From the director of brooding, manga-tinged actioners Black Mask and Star Runner comes writer-director Daniel Lee's most violent and stylish entry to date. Dragon Squad forms a mergence of Pan-Asian and Western talents and multiple generations of Hong Kong stars set within a colorless landscape, highlighted only by frantic motion and generous amounts of mean-spirited bloodletting. The film is a slick update to the John Woo heroic bloodshed tales of the 1980s with its own nod to Hong Kong's action roots in martial arts as seen in carefully orchestrated running gun battles and Sammo Hung's machete-wielding presence. Yet for all of its visual flair, ballistic kineticism and localized sentimentality, the film can't help being a soulless and at times uneasily laughable affair.

Lee taps Hung for what has increasingly become the martial arts movie legend's typecasting now that he's past his prime, as a mentor to a younger generation of heroes. A handful of youthful Interpol agents fronted by Canto-pop star Vanness Wu arrive in Hong Kong to testify at a trial for a crime lord. En-route to court, the police escort is ambushed by a small band of heavily-armed attackers who abduct the crime lord. With their original mission put on hold, no official jurisdiction to act and the likely prospects of another confrontation the agents are put into the care of a veteran cop, as played by Hung.

The director unintentionally makes a mockery of this supposedly professional Interpol team by turning them into a group of glorified semi-superheroes, complete with distinctive gunplay skills right out of a B-movie Western and frequent ESPN-style profiles. He does the same with the lead villains, but they fare better thanks to slightly more fleshed out characters. But even then cast members usually appear lost in their ill-defined roles, while the fresh-faced members such as Eva Huang (Kung Fu Hustle) show little promise of their own.

Terminator star Michael Biehn has the most interesting character as Pedros, a Columbian terrorist whose interest in the crime lord's former girlfriend (Isabella Leung) comes into conflict with his desire to get revenge on Hung for the death of his brother three years prior during a battle with police. Biehn's stiff line delivery sours what could have otherwise been one of the better gweilo acting roles in Hong Kong action cinema to date.

Biehn's partner in crime is Korean actor Heo Jun-ho (Simido). It's unfortunate that he is the only one who seems comfortable in his role. Steely-faced, he drips menace and hate. Heo proves to be an excellent nemesis for Hung and the two tangle twice in the film's only martial arts scenes.

As with his performance in SPL, Sammo Hung gets to show off that he's still the fastest and fiercest fat man around. Lee's direction and editing has improved over the choppy fight scenes of Star Runner, but some genre fans will no doubt be disappointed in how Hung's fight scenes are presented. Although Hung is one of Hong Kong's great action directors with his own evolving style, it's interesting to see that he has adapted well to the modern choreography of genre leaders like Donnie Yen. As the film's martial arts choreographer, Chin Kar-lok seems to have been inspired to maintain the kind of gritty realism of Hung's previous film. While not as well crafted, Chin's scenes serve their intended purpose by giving us some great action pitting two old warhorses against one another.

In Dragon Squad, Lee aspires for it to be the Chinese equivalent of Michael Mann's Heat. It is only partially successful in the movie's elaborate gun fights, which are entertaining but stretch plausibility to the limit. Lee's idea of action has never strayed far from his days as director of Jet Li's superhero flick Black Mask. Nine years later, the action is every bit as exaggerated and over-the-top. All that's missing are the costumes. The one thing that has changed is the increased level of violence portrayed.

The opening ambush is a startlingly grizzly scene that quickly establishes Biehn's terrorist team as capable of any atrocity and skilled enough to pull it off with style. Heo later shows his specialty of close range combat by waiting to surround himself with targets in tight quarters before unleashing a barrage of gunfire and hand-to-hand combat. Maggie Q is their silent sharp shooter, who we learn nothing about except that she prefers rapid high-caliber fire tactics to carefully-aimed kill shots. She also likes to lay traps in graveyards to draw rival sharpshooters into. Go figure. Philip Ng is more of a scatter shot shooter, wherein he uses his combat shotgun to blast his way through a hallway filled with police during a second ambush. Here some clever uses of props are used to take the gun fight in unconventional directions.

Amid all this violence, one starts to wonder if the police have any control at all. Despite all of the planning of Simon Yam as the tactical police leader they are basically at the mercy of four active militants freely operating in the city. Kung fu masters and pop star superheroes to the rescue!

The film's main event is a well-crafted gun battle in a rundown alleyway filled with exploding canisters and flying debris. Lee uses a variety of slow motion, jerky zooming and handheld camera work to add tension to the visuals. It's a little too self conscience in execution, but fun to watch and consistent with the gratuitously silly flashbacks repeatedly interjected, seemingly to remind us of how cool the stars can look in various poses. Like a classic G.I. Joe episode, hundreds of rounds are expended in all directions with not so much as a scratch scored on anyone until Lee decides to call it quits on the scene by capping it with some dramatic punch.

