be some of the most ugly looking prostitutes ever seen by mortal man (they’d have to pay me) and also delivers the unexpected sight of “Mighty Joe Young” star and one-time Oscar nominee Terry Moore as the Madame.
And what can you say about a scene where Felicia is threatened with a turtle!?
Funky guitars and horns (the score is very hit and miss) herald the arrival of a forest-set smack down, as big afro sporting bad guys pop out from behind trees (one brandishing a sword) to take on Ash and his lethal nunchuks. Ash’s attitude to the fight is startlingly matter of fact and he ends it by simply leaping into his car and driving off to Vegas, to play on the slot machines, without a care in the world! The highlight to this fight is a super fast kicking in the balls dished out by Ash on two of the goons at the same time.
Talking of Ash, at one point he unleashes the deadly ‘Pulling Up of the Trouser's Leg Move’ on one goon, resulting in the poor guy falling over and, worst of all, having his socks exposed!
And look out for a mean Black, Haitian Karate henchman, with studded wrist bands, who in one early scene dishes out some very painful and nasty punishment which results in a split open throat for the poor sap on the receiving end.
In general the fight scenes are not going to win any awards, but there is a ragged look to the fighting (as would probably be the case in reality) that was the way of many American made 70’s Martial Arts flicks (though Jim Kelly’s super fast multiple punches are cool) and they at least come thick and fast.
In fact hardly 10 minutes goes by without some kind of action going down, be it a car chase, a Kung Fu smack down, a gunfight, various stunts (including on top of a moving car, all arranged by the prolific sometime director John "Bud" Cardos), people being chased by helicopters and planes, explosions and even a Martial Arts boat chase

An when there’s no action on screen we have a few breasts to pass the time with, the finest moment of which is a soapy shower sequence with Ash’s girlfriend.
All in all there is nearly always something going on to keep the interest, and that dear reader is ¾ of the battle won in any movie.

As you can see that cast is a really weird mix (a typically Aldo ‘The Green Berets” Ray also makes an appearance) with Kelly doing a perfectly acceptable job, Lazenby seems at ease but has little to do, ‘Odd Job’ Sakata is basically awful though and you can see why he was mute in “Goldfinger” as quite frankly his line delivery is cringe worthy.
Talking of dialogue it has a few of those essential ‘quote’ moments with Ash quipping “Hang in there baby” as he leaves a bad guy hanging by a rope from a fire escape, the amazingly straight delivery of the line “My friend…money talks, bullshit walks” is a mini joy and when some henchman shout out to Ash “Hey, black turkey”, you can’t help but feel a warm glow deep down inside.

The screenplay/plot is basically a perfect example of muddled simplicity. The plot is very simple, but the general crafting of the story, the jumps from one event to another and the general way these events play out comes out as very muddled almost as if each part of the film was shot with no one remembering what had come before it or having any idea about what was to come next.

It all ends amazingly abruptly with some dodgy explosion stock footage and Jim Kelly doing a little skip before launching himself at the camera feet first. It’s as cheesy and fun as the rest of the movie while also being extremely goofy.
Quite frankly you should have a good 80 minutes or so with “Death Dimension” and seeing as it’s really cheap to pick up this can only mean it’s a must-buy situation. God bless the 70’s!