WAR goes to war with drug dealers and street gangs in the Blaxpoitation classic YOUNGBLOOD on Blu-ray from Scorpion Releasing.

Los Angeles tenement teen Junior, nicknamed Youngblood (Bryan O'Dell, GETTING OVER) has no interest in school or in the future his banker brother Reggie (David Pendleton, BEGIN AGAIN) is building for him and their mother (Ann Weldon, SHAMPOO). When he gets suspended, with his return dependent upon a report by a social worker, Youngblood goes from youth activities like boxing to running with a street gang called The Kingsmen lead by Rommel (WELCOME BACK KOTTER!'s Lawrence-Hilton Jacobs). When he and friend Bummie (Ron Trice, THE HUMAN TORNADO) run afoul of rival gang The Dons after dancing with Sybil (Renn Woods, XANADU), the sister of leader Geronimo (future sitcom producer Ralph Farquhar), Youngblood must also prove his toughness for running away by "scalping" one of The Dons. After Youngblood with Durango's (Herb Rice, APOCALYPSE NOW) jacket but without "drawing blood," Rommel tells the younger man that he has declared war on The Dons. After a street fight in which Rommel is wounded and Youngblood shoots and kills someone, Youngblood discovers that Rommel is a Vietnam vet who has channeled his frustration in being too proud to ask for work – as his long-suffering wife Joan (Sheila Wills) defines it – into running around with a teenage street gang. When Youngblood comes across a young heroin O.D. (Art Evans, WHITE OF THE EYE) and discovers Sybil in withdrawal, Rommel promises his wife he will get a job after he cleans up the streets. This seems like a good idea, but Youngblood is unaware that his own upstanding brother is in cahoots with a rifle range owner (Vince Cannon, BLADE) to get drugs out onto the street and take advantage of people's fears about the rise in crime, and their professionals have no qualms about killing anyone who tries to stop them.

A late stage Blaxploitation film from American International on its last legs before it became Filmways, YOUNGBLOOD benefits from good performances, a realistically gritty setting, valid social concerns, and the energetic soundtrack by WAR (whose production credits include roadies take up half of the end title crawl) which has had more longevity than the film. O'Dell's Youngblood is not an entirely sympathetic character but his rebellious streak and search for meaning is relatable. More interesting is Jacobs' Rommel as a Vietnam vet whose postwar experience is all-too-familiar. The film's violence is brutal but not exploitative, and the film's romantic subplot appropriately falls by the wayside as Youngblood's journey becomes ruled as much as Rommel's by revenge and a sense of vigilante justice. The supporting cast also includes T.K. Carter (THE THING) and Earl Billings (J.D.'s REVENGE) while the cinematography is an early credit for Robbie Greenberg who moved up from the likes of DOCTOR DRACULA and TIME WALKER to NIGHT WARNING and SWAMP THING. Director Noel Nosseck moved from YOUNGBLOOD to TV movies throughout the 1980s and 1990s, including a number of Hallmark movies like WHAT KIND OF MOTHER ARE YOU?

Released theatrically by American International Pictures and hard to see since, YOUNGBLOOD showed up on television a few times courtesy of MGM's HD master which has been utilized for Scorpion's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen master. While the image has the look of an older MGM catalogue title with fair to good detail in close shots and varying degrees of saturation in the clothing and some color gels, the DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono soundtrack sounds fantastic from the get-go with WAR's theme song having a bold presence and clear dialogue throughout. Optional English SDH subtitles are generally good but could have used some proofing ("the tune is in your heart" becomes "the dude is in your heart" during WAR's jaunty "Sing a Happy Song").