If you're anything like me, when you first saw the children's movie Milo & Otis you wept like the baby that you were. This classic children's story focused on a cat and a dog who had to manage their way through treacherous terrains that would leave even the boldest human a little uneasy. The film was designed to be a real tear jerker, and it succeeded. You wept, just like I did, because you knew that a perfectly great crime/cop drama was lying just below the surface. Unfortunately the filmmakers simply didn't choose capitalize on any of this. Well, thankfully my imagination is quite vivid and I'm able to give you all a quick glimpse into just another brilliant movie that Should Have Been. You see, the technology just wasn't there back in 1986. The Japanese crew wouldn't have even had the budget to dare approach the amount of explosions and violence that this film was going to call for. Not to mention that the Ninja Turtles movies had not been made at this point, so the concept of getting these animals into suits would be hard enough but to actually manage to train a cat and a dog to actually learn martial arts and take on legions of gun toting yakuzas... I can't blame them for turning to different ideas. However, I think with today's technology and the progress consistently being made in the world of robotics -such a film could very well be made. So, if there are any Hollywood execs out there reading this (and I know you are), don't be afraid to use some ideas. I'm really not greedy, I just want to see this brilliant story come to life no matter what it takes.

Enter our first scene. A stormy night in central tokyo, where a group of yakuza thugs are meeting up in order to discuss their new entrepreneurial business of dealing arms to schoolchildren in Shinjuku. We're introduced to the Big Brother of this yakuza organization, an elderly Japanese man who dresses in full samurai regalia, despite this being a contemporary film. This ancient Japanese father figure is seen riding along in a rickshaw for the majority of the film and is very traditional in everything he does. His name is Steve. Steve surveys his men and he gives a monumental speech to them that the recent K-9 unit has been cracking down on their business and the drug trade has almost become too dangerous of a game to dare pursue. Just as he's about to pour tea for the remainder of his men, we're finally introduced to both Milo & Otis, who break into this warehouse through the front door - both bearing shotguns. What ensues is a brutal massacre of gunplay and extreme violence, while this dog and cat (who are clad in black suits) shout out one liners such as "What's the matter, cat got your tongue" which is of course spoken after our cat does of course have the tongue of a yakuza thug ripped out and hanging on one of its claws. That's just the sort of movie Paws of Vengeance was to be.

Following the brutal beatdown put on Steve's forces, the yakuza boss manages to escape while the dog and cat detectives shout such awesome lines as "Who needs cat nip, when you've got cat gats" or "I'm gonna chop you up and put you in a doggy bag!". So, with a half exploded building and roughly three hundred dead yakuza - Milo & Otis are called in to meet their chief since letting Steve escape wasn't part of the gameplan. What starts off as an extremely conventional sequence where the boss man does some yelling and our detectives are supposed to just take it, however the two stand up halfway through their verbal beating and kick the desk into the solar plexus of their administrator. They both pull out machine guns and blast him into smithereens before doing a duck and roll jump through the glass window panes into the foyeur of the police station. What follows is another very John Woo-esque scene of brutal heroic bloodshed which culminates in Milo & Otis tying massive amounts of explosives to this building as well as two others and blowing them to kingdom come. With these two rascals now taking to the streets, no one can be safe! What follows is a montage sequence showing Milo & Otis dragging the streets of tokyo trying to gather up information. Ultimately they do find a young Yakuza thug who has some information to spill on Steve and his crew. The Yakuza underling is held suspended upside down above a skyscraper, in a scene that sees him urinating in his pants which soon leaks into his face. While Milo & Otis are taking shots at him with a crossbow, he spills the beans on Steve and the two discover that his base is located just two blocks away. So yeah, they drop the yakuza guy who disintegrates into a human explosion of gore and intestines once he hits the cement.

We cut back to Milo & Otis who each throw up a magnificent fist pump into the air, only without thumbs it's more like a unanimous arm-raising. So Milo & Otis once more traverse into enemy territory with only their duffel bags full of explosives and military grade weaponry. Their vengeance, which at this point really has no basis, will not be left in the dust! With their ordinance, Milo & Otis proceed to destroy another plethora of Yakuza underlings looking to do right by their master – but who only end up with a cavalcade of bullets in their chest. Our finale soon arrives which has our pet animal heroes facing off with Steve and his most fearsome henchman: Jeffrey, a European kickboxing Judo expert who proceeds to throw Milo around while Otis has a duel of fisticuffs with Steve who is also apparently a martial arts expert. Otis eventually finds a suction hose off of a vacuum cleaner and feeds it down Jeffrey's throat and then helps Milo take on the evil Steve in a three way martial arts battle that defies everything that has ever come before it. The final shot is of two very cut arms shaking hands with glistening (but furry) bicep muscles like those of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers in Predator, with their hands holding the hair of the decapitated head of Steve just inches below.

With all of that out of the way, I'd just like to say that if I were able to see this movie – at least a third of all the coolest things I've ever wanted to see in life could be consolidated all within one feature length film. Who needs too much plot when you've got uber buff cats and dogs taking on crime with a robust and firm hand? I certainly don't! Which is why this article is so short on it! I also don't need much in the way of a reason when it comes to writing, I just type until a series of words form on their own. As you may could guess at this point. I think at the end of the day, we can all agree however that Milo & Otis: Paws of Vengeance is a movie that SHOULD BE MADE. Fin.