THE TEMPLE DOGS

New York Mafiosi scum accidentally tangle with aristocratic Japanese organized criminals and lose much face, not to mention respect. Another team effort by the authors of High Priest (1987). Mysterious fate has brought Nick DeSanto--the oafish, exceptionally violent, coke-snorting son of a Manhattan Cosa Nostra capo--to the Inn on the Park, where he wants to get a bite to eat. He is not admitted. The restaurant's been booked for the wedding reception of the daughter of a wealthy lawyer and his Japanese-born wife. Unable to take the rejection gracefully, Nick shoots the departing bride and groom, thereby earning the undying enmity of the bride's hitherto worthless though quite good-looking brother Miles Haverford. Miles swears eternal revenge but doesn't quite know how to go about it until he follows his Japanese roots back to the old country--where he discovers that he is the grandson of the nobly-born head of one of Japan's most powerful but well-behaved criminal organizations. But family connections alone can't win him the respect and backing of his new-found family and friends. Miles has to learn humility and good manners as well as a few martial arts. It's not all boot camp. There's a lovely thug-ette to play with. But he never forgets those Mafiosi scum. New York's calling him back. . . Yuppie kung-fu.