Movie Review: Firecracker (1981) directed by Cirio H. Santiago
Susanne Carter (Jillian Kesner) is a martial arts instructor from California looking for her missing sister Bonny (Carolyn Smith), a photographer who was going by her professional name of “Vanessa” when she disappeared in the Philippines. According to bar-with-rooms-upstairs owner Pete (Pete Cooper), she hasn’t been seen for a few weeks, but he remembers her hanging with a fellow named Chuck (Darby Hinton), who works at a nightclub that has martial arts shows, the Arena.
Susanne goes to the club and starts a relationship with Chuck. This might not have been the best idea, as his boss Erik (Ken Metcalfe) not only orchestrates battles to the death in his less legal hidden arena, but is also the head of the local drug ring (and a user!) His supplier is Grip (Vic Diaz), a native, who is very cagy about just where his sources are and how he contacts them.
In between random street crime Susanne has to punch her way out of, the main plot has her infiltrating the drug ring while they have internecine warfare. This leads to a pretty funny scene where Grip correctly realizes that Susanne is up to something, but suspects her for all the wrong reasons and tries interrogating her with a cobra about actions she definitely didn’t do and knows nothing about.
Susanne eventually finds out what happened to Bonny and seeks bloody vengeance.
This “erotic thriller” is one I saw a trailer for back in about 1982, and finally got around to tracking down. It’s not exactly a good movie, but it is fun, and was made by competent people.
Jillian Kesner was not a particularly good martial artist, but the fight scenes are decent, and she gets a lot of them. The most famous is when she loses everything but her panties but still manages to do in two would-be rapists.
The romance subplot is…iffy but I could buy it for the sake of the story. The big moment here is the sex scene that involves consensual but scary knife play.
Some of the minor characters are criminally underdeveloped. (Why does this rando care so much about taking down Erik?) It is good to see, however, that the police aren’t entirely useless.
Content notes: male and female nudity, on screen sex (no genitals), martial arts violence, some pretty gruesome kills. Drug abuse. A bit of sexism towards Susanne. Firecracker earns its R rating.
Overall: This movie was everything I had hoped it would be from my dim memories of the trailer. Recommended to fans of early 80s exploitation movies and horny teenage boys.
