Their ninth and final film together over a 12-year partnership, 'Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects' basically plays out as a Death Wish installment with Charles Bronson portraying Lieutenant Crowe instead of Paul Kersey, and being focused in anger both over child prostitution and that his own teenage daughter was molested by a Japanese businessman. Many would write this off as simply an exploitation film, but I love the fact that, like 'Gentleman's Agreement', it shows both that different degrees of racism are possible in anyone, but is also stoppable, as in seeing that a Japanese father cares about his daughter just as much as he cares about his own, he changes his own perspective. And the ending, that the criminal gets what's coming to him, is very satisfying, and makes many of Bronson's films such guilty pleasures...

I watched this **only** because back in 1989 when it was released in theaters, I saw the trailer and always wanted to see it. Fast-forward 33 years and I stumbled across this on TubiTV and remembered, _"Hey! That's that Charles Bronson movie I always wanted to see but never did...."_ So I just wasted 94 minutes of my life. I always thought of Charles Bronson as the ultimate tough guy but dang, he's hard to watch by today's standards. Slow, awkward...I think in this movie he was maybe _supposed to be_ a martial arts kind of guy? It's hard to tell; it just looked in a couple of the fight scenes like he was trying to throw kicks and do some kind of backfist punch or something…I don't know. It just looked really awkward. (I found it laughable that in at least one fight scene - if you watch closely - he lost his balance after throwing a kick and visibly stumbled; I guess they didn't bother taking time to edit that out.) The entire story was just like pond water in January, it was sooooooooooooooo dreadfully slow and plodding and disjointed and just... just everything bad. [spoiler] A young, maybe 14-year-old? Japanese girl is picked up by a couple of shady characters in a big car, and not only gets in the car with them, but is seen holding their hands in a very childlike-trust kind of way as the two men escort her into a high-rise apartment then, still holding his hand, walks into a bedroom with one of the child rapists. After getting raped in succession by at least three grown men, she's still coherent enough to dress up in their requested schoolgirl costume and allow herself to be prostituted out without protest, still thinking she's going to be returned safely to her parents... Seriously, the whole movie was filled with idiotic plot holes like this. [/spoiler] In addition to the absolutely atrocious storyline and the myriad of _"you gotta be kidding me..."_ ideas presented, you had the disjointed, completely unexplained underlying story of the guy that groped Bronson's daughter on the bus, and the subsequent later meeting and recognition by the daughter...yet nothing ever came of it. What's up with that? The conclusion, I assume, was **supposed** to bring some sort of poetic justice/closure to the whole thing but in reality, it was just a quick slamming of the door on what was a terrible movie to begin with. Like so many other movies I've watched recently, I'm guessing this one had a TON of potential for a good - albeit very horrible - storyline. Sadly, it was centralized around a "tough guy" who really wasn't all that threatening, included a bunch of ridiculous concepts and scenes, and the acting...oh my gosh, the acting alone was enough to merit a _"Watch at your own risk!"_ warning label. This was incredibly bad. I take consolation ONLY in the fact that I can now scratch this one off my list. Do yourself a favor and don't EVER watch this one. **PS: Keep your eyes peeled in the closing scene for a cameo shot of a much-younger Danny Trejo! That was the highlight of the film!**