Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

The Plot. Her name is Diana Jackson, but you can call her T.N.T. When T.N.T.'s brother is killed by ruthless drug dealers, the beautiful young karate expert goes to the most dangerous part of Chinatown to find the killer. In trouble with the law since she was 13, T.N.T. wants no help from the pigs; but she does befriend a guy named Joe, whose impressive martial arts skills prove useful more than once. In her quest for the killer, she'll meet the white drug lord, Sid; Elaine, his bitchy girlfriend; his suspicious Chinese assistant, Ming; and Charlie, his handsome black assistant with criminal ambitions of his own. Before her search is over, she'll find herself making love to Charlie, trading insults with Elaine, and fighting criminals while nude and in the dark. Just call her T.N.T.This amounts to one of the worst exploration films ever made. And it's not "good" bad. It's just bad.The story-line is random and impossible to follow. The actions scenes are horrible and unreal.There is no direction to speak of and the locales are crumbling.Oh, and it goes without saying that the acting is horrendous.

Yes, this was made when blaxploitation film making was at its peak, with Playmate Jeannie Bell assuming the main-character role. Poor production values make for a sloppy, mostly silly movie with bad fight scene choreography, bad acting and a near absence of plot or story. Made in the early 70's, a time when nudity was becoming de rigueur, one scene with nude fighting leaves audiences chuckling, though that was clearly not the intent. The plot has Bell and co-star Shaw, both African American, at odds and as temporary lovers in Hong Kong. According to the story, all the gangsters in town live in the same neighborhood of the city, one where even the police fear to tread. Strangely enough, leaders of the locale criminal syndicate are both American, one white, one black, though the henchman are all Chinese--an occurrence that would surely never happen in China. Virulent, unabashed racism was a staple in these films and it makes a brief obligatory appearance here. The audience wonders why Miss TNT is roaming around in a city and country far from her stated birth place of Harlem, and she must regularly ask "do you speak English?". Could such a true soul-sister be working for the pigs (cops)? We finally get the answers in the end, but no revelation from this writer, though as bad as the flick is spoiling it seems unlikely.

This extremely bargain-basement Blaxploitation/Kung-Fu hybrid was in my country released by a questionable DVD label that usually speaking just occupies with the transfer of pure crap onto disc, so that wasn't exactly a favorable herald. Several other titles were released in the same series, like "The Black Six", "The Black Gestapo" and "The Black Godfather" and judging by all their low ratings and negative reviews none of these belong to the elite of the 70's Blaxploitation hype, neither. "TNT Jackson" is a pretty lousy film, completely lacking a significant plot but featuring far too many laughable fighting scenes and horrible acting to compensate. Apparently Roger Corman – never too embarrassed to make some easy money – assigned two of his most loyal acolytes to rapidly invent a simplistic story that would appeal to fans of both oriental Kung-Fu movies and contemporary trendy Blaxploitation flicks. The result Cirio H. Santiago and Dick Miller came up with was "TNT Jackson"; the tale of an arse-whooping black babe traveling to Hong Kong in search of her missing brother. She quickly discovers he was killed by a criminal network of drug-smugglers and swears to avenge him. Mrs. Jackson smoothly infiltrates into the underground and encounters macho pimps, helpful undercover agents, loads of vicious Kung-Fu fighters. Only one thing's for sure; they all want a piece of TNT's ravishing body in one way or another. I sincerely doubt movie concepts get any more elementary than this, but – unfortunately - all the other aspects suck too. The battle scenes are overlong and moreover pathetically staged. Jeannie Bell and the other poor suckers try really hard to stare menacingly and assume a tough position, but eventually all they ever do is kick in the air and stupidly leap across rooms. The cinematography is horrid, the soundtrack is vastly disappointing (whatever happened to soul music?), the few dialogs are poorly written and the acting performances are inferior. Speaking of which, Jeannie Bell is undeniably a beautiful woman, but still she can't hold a candle to Tamara Dobson or Pam Grier. There's only one really good and memorable scene in "TNT Jackson", namely the famous hotel room battle where Bell, entirely naked except for panties, repeatedly switches the light on and off whilst kicking the hell out of some goons. Amusing scene ... I just haven't figured out yet whether it's thanks to the light switch ingenuity or Bell's perfectly shaped breasts.

A young woman nicknamed "T.N.T." for being virtual dynamite in a fight and a knockout in terms of looks to boot, goes to the most lawless part of Hong Kong in search of her missing brother Stag Jackson. When she learns he has been murdered, she decides she will bring the killer to justice in a fashion only she can.Sounds good, doesn't it. Well, there's really nothing wrong with the basic premise as a starting base for a martial arts/blaxploitation action thriller, which is what this aims to be. The leads actually prove pretty good too with Jeanne Bell fitting nicely into the role of "T.N.T." and Stan Shaw doing well as the ambitious, power-hungry Charlie. Where this fails miserably is in terms of the fighting action it offers up. The fight scenes are totally and completely unconvincing and/or sometimes so completely over the top it reaches the point of ridiculousness which doesn't at all help when the basic focus of your movie is a Kung Fu action heroine. Also the poor lighting, actors sporting accents making them hard to understand, the confusing camera-work and the sometimes poor sound doesn't help this obvious low budget effort out either any. This does deliver in one area which may delight some fans, it does offer up plenty of the T in "T & A", in fact practically every fight scene in the film is proceeded by some type of nude scene and Jeanne Bell actually does have one extended fight scene in which she is completely topless.In the end, this fails to be something you want to revisit because the fight scenes are so pathetically, laughingly bad.