Blind Fury
''Blind Fury'' is a 1989 American action comedy film directed by Phillip Noyce and starring Rutger Hauer, Brandon Call, Terry O'Quinn, Lisa Blount, Randall "Tex" Cobb, and Noble Willingham. The screenplay by Charles Robert Carner is a loosely based, modernized remake of ''Zatoichi Challenged'', the 17th film in the Japanese ''Zatoichi'' film series. The film follows Nick Parker (Hauer), a blind, sword-wielding Vietnam War veteran, who returns to the United States and befriends the son of an old friend. Parker decides to help the boy find his father, who has been kidnapped by a major crime syndicate. Plot While serving in Vietnam, American soldier Nick Parker was blinded by a mortar explosion. Rescued by local villagers, he recovered his health and, though he remains blind, was trained to master his other senses and be an expert swordsman. 20 years later, having returned to the United States, he visits old army buddy Frank Deveraux, only to find that Deveraux is missing. Parker ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Phillip Noyce
Phillip Noyce (born 29 April 1950) is an Australian filmmaker. Since 1977, he has directed over 19 feature films in various genres, including historical drama (''Newsfront'', ''Rabbit-Proof Fence'', ''The Quiet American''); thrillers (''Dead Calm'', '' Sliver'', '' The Bone Collector''); and action films (''Blind Fury'', '' The Saint'', ''Salt''). He has also directed the Jack Ryan adaptations ''Patriot Games'' (1992) and ''Clear and Present Danger'' (1994) and the 2014 adaptation of Lois Lowry's ''The Giver''. He has worked with such actors as Val Kilmer, Harrison Ford, Denzel Washington, Michael Caine, Angelina Jolie, Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, and Rutger Hauer. He has also directed, written, and executive-produced television programmes in both Australia and North America, including '' The Cowra Breakout'', ''Vietnam'', '' Revenge'', ''Roots'', and most-recently Netflix's '' What/If.'' Noyce's work has won him several accolades, including AACTA Awards for Best Film, Best ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Brandon Call
Brandon Spencer Lee Call (born November 17, 1976) is an American former television and film actor as a child and adolescent. He played Hobie Buchannon in the first year of ''Baywatch'', and J.T. Lambert over a period of seven seasons on the TV series '' Step by Step''. Personal life Call was born on November 17, 1976, in Torrance, California. He is the youngest of four children born to Richard and Elyse Call; Brandon's three elder siblings are Dee Anne, Tandi and Dustin. He is married and raising his stepdaughter. Call already has one daughter from a previous relationship. She was born in 1998. Career While still in childhood, Call began acting in 1984. His first roles were guest spots on ''Simon & Simon'' and ''Hotel''. His film debut was voicing "Fairy #1" in Disney's '' The Black Cauldron'' in 1985. Also in 1985, he landed a recurring role on the NBC daytime drama, '' Santa Barbara''. During his stint on ''Santa Barbara'', he earned two Young Artist Awards for the role. Af ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jay Pennison
Jay Leslie Pennison (born September 9, 1961 in Houma, Louisiana) is a former professional American football center who played in the United States Football League (USFL) and the National Football League (NFL). Early years Pennison is a graduate of South Terrebonne High School class of 1979. He walked-on to the Nicholls State University football team as a tight end, but was subsequently moved to center. He had previously played the position in high school during his sophomore and junior seasons. While at Nicholls State, Pennison was named second-team Associated Press All-American during the 1982 and 1983 seasons. Professional career Pennison signed as an undrafted free agent with the Washington Redskins in 1984, but was cut late in the preseason. Also in 1984, Pennison was drafted in the thirteenth round (270th overall) of the 1984 USFL Draft by the Jacksonville Bulls. He played center for the Jacksonville Bulls during the 1984 and 1985 seasons. When the USFL folded in 1986, Pe ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Charles Cooper (actor)
