During the 70’s and 80’s the Philippines shot exploitation films were all the rage for independent filmmakers thanks to the lack of regulations and cheap labor. Most of the films featured women in prison or monster films, but a select few martial arts related films were made as well, featuring much of the same formula that made those other genres work including nudity, gore, and action.
One such martial arts film was Firecracker starring Jillian Kesner. The film followed a femme fatale martial arts expert who teaches the mafia a lesson. Much like most of these films in the Pilipino craze, this movie was shot on a low budget and sports a simplistic story with little to no structure. Firecracker however is much more organized on some level creating a fairly entertaining action film. This film is not short on the action and sports some fairly well done martial arts fight scenes. Make no mistake these are not like fights you’re used to seeing as about half of Kisner’s fights have her sporting very little to no clothing. Clearly this adds a ridiculous level to the fights, but entertainment as well. The acting, much like most from this genre, is lame to mediocre at best, but that’s come to be expected from these films. If the rest of the premise weren’t over the top enough, the film sports one of the strangest romantic love scene that leaves you trying to figure out what the hell is going on. There isn’t a whole lot of gore in this film and looks as though they were actually putting some effort into it to do something decent, which showed since this film was a decent success at the time of its original release in 1981.
If you’re a martial arts, grindhouse, exploitation, or cheesy cinema fan then this is the movie for you. Filled with just the amount of nudity and action you come to expect from this genre, Firecracker will leave you entertained, happy, and amused until the cheesy over the top finale.
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