Gorgeous Checkers Goldberg, a police detective, goes undercover as a stripper in order to stop a ruthless kingpin who has been using unsuspecting starlets in order to smuggle drugs into the United States. With her hot looks, street smarts and martial arts prowess, Goldberg seems to have everything she needs to catch this violent criminal -- and will stop at nothing to get the job done.
Fire Game, Feel the Heat, Sin escape, Misión: Alto riesgo, Sentir la persecución, Feel The Heat, Ловити на живця, 怒火焚城, Missione antidroga, Jugant amb foc
USAR
USA
coked out 80s galaxy brain nonsense that you hate to love
Tiana stars as CHECKERS GOLDBERG
can’t decide what’s crazier, that her undercover alias is named Cinderella Pooh or that her real ass name is Checkers Goldberg
Perhaps even more enjoyable than discovering a new prime piece of enjoyable 80's schlock is realizing the surprising depth of talent behind it.
On the surface, Catch the Heat appears to be your typical drug smuggling bust of an action movie that were a dime-a-dozen in the 80's and 90's. Checkers Goldberg, played by Tiana Alexandra, goes undercover as an illiterate Chinese stereotype to crack a cocaine smuggling operation with assistance from her amusingly useless partner played by David Dukes. What sets this apart from the other macho schlock out there? Tiana herself. While she doesn't appear to be much on the surface, this firey little ball of energy quickly becomes the heart and soul of the whole experience -…
Have you ever heard of Tiana Alexandra?
She was the first Vietnamese-American actress to join the Screen Actor’s Guild. She was Bruce Lee’s (yes, that Bruce Lee) first teenage female pupil. She starred in a grand total of five movies before she focused the rest of her career on documenting her homeland, post-war Vietnam.
Sounds epic, right? Well, by all accounts she is. In Catch the Heat Tiana Alexandra plays a New York police officer, Checkers Goldberg. Along with her partner (the surprisingly funny David Dukes) she spends most of her time undercover. Taking a break from her normal beat (which apparently involves entrapping drug dealers and chasing down thugs on a motorbike, among other things), she goes to Buenos…
“Make one move and you are dogmeat, fuckhead!”
Tiana Alexandra IS…Checkers Goldberg! Half Chinese, half Jewish, all cop! Also she knows karate! And tango dancing! There’s much more tango dancing in this movie than I’d have anticipated. After bustin’ baddies on the streets of San Francisco for a few scenes, Checkers travels to Argentina and goes undercover as a dancer named Cinderella. Her mission: stop Rod Steiger from smuggling cocaine into the U.S. inside women’s breast implants. Yep.
The wig that Steiger sports in this movie is quite something. He plays a grumpy old prick named Jason Hannibal, and I think he might have a bit of a thing for Checkers/Cinderella. At one point one of his goons calls her…
Dank synths, globetrotting adventure, machine guns, motorcycles, kickboxing, karate dancing. Basically a hyperactive remake of Daughter of Shanghai, a New York badass babe buccaneer played by the Bruce Lee-trained martial artist Tiana Alexandra goes deep cover as a geisha womanchild to investigate a rather unusual drug smuggling method in Argentina. Some parts were a little too slow, but this gets a lot of extra points for how great the action scenes and especially the ending battle is. Best part was when the lead detective shoots a guy in a stairwell and petulantly yells "Gottttccchhhhaaaa!!" at the body lying on the bottom step.
I came to watch Rod Steiger scream at people, but I actually kind of enjoyed this. It may need the "guilty pleasure" tag, though.
FBI agents with the unlikely names of Waldo Tarr and Checkers Goldberg are dispatched to Argentina to pursue notorious drug kingpin Jason Hannibal (Steiger). With Checkers undercover and Waldo liaising with the local law, our plucky duo must find out how he's getting so much pure China White into the states. The answer might surprise you.
It's Tiana Alexandra's movie and I enjoyed her as tough-as-nails Checkers, ready to throw herself into danger to crack the big case. She and David Dukes have chemistry together, and the story moves along with islands of ass-kicking aplenty, as…
I have so many thoughts about this but they’re all about either Tiana Alexandra/Du Thi Thanh Nga (and by extension Vietnamese representation in American cinema as a whole) or Rod Steiger rather than the actual movie…. I had fun though! And as insane as it sounds I can actually see myself watching this again. More than once.
How this doesn’t have a bigger following among fans of 80s action trash amazes me, but the fact it’s now on Blu will do it some justice.
The film itself actually isn’t poorly made, and has some solid action along the way. However, the sometimes exploitation heavy elements (mentions of rape and mutilation), Tina Alexandra’s performance-she’s not good, but God bless her heart because she’s clearly trying, 80s synthesizers (with a goofy end credits ballad) and the whole film feeling like it was executive produced by a sentient cocaine bag makes for some prime cinematic garbage. Honestly, the only surprise is that it isn’t as sleazy as you think it will be.
Finally this is honestly a 3 1/2 star movie but I feel like I give that rating out too much so here’s an extra half star
I just wanted a fun movie to rewatch tonight and I had recently grabbed this Kino Lorber release, and it looks amazing! 👍 I definitely recommend watching their release if given the choice!
Tiana Alexander is great 👍 she's funny, smart, strong, and kicks plenty of ass!
Otherwise I've already reviewed this once and I don't have much else to say on this rewatch. A recommended watch still! https://boxd.it/3YAK8L
This movie is awesome! Why have I never heard of it!? And why have only 172 people on LB marked it as watched and there are only 36 reviews as of this writing!? That's crazy! This movie is way better than a lot of crap that people love from the 80's!
It's full of one-liners, shootouts, explosions, car chases, and it has a strong and sexy leading lady along with a goofy sidekick that is plenty likeable! This thing is great!
I don't want to oversell it or praise it too much, I just can't believe this is as apparently underseen as it is! This is awesome!
That soundtrack is very cool! 😎👍
Brian Thompson looks so young in this one!
Cinderella Poo 😆
Ewww, I see that our leading lady married the writer of the movie, he was 33 years older than her... (he wrote a handful of other recognizable movies too!)
Her name is Checkers Goldberg. Wonderful. I enjoyed how thoroughly dopey this was (no cocaine pun intended). The performances and bad one liners have that magical DTV action quality that you can't fake. Rod Steiger even gets down to their level.. or possibly lower? It's something to behold. Pretty trashy at times, but oddly endearing.