The exaggerated action and underdeveloped characters would have worked a lot better if not for Lee's injection of frivolous sentimentality. Instead of a wink to the audience or a bit of humor to allow audiences to better accept the excesses, Lee plays it straight and like Star Runner, it becomes difficult to not laugh whenever a Canto-pop song or montage sequence begins. I cannot speak for Asian audiences but Americans will likely have a hard time accepting it. I would almost fear that it's a cultural barrier, except that other Hong Kong filmmakers like Stephen Chow and Johnnie To have proven otherwise with films that successfully ride the line between excesses.

Dragon Squad has some excellent, if unreal gunplay and two enjoyable fight scenes with a still vigorous Sammo Hung versus a wickedly enjoyable Heo Jun-ho. It's nice to see Biehn, a solid B-movie star drifting into obscurity, given a sizable role in what appears to be a rare reversal of the past influx of Hong Kong talent to Hollywood. The film definitely shows promise as Steven Seagal's first attempt at co-producing Asian action films. But despite its polish, the film has plenty of rough spots that will make it a hard sell for casual viewers.

Directed by Daniel Lee; action choreographed by Chin Kar-lok; starring Sammo Hung, Michael Biehn, Heo Jun-ho. 110 minutes. Rated IIB (Hong Kong).

Long before director Kinji Fukasaku created the controversial Battle Royale (2001), he was best known as Japan's premiere director of hard-boiled yakuza films. Street Mobster is one of his earliest and greatest that set off a new wave of ultra-violent and nihilistic crime dramas including his own famed Yakuza Papers series. It's the sixth film in Toei's Modern Yakuza sextet, featuring a variety of directors and unrelated plots, but all starring Bunta Sugawara. In this final film, the charismatic Sugawara brilliantly explodes onscreen in an unrestrained stream of fury and cinematic coolness. Fukasaku's edgy direction expertly uses shaky handheld camerawork, freeze framing and a raw artistic look that gives the film a ballsy vibe that holds up extremely well to any gangster drama to follow. The portrayal of a violent brawler and womanizer burning fast on a short fuse and unable to change as the world around him does still has tremendous impact over thirty years on. Loads of chaotic street fighting and all-around nastiness keeps the blood pumping. This is an unrepentant and masterful work that draws similarities to the early films of Martin Scorsese, Chang Cheh and Sam Peckinpah, but possessing a stylish level of violence all its own.

Shaun of the Dead is the kind of low budget movie every genre filmmaker should aspire to make. One the one hand, it's a gore-drenched zombie movie that doesn't let us down in chills and bloodletting. Yet it's also a sharply-written comedy rooted in problems that your average person can easily relate to. While Shaun, as perfectly played by everyman Simon Pegg, struggles to overcome his own mediocrity in order to rise to the challenge of keeping his loved ones safe from the clutches of zombie hordes, he takes the time to argue with his best friend over issues that have plagued their relationship for years. Where George Romero used zombies and black humor to satirize social ills, director Edgar Wright uses the same set up to honestly explore the difficulties of everyday relationships, while also tossing in the overriding theme that people who fail to live life to the fullest are themselves living zombies. Even without searching into these depths, the film is wildly entertaining, genuinely frightening and extremely funny as a horror comedy on par with the likes of Peter Jackson's Dead Alive and Sam Raimi's Evil Dead series. For action, Shaun's skull-bashing dash through lumbering groups of zombies performed in long takes, his shuriken-like LP tossing, and a brief kung fu movie-inspired leg maneuver are icing on the cake.

Tam is Alan Ng, an apparent example of the amoral youth of today (today being the early eighties). Not that Alan indulges in crime, drugs or assault; in fact he is merely a boorish Casanova with an unsuccessful track record. But church folk and university psychology professors enlist fresh-faced undergraduate Jo Jo (Lin) to woo Alan then dump him, thereby teaching him social responsibility. But, for reasons kept to herself Jo Jo begins to fall for Al, much to the chagrin of her professor fiancé. There follows a tortuous and tortured series of lame comic set pieces and clumsy melodrama, culminating in a tragic-then-happy-ending so perverse it would make Romeo slap Juliet.

Lam later proved himself a minor master of suspense, but is adrift when tackling matters of the heart. A hectoring tone veers between lame pratfalls and sub-Mills & Boon amorous histrionics, and Tam and Lin have all the spark of two wet fish rubbed together.

Lam’s indifference to The Other Side of Gentleman is evident from his pedestrian direction, showing interest only in a brief, but impressively staged road accident that leads to that weird ending. More offensive than Lam’s bland visuals is the eighties fashion the cast sport, looking like rejects from some abandoned Flashdance sequel. Alan works in a fashion store, and his climactic wedding day gate-crashing “I’m a pair of jeans, but you want me to be trousers” sermon is an all-time worst movie moment, even allowing for dodgy subtitling.

