Brian Trenchard-Smith storms the Australian home video market with the back-to-back martial arts duo DAY OF THE PANTHER and STRIKE OF THE PANTHER, on Region Free Blu-ray from Umbrella Entertainment.

After a lifetime service in the Hong Kong Special Branch, William Anderson (John Stanton, DARKNESS FALLS) retires and returns to Australia safe in the knowledge that he is also being succeeded in the secret Temple of the Panther martial arts sect by his daughter Linda (stuntwoman Linda Megier) and her partner Jason Blade (Edward John Stazak). When they lose evidence while surveilling a drug deal between a Hong Kong triad and Baxter (Jim Richard, DANGEROUS GAME), the head henchman of Australian millionaire Damien Zukor (Michael Carman, THE CHANT OF JIMMIE BLACKSMITH) suspected of various underworld activities that the police cannot prove. While Jason is still in Hong Kong, Linda follows Baxter back to Perth and catches a lead. When she turns up dead on the same day that Blade arrives in Perth, surveilling detective Colin (Zale Daniel) and bumbling Constable Lambert (Matthew Quartermaine, SHAME) peg him as the chief suspect while their supervisor Chief Inspector Hudson (Brian Fitzsimmons, ZOMBIE BRIGADE) knows that Blade's status as a triad enforcer is a cover but hopes to discourage him by any means from interfering in their own investigation of Zukor. Blade uses his triad cover to look for employment under Zukor and finds himself tested with a dangerous drug run and resented by Baxter who constantly tries to trip him up. Although Anderson says that Linda knew the danger inherent in their work and wants to move on looking after his niece Gemma (Icehouse dancer Paris Jefferson, SAVAGE PLAY), his Zen mindset is tested severely when roughs up Gemma searching for information to expose Blade. When Zukor's annual high stakes martial arts tournament – which has been compared to a cock fight – comes up and he pits Baxter and Blade against each other with a plan to rig the match for his own profit, but Blade may be in for an ambush when Baxter finds proof of his real identity.

A direct sequel to DAY OF THE PANTHER, STRIKE OF THE PANTHER finds Blade having earned the respect of the Perth police department and training an elite task force with Anderson consulting. Although Gemma has become a member of the task force, she is wary about the time it takes away from her relationship with Blade and the danger inherent in their operations; the latest of which was extracting a heroin-addicted judge's daughter (Fiona Gauntlett, STONES OF DEATH) out of a brothel before a journalist can break the story. When Gemma is kidnapped and Anderson hit by a car and hospitalized, Jason discovers that Baxter is out for revenge and his holding her at an abandoned power station. While Jason wants to charge in and kick ass, Interpol psychiatrist and task force member Sergeant Lucy Andrews (Rowena Wallace, BLACKWATER TRAIL) realizes that that is exactly what Baxter wants him to do, and that he has an explosive surprise in store.

Shot back-to-back for the home video market by independent Australian exploitation auteur Brian Trenchard-Smith (TURKEY SHOOT), DAY OF THE PANTHER and STRIKE OF THE PANTHER are undemanding actioners so run-of-the-mill that their ninety minute running times can be very neatly divided into three acts which get the exposition out of the way with opening narration and favor long action set-pieces over character development which is basic to stay the least. To call the relationship between Blade and Gemma obligatory would be to suggest that anything else in the films was not. We get fight scenes in graffiti-tagged industrial areas, a vengeful partner, a romantic interest, bumbling cops, the love interest threatened, and a final confrontation. While the two films were shot back-to-back, the second film gives the impression of upping the ante with a bigger finale involving multiple attacks from ninja assailants, more gunfire, some actual gore and nudity (Stazak's pre-confrontation shower scene), and a villain who actually gets kicked into a power grid and electrocuted. Stazak and Richards both supervised the fight choreography but the set-pieces are more memorable for their length than their coverage. While Jackson is the damsel in distress, some of the other female performers get to contribute a bit more to the fight scenes (with Gauntlett taking a whip to some of the brothel clients that try to intervene in Blade's fight with the guards and Wallace shiving a ninja with a concealed blade). Both films do let down in terms of climaxes that feel smaller in scale to what is hinted at. There is no big fight tournament in DAY OF THE PANTHER, just a one-on-one in an outdoor amphitheater, and the power station does not explode even in miniature form. Eighties-isms come in the form of sportswear and Jackson's spastic aerobics dancing as well as the synth scoring of TV composers Brian Beamish and Garry Hardman.