“Whoa, the blind Zorro!”

Justin’s rating: It’s a service katana, officer. Perfectly legal.

Justin’s review: Oh man, there were so many ways that Blind Fury could’ve gone wrong. I mean, seriously, cringily wrong. When you put a sighted actor into a role as a blind guy who just so happens to be a supernaturally good swordsman, there’s potential for both embarrassment and offensive portrayal.

And yet Blind Fury absolutely surprised me by being as subtle as a movie about a sword-chopping Vietnam veteran could be. Plus — and this didn’t hurt — it’s entertaining as all get out.

Our hero is Nick (Rutger Hauer), a former soldier who got blinded during a mortar attack and was rescued by friendly Vietnamese villagers. Naturally, they train him to be an expert katana fighter, even though this isn’t really the country for that. (Blame the adaptation: Blind Fury is based on the Japanese Blind Swordsman Zatoichi series).

What’s quickly established about Nick is that while he’s extremely competent and adaptive as a blind man, he’s also got this laid-back, mellow sense of humor that differentiates himself from the Stallones and Schwartzeneggers who swaggered through the ’80s. Instead, his schtick seems to be lulling his opponents into thinking that he’s weak and incompetent before absolutely thrashing them.

On the day that Nick visits the home of his army buddy Frank (LOST’s Terry O’Quinn), he finds out that Frank’s divorced, living out of the state in Reno, and is being coerced into helping a drug kingpin manufacture goods. When goons show up to kidnap Frank’s kid, Nick slices off a few hands and then promises the kid’s dying mother that, of course, he’ll abscond with the kid across state lines to deliver him to his father. Who, as we’ve established, is in the middle of a whole lot of trouble. So instead of calling the police or arranging a sensible escort or even telling the kid that his mother just passed away in the living room (!), Nick goes on a bus trip with the incredibly bratty Bobby.

Oh man, I hated this kid at first. He’s so unnecessarily mean to Nick, what with flipping him the bird and feeding him rocks, but that makes Hauer’s reactions all that much more hilarious when he grabs the kid’s finger or spits the rock back in his face. There’s a bit of a buddy comedy that emerges in the middle of this that actually feels earned.

In fact, Blind Fury is funnier in a different way than you’d expect. While Nick’s blindness is often a source of humor, it isn’t a mean punchline that’s used to mock him or this disability. We see him laugh delightedly, for example, when he ends up driving a van in a high-stakes chase, just because you know that’s the first time he’s driven since before the war. It’s a funny moment that doesn’t make fun of him, and that’s an important distinction to me.

Nick hooks up with Frank in Reno and the two try to battle the drug lords and their hired Japanese assassin (because we came for a sword fight and we’re not going home until we get one, capisce?). This veers into a little more Van Damme Hard Target territory as they fight it out at a ski resort, but it’s still all a lot of fun as you see a blind guy take dismantle this gang.

So yeah, I figured that Blind Fury would’ve been some combination of really dumb, incredibly cheesy, or regrettably offensive, but it ended up being a heckuva good time from start to finish. I don’t think I’ve ever liked Hauer in a movie as much as I do here, and I think that’s because he plays Nick as a quiet, attentive guy rather than your generic action hero. Plus, who doesn’t think that a guy who has a sword hidden in a cane is cool?

Didja notice?

• That old Tri Star Pictures logo and music sting always got me so excited for movies!
• Tim Matheson’s one and only producing credit
• Hey it’s one of those old timey net rope traps!
• One training montage and suddenly you’re a blind swordsman expert
• That gator “doggy” he finds oon the road
• He’s not just talented blind, he’s got spidey senses
• Don’t give the middle finger to this blind guy. It’s not nice.
• Dang, they just shotgunned that mom!
• I’d say that’s a very well-deserved hand chopping
• That kid is so bratty
• So instead of calling the real police, he just abducts a kid and crosses state lines?
• I love how much he doesn’t take this kid’s guff
• For some reason he doesn’t tell the kid his mom’s dead until they’re in Nevada?
• Just a whole bunch of guys armed to the teeth in the back of a pickup, nothing to see here!
• Hide and seek in a cornfield!
• And why is that killer eating popcorn in the middle of a field of corn, we’ll never know
• How many times does he cut this guy down without killing him?
• If you can’t get Bruce Lee, his brother is an acceptable substitute
• OK, the kid throwing a fire extinguisher and hitting the bad guy on the head was pretty dang funny.
• As was the old lady with a huge handgun.
• Why not have the blind guy drive? Nothing’s going to go wrong there! Nick’s having the time of his life, you can tell.
• Casino riot!
• I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cable car shot up that much
• Such a mullet on that white track-suited bad guy