Charles Darwin Cooper (August 11, 1926 – November 29, 2013) was an American actor who played a wide variety of television and film roles from 1950 to 2001. On Broadway, Cooper appeared in ''The Winner'' (1954) and ''All You Need Is One Good Break'' (1950). In 1958 he played outlaw Cando in Season 3 Episode 36 of "Gunsmoke" titled "Chester's Hanging." Also in 1958, Cooper played the outlaw Tate Masters in the episode "Twelve Guns" of NBC's Western television series ''Cimarron City'' with George Montgomery and John Smith. In 1959, he played a gunfighter, Jack Rollins, in the episode "The Visitor" of '' Lawman,'' an ABC/Warner Bros. Television Western series. He was cast as Matt Yordy in the 1961 episode "Honest Abe" of Chuck Connors' ''The Rifleman''. Cooper made four guest appearances on ''Perry Mason'', including the role of murderer Philip Strague in the 1958 episode, "The Case of the Buried Clock". His final appearance in 1962 was as Ben Willoughby in "The Case of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sho Kosugi
is a Japanese actor with extensive training in Shindō jinen-ryū Karate, Kendo, Judo, Iaido, Kobudo, Aikido and Ninjutsu. A former All Japan Karate Champion, he gained popularity as an actor during the 1980s, often playing ninjas. He starred in a trilogy of martial arts ninja films produced by Cannon Films (''Enter the Ninja'', ''Revenge of the Ninja'' and '' Ninja III: The Domination''), before starring in the primetime television series '' The Master''. His work helped establish ninjas in popular culture, leading to a "ninja boom" or "ninjamania" during the early-to-mid-1980s. Life and career At the age of 19, Kosugi left Japan to study and reside in Los Angeles where he earned a bachelor's degree in Economics at CSULA. At the same time, he consistently improved his martial arts skills while learning a wide variety of styles, such as Chinese Xing Yi Quan, Korean taekwondo and Japanese Shitō-ryū and Shotokan-ryū karate. He is the father of Kane Kosugi and Shane Kosugi, w ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Meg Foster
Margaret Foster is an American film and television actress. Some of her many roles were in the 1979 TV miniseries version of ''The Scarlet Letter'', and the films ''Ticket to Heaven'', ''The Osterman Weekend'', and ''They Live''. Early years Foster was born in Reading, Pennsylvania to David and Nancy (née Adamson) Foster on 10 May 1948, and grew up in Rowayton, Connecticut with four siblings: sisters Gray, Jan, and Nina, and brother Ian. She studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York. Career In 1968, Foster acted in a Cornell Summer Theater production of ''John Brown's Body''. Later in 1968, she was in the off-Broadway production of ''The Empire Builders''. When Loretta Swit was unable to reprise her television-film role of Detective Christine Cagney when the film was adapted into the ''Cagney & Lacey'' TV series, Foster took on the role for the short (six episodes) first season, before she was replaced by Sharon Gless. Entertainment colum ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rick Overton
Richard Overton (born August 10, 1954) is an American screenwriter, actor and comedian. His writing credits include ''Dennis Miller Live'', and his acting credits include ''Beverly Hills Cop'', ''Groundhog Day'' and ''Mrs. Doubtfire''. Life and career Overton was born in Forest Hills, Queens, New York, the son of Nancy Overton (née Swain), a singer, and Hall Overton, a teacher and music arranger. He grew up in Englewood, New Jersey, where he attended Dwight Morrow High School. Overton made his first onscreen appearance in the 1982 film ''Young Doctors in Love'', followed by a small role in '' Airplane II: The Sequel'' later that year. In 1987, he wrote an episode of '' The New Adventures of Beans Baxter'' while also appearing in various films and television shows including ''Willow'', ''Amazing Stories'' and '' Million Dollar Mystery''. In 1992, he landed a role in the FOX Network sketch comedy show ''The Edge''. The show ended in 1993. Later that year, Overton appeared in tw ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nick Cassavetes
