MOVIE REVIEW : Japanese-Derived ‘Blind Fury’ a Would-Be Action Comedy

“Blind Fury” (throughout San Diego County) is a numskull, cornball action comedy about an American soldier in Vietnam who, blinded in battle, is nursed back to health by villagers and schooled in the art of swordsmanship.

The blind-swordsman gimmick derives from the Japanese “Zatoichi” series, but Japanese action scenarios have often provided rousing starting points for Westernized reworkings--witness “The Seven Samurai.” The double whammy, of course, is that many of the Japanese actioners are, in turn, based on Western models.

“Blind Fury” (rated R for violence and strong language) should be a lot more fun than it is; the cultural cross-fertilization ought to result in something zippier and weirder than this slovenly bash-a-thon, particularly since its star is the Dutch Rutger Hauer and its director is the Australian Philip Noyce.

The script by the all-too-American Charles Robert Carner doesn’t provide the kind of exalted cartoon situations that might have made all this nonsense enjoyable--like, for example the Arnold Schwarzenegger/John Irvin “Raw Deal” of a few years back. “Blind Fury” is a rehashing of movies you passed on the first time, like, uh, “Over the Top.”

Hauer’s Nick Parker, back in America after 20 years in the jungles, looks up the family of an old war buddy (Terrance O’Quinn) in Miami and becomes entangled in a gangland drug war. The film’s centerpiece is Nick’s bus ride from Miami to Reno with his friend’s snot-nosed kid (Brandon Call) in tow. Naturally, a heavy-duty, pseudo-father-son bond ensues. When the real father turns up, we’re treated to a Chaplinesque fade-out. The Blind Swordsman as Little Tramp is not exactly a brainstorm.

The cruddiness of “Blind Fury”--which has been on the shelf for a while--is particularly depressing because it represents the sort of project that is being offered these days to people of real talent. Not just Hauer, who has been straining to carve out an American career, or Noyce, whose first Hollywood film this is, but an actor such as O’Quinn, who gave an absolutely smashing, major performance in “The Stepfather” back when he was billed as Terry O’Quinn. Even if these people entered into “Blind Fury” willingly, with at least the hope of scoring a hit and creating some clout, the results must be scary and not a little dispiriting--like blindly swinging a sword at a roomful of enemies.

‘BLIND FURY’

A Tri-Star Pictures release. Executive producers Robert Cort and David Madden. Producer Daniel Grodnik and Tim Matheson. Director Philip Noyce.