
Just as
a historical footnote, this is based in reality. Back in the day the only way to get out of rent control on a property was to get all the tenants to leave. Scumbag landlords, (yeah that's most of them), weren’t above using local street gangs to help persuade tenants to move, (see Roberta Findlay's “Tenement” for this taken to the extreme).
Death Promise is a fairly basic American take on the Hong Kong martial arts films of the time. Evil men kill the hero's father. He wants revenge but his kung fu not good enough so he must be further trained. His teacher, Master Shibata sends him to Japan, (which looks a lot New York) to study under his teacher. The standout here is a scene where Charley catches a fly with his chopsticks, years before the Karate Kid made it cool.
While he's doing this Speedy is running around the Big Apple kicking ass and taking names, trying to find out who's behind the mysterious “Iguana Realty Corporation”. When Charley returns the ass kicking ramps up, allowing him to show off his new skills. And when one of Master Ying's students Sup decides to visit NYC, they're ready to storm the enemy's fortress, or office building as the case may be.
As you can tell, this is hardly a groundbreaking film. The plot never strays to far from the genre's template and it makes sure to hit a few other cliche's along the way such as the integrated group of heroes, (Charley is white, Speedy is his soul brother from another mother and Sup is of course, Oriental). And in one of the better scenes Speedy gets revenge on the dealer who sold his 12 year old brother the heroin he od'd on by tying a bag full of rats over his head. Pity the effects weren't all that good.
The fights are well enough done if not overly violent for this kind of film and the final battle works well. It's also the one point where the film somewhat steps away from the cliches with a twist as to the ultimate villain’s identity and a resolution to the final fight that pretty much inverts one of the genre's biggest cliches.
So in short, a lot of action, a little violence and a very little nudity, (though to be fair the actress is so well endowed it should count as 3 scenes). The dvd is very reasonably priced on Amazon and it's also on YouTube. Check out the trailer, you'll be glad you did!