BSP 2014 Advent Calendar: Day 4

Welcome to Day 4 of Bam Smack Pow’s 2014 Advent Calendar! Only twenty-one more days left until Christmas, and that means twenty-one more superhero films will be mined for trivia. For Day 4, we give you …

The Punisher (1989)

Some film adaptations of superheroes just can’t get a break. The Punisher is one of them. We know that it’s been rebooted twice with The Punisher (2008) and Punisher: War Zone, but let’s revisit the one that started it all — The Punisher (1989). From the production value to the acting, this film screamed B-movie straight-to-video. Though Dolph Lundgren was still in his 1980s prime, that couldn’t make up for the weak script and characterization of Frank Castle. With a Punisher that had very little to do with its source material, the film was panned by critics and audiences. As bad as it was, it’s still entertaining to watch a Marvel movie that completely dates itself with 80s cheese.

The Punisher was directed by Mark Goldblatt, written by Boaz Yakin, and starred Dolph Lundgren as Frank Castle / The Punisher, Louis Gosset Jr. as Jake Berkowitz, Jeroen Krabbé as Gianni Franco, Kim Kyori as Lady Tanaka, Bryan Marshall as Dino Moretti, Nancy Everhard as Sam Leary, Barry Otto as Shake, Brian Rooney as Tommy Franco, Zoshka Mizak as Tanaka’s Daughter, Kenji Yamaki as Sato, Hirofumi Kanayama as Tomio, and Todd Boyce as Terrone.

Trivia

As an homage to Spider-Man #129 (February 1974), the first appearance of the Punisher, there is a flashback scene where Frank Castle’s daughters are seen wearing Spider-Man pajamas.
In the movie, the Punisher never used the same weapon twice, and would sometimes leave them behind for no apparent reason.
Three countries didn’t have a theatrical release for The Punisher, but had video releases instead: the United States, due to the bankruptcy of New World Pictures; South Africa, due to too much violence; and Sweden, also due to too much violence. The rest of the world saw it in theaters for its initial release.
The Punisher doesn’t wear a skull emblem on his shirt, and doesn’t retain any of his character-defining traits. This is because Marvel Comics only gave the film a provisional license for the character.
Even though the movie was given negative reviews by critics and audiences, TV Guide gave it three out of four stars and praised Dolph Lundgren’s acting. The magazine also went on to compare this film with Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.
A sequel was originally planned, but was scrapped when New World Pictures went into bankruptcy.
Dolph Lundgren had a hand in writing Frank Castle’s opening and ending monologues.
Like most of his past movies, Dolph Lundgren performed most of his own stunts in The Punisher.
The fight scenes in The Punisher were performed with full contact. This is due to Kyokushin karate champions Kenji Yamaki’s and Kirofumi Kanayama’s sense of honor, which didn’t allow them to pretend or fake anything.
Stan Lee opted to not make a cameo in the movie because he had no involvement in the creation of the Punisher (the character was created by Gerry Conway, Ross Andru, and John Romita, Sr.). This is one of the few movies based on Marvel properties that doesn’t have an appearance of Stan Lee.
New York-based thrash metal band Biohazard samples Frank Castle’s opening monologue in their song Punishment. The lyrics are, “Come on God, answer me. For years, I’m asking you why … why are the innocent dead and the guilty alive? Where is justice? Where is punishment? Or have you already answered. Have you already said to the world, ‘Here is justice. Here is punishment. Here … in me.'”

Make sure to come back each day because we still have twenty-one more days worth of superhero film trivia for you!

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A special thanks to Eric Dufresne for his amazing geometric superhero art that’s being used as the background for the advent calendar.

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