The 90s were a great time because martial arts were in, Steven Seagal and JCVD were the two kings of Hollywood and that meant that a whole bunch of martial arts action films were being made.
During this time American Kenpo Karate expert Jeff Speakman was trying to get a piece of the action.
Unfortunately he never got to the fame level of Steven Seagal, JCVD, or Chuck Norris.
He said in an interview he was suppose to get the main hero role of the super famous film SPEED which really turbo launched the career of Keanu Reeves.
Imagine Jeff Speakman playing that role.
And then imagine Jeff Speakman playing NEO in The Matrix.
Anyways Jeff Speakman's first movie The Perfect Weapon is what got me into the Double Sticks.
After that movie I knew I wanted to learn the double sticks and fortunately my instructor was an Arnis practitioner and I was at the right place at the right time.
I would train double sticks into the wee hours of the morning and I was inseperable from them.
The Perfect Weapon is easily Jeff Speakman's best film.
I got to see it on HBO if I'm not mistaken and I believe I saw "the making of" as well.
After becoming a fan of Jeff Speakman, Street Knight and The Expert were two films I got to see in the movie theater.
After watching both of these films I feel like Jeff Speakman could have played a good Batman or even Jason Bourne.
Street Knight has a killer fight scene with none other than Tom Magee whose name has been surfacing on YouTube Professional wrestling channels in a somewhat legendary manner.
Tom Magee is a gymnast, strongman, prowrestler, and martial artist.
What makes him extra interesting was that he apparently looked the part, Vince McMahon was so impressed with Tom Magee's looks that he immediately signed him and was expecting to him to become the next Hulk Hogan.
However in a legendary match between Brett the Hitman Hart and Tom Magee it was allegedly exposed that Tom Magee could not prowrestle whatsoever.
Personally I remember Tom Magee's match against Japanese prowrestler Choshu Riki.
It was a squash match meaning Tom Magee's job was to get destroyed and make Choshu look good, but I thought it was a memorable match.
Enough for me to remember Tom Magee and when I saw him in Street Knight I was surprised!
The fight scene between him and Jeff Speakman by far surpasses the fight scene between Jeff Speakman and Professor Tanaka in The Perfect Weapon.
Too bad the movie isn't as good as The Perfect Weapon.
However you got to see Jeff Speakman take out the wrenches and go to town on Tom Magee a la double stick fighting style.
Sadly one really good fight scene doesn't make the whole movie.
The Expert in a similar note has a really cool scene where Jeff Speakman uses a knife to take out a bad guy and the sound effects is what really does it, you hear this swishing sound as he cuts up the bad guy!
Once again one really cool fight scene doesn't make the whole movie.
Now there is a back alley fight scene that is kind of cool but you can't help but think it's Jeff Speakman going up against a bunch of drunk morons.
It doesn't necessarily make Jeff Speakman look good, it's like a lose lose situation.
The whole movie seemed to want to get you thinking about the death penalty.
I'm not sure the film really had a clear cut message, but it brings up this heavy topic repeatedly.
I believe that The Expert had potential but it is the weakest of the three films (The Perfect Weapon, Street Knight, and The Expert).
The Expert may have been better as a TV show or as a bunch of low budget film sequels.
Jeff Speakman's character would basically be a vigilante like The Punisher.
Jeff Speakman has done more films but the only other movie I've seen with Jeff Speakman is Timelock where he played a bad guy!
Timelock is a low budget sci-fi action film, what can I say, I enjoyed it!
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