Despite the relatively higher degree of professionalism accorded the production, Adrenalin: Fear the Rush is also one of the most frustrating of Albert Pyun’s films. Most of Pyun’s films operate as stripped minimalist scenarios, designed with the sole intent of allowing a maximum of action (usually kickboxing) scenes. Sometimes, as in Nemesis or Dollman, his films have the bonus of an imaginative backdrop or a sense of humour. Other times, as in Cyborg or the bizarre Deceit (1989), they have been stripped to the point they are working on less-than-bare bones – in Deceit’s case, the entire film was seemingly improvised while being shot in a single disused warehouse; while Journey to the Center of the Earth (1988), which was patched together from another uncompleted film, gave the appearance of not even having been filmed with a script.

Adrenalin: Fear the Rush suffers this same problem. The film hails in at a surprisingly slight 67 minutes. And it comes with a background that is so severely undersketched that it proves intensely frustrating. Most of the film involves Christopher Lambert and Natasha Henstridge chasing a crazed man with red eyes and super-strength who is also being pursued by a sinister group of men in vac suits with much muttering about how what he is infected with could potentially destroy the whole world. However, Pyun reveals nothing about who or what the man or the infection is, and why he is considered so dangerous. The opening scene sets up the backdrop of a world ravaged by a plague and tells us how infected immigrants have been rounded up inside containment areas. Once the main action starts in, Pyun never deigns to tell us whether what is happening is taking place inside a plague zone or out in the real world, whether the man being pursued is an infectee, or why, as eventually appears to be the case, an armed SWAT team are also infected. When we are first introduced to Natasha Henstridge, she is buying a fake passport for travelling outside the zone but then when we next see her she is one of the SWAT team and we have no idea whether she is a plague detainee or a cop or both and whose side she is meant to be on.

Pyun shot Adrenalin on location in Slovakia in what looks like a city sewer system – all that the film consists of is a series of chase scenes through the tunnels. Certainly, the chase scenes are decently shot and generate some passable suspense. It is just that these gaping plot holes make Adrenalin an intensely frustrating experience.

Albert Pyun’s other films are:– The Sword and the Sorceror (1982), Radioactive Dreams (1986), Vicious Lips/Pleasure Planet (1987), Alien from L.A. (1988), the uncredited Journey to the Center of the Earth (1988), Cyborg (1989), Deceit (1989), Captain America (1990), Dollman (1990), Brain Smasher: A Love Story (1993), Knights (1993), Nemesis (1993), Arcade (1994), Heatseeker (1995), Hong Kong 1997 (1994), Nemesis 2: Nebula (1995), Nemesis 3: Timelapse (1995), Nemesis 4: Death Angel (1995), Omega Doom (1996), Postmortem (1997), Ticker (2001), Infection (2005), Cool Air (2006), Bulletface (2007), Left for Dead (2007) and Tales of an Ancient Empire (2010).