Product Description

Playboy Playmate Jeanne Bell stars as TNT Jackson. Spine-shattering, bone-blasting - she's a one mama massacre squad!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11323 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-01-06
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 70 minutes

Customer Reviews

TNT Jackson (1975) d: Santiago, Cirio H.
The film's of Cirio H. Santiago seem to pop up in my collection every so often, in every genre possible. When I found this Roger Corman produced Blaxploitation / Martial Arts / Crime movie for sale for less that ten dollars I couldn't resist. What makes the film's of Santiago so interesting is the fact that all of his movies were shot in the Philippines, many of them centering around the United State's involvement in Southeast Asia. One of the first to tackle the Women In Prison genre [Big Doll House (1971) / Women in Cages (1971)], Cirio helped launch the career of Pam Grier [Escape From L.A. (1996) / Jackie Brown (1997)], and quickly realized that there was a huge untapped market for movies with African-American heroes. Playing the character of TNT Jackson, 1969 Playboy Playmate Jeanne Bell [The Klansman (1974) / The Muthers (1976)] steps in to fill that void. Jackson leaves Harlem for Hong Kong to find her missing brother who has had some trouble with the mob, she must pose as a prostitute in order to find him. ...Horrified that she has almost fallen in love with her enemy, she swears bloody revenge. And she relies on a dazzling series of flying triple back kicks to get it... Includes nudity, such as topless karate. I think my VHS copy of this has a better transfer than this DVD, but I can't complain, as the price was right. Remade as Firecracker (1981) and Angelfist (1992)

Poor recording makes this film difficult to view
This blaxtoiplation film is par for the course; very comical these days, and great for the "so bad its good" crowd. Although a film like this is good for the Dolemite crowd, the DVD's poor authoring make this a problem. For starters, the DVD has a very diffuse, poorly recorded soundtrack. Instead of keeping the film in mono and the center channel, it sounds like the authors thought it would be clever to spread the sound over all five speakers. The net result is an odd diffuse sound that is only corrected when you turn Dolby encoding off. The video quality is watchable - but scratched and with muted colors. Lesser titles have gotten much better treatment then this.

I don't mind the minimal extras, and a title like this doesn't deserve restoration and all that jazz. But the transfer of the film is so below par, I'd say skip the film unless you really need to spend $... that bad.

Watchable Mess from the 70s
Roger Corman's New World Pictures combines blaxploitation with chop-sockey in this 1975 exploitation film that was directed by Cirio Santiago, a Filipino director who did a number of films for Corman. The plot is simple; Diana "TNT" Jackson avenges her brother's murder and becomes involved with drug dealers, including Stan Shaw, who sports a huge Afro and wears a 70s era pimp wardrobe throughout the film. Jeanne Bell portrays TNT Jackson . . . she can't act and her kung-fu moves are laughable as she chops and kicks various Filipino and Chinese extras. In fact, almost all of the kung-fu scenes are among the worst choreographed fight scenes ever filmed. Viewed today, this film is unitentionally funny and might make a good party DVD, though there is some nudity and coarse language, reflecting the film's exploitation roots.

The running time listed on this Brentwood Communications release says 90 minutes, but the film runs just over 70 minutes. Unfortunately, the print used by Brentwood is not good . . . numerous scratches and artifacts are found throughout the film and the soundtrack is poorly recorded; you'll have to crank your volume up to hear the dialog. Brentwood also includes a few extras on their budget DVDs, including a "Casper, the Friendly Ghost" cartoon, an interactive movie trivia game, a dictionary of DVD terms, 6 chapter stops for the film, and a special internet connection for those viewers having a DVD-ROM equipped on their computer. Not a bad deal for five bucks.