Nicholas David Rowland Cassavetes (born May 21, 1959) is an American actor, director, and writer. He has directed such films as ''She's So Lovely'' (1997), ''John Q.'' (2002), ''The Notebook'' (2004), '' Alpha Dog'' (2006), and '' My Sister's Keeper'' (2009). His acting credits include an uncredited role in ''Husbands'' (1970)—which was directed by his father, John Cassavetes—as well as roles in the films ''The Wraith'' (1986), ''Face/Off'' (1997), and ''Blow'' (2001). Early life and career Cassavetes was born in New York City, the son of Greek-American actor and film director John Cassavetes and actress Gena Rowlands. As a child, he appeared in his father's film ''Husbands'' (1970). After spending so much of his youth surrounded by the film industry, Cassavetes initially decided he did not want to go into the field. He instead attended Syracuse University on a basketball scholarship, but after an injury effectively ended his athletic career, he decided to rethink his aspira ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Reno, Nevada
Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border, about north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". Known for its casino and tourism industry, Reno is the county seat and largest city of Washoe County and sits in the High Eastern Sierra foothills, in the Truckee River valley, on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada. The Reno metro area (along with the neighboring city Sparks) occupies a valley colloquially known as the Truckee Meadows which because of large-scale investments from Greater Seattle and San Francisco Bay Area companies such as Amazon, Tesla, Panasonic, Microsoft, Apple, and Google has become a new major technology center in the United States. The city is named after Civil War Union Major General Jesse L. Reno, who was killed in action during the American Civil War at the Battle of South Mountain, on Fox's Gap. Reno is part of the Reno–Sparks metropolitan area, the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mortar (weapon)
A mortar is usually a simple, lightweight, man-portable, muzzle-loaded weapon, consisting of a smooth-bore (although some models use a rifled barrel) metal tube fixed to a base plate (to spread out the recoil) with a lightweight bipod mount and a sight. They launch explosive shells (technically called bombs) in high-arcing ballistic trajectories. Mortars are typically used as indirect fire weapons for close fire support with a variety of ammunition. History Mortars have been used for hundreds of years. The earliest mortars were used in Korea in a 1413 naval battle when Korean gunsmiths developed the ''wan'gu'' (gourd-shaped mortar) (완구, 碗口). The earliest version of the ''wan'gu'' dates back to 1407. Choi Hae-san (최해산, 崔海山) (1380–1443), the son of Choe Mu-seon (최무선, 崔茂宣) (1325–1395), is generally credited with inventing the ''wan'gu''. In the Ming dynasty, general Qi Jiguang recorded the use of a mini cannon called the Hu dun pao that was simi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. The north was supported by the Soviet Union, China, and other communist states, while the south was United States in the Vietnam War, supported by the United States and other anti-communism, anti-communist Free World Military Forces, allies. The war is widely considered to be a Cold War-era proxy war. It lasted almost 20 years, with direct U.S. involvement ending in 1973. The conflict also spilled over into neighboring states, exacerbating the Laotian Civil War and the Cambodian Civil War, which ended with all three countries becoming communist states by 1975. After the French 1954 Geneva Conference, military withdrawal from Indochina in 1954 – following their defeat in the First Indochina War – the Viet Minh to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Crime Syndicate
Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally thought of as a form of illegal business, some criminal organizations, such as terrorist groups, rebel forces, and separatists, are politically motivated. Many criminal organizations rely on fear or terror to achieve their goals or aims as well as to maintain control within the organization and may adopt tactics commonly used by authoritarian regimes to maintain power. Some forms of organized crime simply exist to cater towards demand of illegal goods in a state or to facilitate trade of goods and services that may have been banned by a state (such as illegal drugs or firearms). Sometimes, criminal organizations force people to do business with them, such as when a gang extorts money from shopkeepers for "protection". Street gangs may ofte ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |