1992 — Distant Justice

Welcome to Boston. A dystopian place where drug dealers execute foreign tourists, bands of thugs kidnap and rape young women, the most powerful man in town is a city councilor beholden to organized crime, most of the cops are crooked, and the police chief is a feckless old man who might do the right thing if he weren’t retiring in six months.

That’s the city in Distant Justice, a Japanese-produced film featuring action star Bunto Sugawara as newly-retired Tokyo cop Rio Yuki, who celebrates retirement by taking his wife and daughter on an ill-fated vacation to America. After an unfortunate encounter with a pair of undesirables in the California desert, the family goes to Boston, where Rio is reunited with his old buddy Tom Bradfield (George Kennedy), chief of the Boston police. While the two pals catch up, Rio’s wife and daughter see the sights around town and accidentally witness a drug deal in that known hotbed of drug activity, “Boston Park.” The thugs chase the Yukis down, corner them in an alley behind the historic South Church, then execute the mother and kidnap the daughter in broad daylight.

Rio is, of course, distraught. But when Chief Bradfield is unable and not terribly willing to bring the perpetrators to justice, Rio sets off across town in search of the criminals, causing quite a bit of mayhem along the way and breaking just about every law and ordinance on the books. Among his targets is City Councilor Tom Foley (played unenthusiastically by David Carradine), who is running for mayor and is already the most powerful man in the city as he is the liaison between the mafia and the police narcotics squad, all of whom are on the take.

The direct-to-video production is all kinds of terrible and unrealistic in a hundred ways (there are few officials in Boston with less clout than a city councilor, just to name one), but there are a few nice shots of the city.