All hail the great Jim Kelly!  Yeah the brother was little stiff at times, yeah he could mangle a line with the best of them, often forced to speak in jive when it’s pretty clear that jive isn’t his native language, no matter how big the afro that they put him.  But we love the guy.  We’re curious why this legend basically disappeared from the game after 1982’s ‘One Down, Two to go’… which I own… because the world was a better place when Jim Kelly was doing what he did.  Or… maybe he was forced out of the game due to movies such as this one, Al Adamson’s wonderful… for all the wrong reasons… epic, ‘Death Dimension’. 

The international criminal known as The Pig (Harold Sakata) has hijacked the technology of the benevolent Dr. Mason (T.E. Foreman) and made a Freeze Bomb out of it.  Dr. Mason initially planned to use this tech to help people, like cure droughts and stuff because nothing helps stuff grow like everything around it suddenly freezing, but the evil Pig has made a WMD out of it.  We even got a quick demo with four dudes tied to stakes in the ground, the bomb blew up, and these dudes were snowflaked to death.  The Pig is a Cretin!

Now The Pig is ready to sell his new tech to the highest bidder but Dr. Mason has a surprise for his fat ass.  He embeds his research in his hot assistant Felicia’s head (Patch MacKenzie), sends her away to L.A., burns his lab and commits delayed suicide.  Now The Pig and his super evil right hand Taputu (Bob Minor) have to make a quick trip, find Felicia, get the tech and make some money.

Not so fast my friends because now we are introduced to hardcore cop Detective J. Ash (Kelly) who we see teaching some recruits the arts by beating the living hell out of them, then he’s briefed by his Captain (George Lazenby) about the tech, Felicia, and the Pig and how he has to rescue her, wherever she is.  Then it’s off to bed down his lady Jackie… after he drinks the Black Man’s champagne… Malt Liquor.  Hey, that’s what Ash said, not me.  After all that, our couple are lying in the afterglow when some thugs bust in to kill Ash.  Why, we don’t know.  They fail at that.  Then the next day while driving, more thugs try to kill Ash.  Why?  I mean he hasn’t done anything yet in regards to an investigation or anything.  I mean he’s only heard about the guy yesterday, yet the Pig is already trying to kill him. 

Then after a few more wacky events, like the introduction of Ash’s partner Li, played by some cat calling himself Myron Bruce Lee, and then Ash making a quick trip to Reno and a brothel, The Pig sends Taputu to Ash’s girl’s house where he murders her.  After she showed us her tits.  Again, we don’t know why he did this.  Up to this point Ash’s ‘investigation techniques’ has consisted of defending himself against unwarranted attacks and screwing whores, so murdering his girl was kind of pointless.  Maybe take her hostage or something?

Everybody wants Felicia because she has the info.  Eventually The Pig gets Felicia and he needs her to talk… by threatening to use a snapping turtle to bite off her nipples.  Felicia collapses in fear so she’s not talking.  Eventually Felicia calls The Captain… Again… and tells her where she is.  Odd, somebody’s tries to kill Ash… Again… even though nobody, but one guy, knows he’s on the case.  Then when Felicia called the Captain the first time, somehow The Pig’s dudes where the first on the scene.  Hmmm… Guess what?  The Captain is dirty and now he and The Pig know where Felicia is hiding the tech with The Pig holding a knife to Felicia’s forehead to cut out the microchip, I know that Ash and Li are about to bust in kick ass!

Uh… no.  They’re lounging by a pool practicing kung fu moves.  Now eventually, and we don’t know how, they find out where Felicia is being held, a fight breaks out, followed by a car chase, a tram vs. helicopter chase, a foot chase, a couple of fist fights, a foot chase and an exploding plane.  Ash then jump kicks into the camera with joy.  His girlfriend is still dead.

So here’s what you’re in for if you choose to accept the ‘Death Dimension’ challenge, which we can’t recommend you do.  Some of the worst acting known to man.  Mr. ‘OddJob’ Sakata could theoretically be the worst actor ever.  Myron Bruce Lee might be a close second.  Jim Kelly looked like Paul Robeson compared to those two.  But he did revert back to Jim Kelly whenever George Lazenby or Bob Minor was on the screen who do know how to act a little bit.  You’re also gonna get a ton of action, most of it poorly done, and some of it head scratchingly confusing.  Like the battle between Ash, Li and the thugs, with all the thugs wearing women’s stockings on their faces.  We don’t exactly know why they did this considering the showdown happened at their place.  Also, one would think that these thugs planned kill to these two guys anyway, so concealing their identities shouldn’t have been an issue.   And on a positive note, any luster that the profession of prostitution might have had has been summarily destroyed.  Truly, the women playing the whores in this masterpiece are the most tired, most beatup, most dilapidated women ever to play whores in motion picture.  Real live crack whores are insulted by them.

A terrible movie this ‘Death Dimension’ by just about anybody’s definition of a bad movie but tragically, we still live for this stuff.