With all characters underwritten it seems churlish to criticize performances, but eighties Asian singing sensation Tam is a charisma vacuum and not even the legendary Lin can convince in her thankless damp squib of a role. Hard to imagine Quentin Tarantino borrowing from this one.

The complex story is full of fast-moving twists and turns as it follows a former soldier named Shozo Hirono (Bunta Sugawara ) as he enters the world of the yakuza and becomes embroiled in a violent conflict between the Yamamori and Doi families. Both are bitter rivals who exchange defectors and corpses as gang violence escalates into total war. After winning this conflict, Shozo must choose which path to take as his own faction splinters under the weight of corruption and greed. In Fukasaku's Street Mobster, Bunta Sugawara played a lows-level gangster bent on destruction, but here he is the only one attempting to live by a yakuza code of honor while those around him stab each other in the back in a fast grab for wealth and power. It is his sense of honor that sets him apart and ultimately sets the stage for him to become a yakuza boss himself.

The film is a little bewildering at times. Fukasaku's pacing is relentless as he depicts countless killings and backroom dealings. Characters are introduced and killed off while Fukasaku keeps a relative distance from them. The film is shot more like a documentary of the mob scene and this is enhanced by the urban realism and grittiness of the direction and art design. Like most of Fukasaku's work, the fulfillment of watching this film comes from his unflinching perspective on the brutality and ugliness of violence and the rich narrative texture that he creates. It's rewarding to sit through even if you don't catch all of the details the first time. (The character tree provide by HVE in their DVD release helps tremendously in sorting out the main characters and their various relationships throughout the series.)

Battles Without Honor & Humanity is an extremely violent film throughout that doesn't get any more extreme than when two thugs have their arms graphically chopped off. The scene ends with a severed and ragged arm spewing blood and hurling directly at the camera in a blurry freeze frame as the victim and his attackers struggle in the background. There is no one who shoots violence quite the same way. With this kind of dynamic and stylized handling in a realistic setting, the film easily stands up to anything the Takashi Miike's and Quentin Taratino's of the world could ever conceive of.

Masahiro Motoki is Wada, a Japanese salaryman sent by his company to a remote part of China to investigate a potentially large jade deposit near a small village. As he meets up with his guide (played by the great Mako), Wada is joined by yakuza thug Ujiie (Renji Ishibashi) who is charged with seeing that Wada's company pays their debts. The journey is long and arduous, with a few comedic and perilous surprises along the way. But nothing compares with what they find when they finally reach their destination. In a village virtually isolated from the outside world, Wada and Ujiie discover a place of great beauty and innocence, a place where dreams seem real and the bird people live.

Miike masterfully weaves mystery and wonder among reality to give Bird People a sense of otherworldliness without actually dipping into pure fantasy. The lead characters begin as Japanese stereotypes, but evolve into people of greater depth and resolve. Wada is the prototype businessman with his nose ever in his work who becomes enchanted with a village girl who trains small children to fly and sings the haunting English folk song "Annie Laurie" for reasons that become clear as her story unfolds. Ujiie is a man tortured by nightmares of yakuza violence who falls in love with this untouched village and eventually vows to protect it from development, despite what the villagers might want. What starts out as an adventure to find a treasure trove of raw jade becomes a study of what is truly important in life and the need for myth and dreams in a world overrun by rational and often jaded modernity.

The Bird People in China ends appropriately with an image that suggests that myth will survive and reality may be no more than what we make of it. Whether you want to believe it or not doesn't matter. If for only two hours, it becomes possible to be drawn into a mysterious and faraway place where light humor, stunning cinematography in a lush outdoor setting, and memorable characters come together in an unforgettable experience.

REVIEW:
Due to space constraints and rising rental costs, an admirer of Wong Fei Hung convinces him to relocate his kung fu school and clinic next to what turns out to be a brothel. While trying to shield his followers from immorality, Wong finds himself at odds with a new, corrupt police chief who is secretly helping a local group of monks to kidnap young women and sell them as slaves in Southern Asia. Wong finds himself investigating their temple after two martial arts masters, Tin Yin-er and her father discover the monks intentions. Despite an attempt to frame Wong for attacking the monks without just cause and poisoning him which leads to a temporary loss of hearing, Wong tries to stop the police chief who also part of the Boxer Rebellion from assassinating a foreign official.

Coming after the success of the first three films in the Once Upon a Time in China series, Jet Li was tapped by director and writer Wong Jing to play the role of the legendary folk hero Wong Fei Hung again. By pushing the props, outrageous action and humor beyond Tsui Hark's original vision for the character, Last Hero in China becomes a hugely entertaining, if even more improbable episode in the Wong Fei Hung franchise.

Wong Jing and Jet Li who would collaborate on the even more outrageous "Kung Fu Cult Master" the same year came together after Li had a fallout with Golden Harvest. The practice of creating an unofficial sequel to a film by a competing studio is not uncommon in Hong Kong and Wong gladly combined his own brand of wacky humor with Li's trademark role and ran wild with it.

In the film, Li plays his character straight while his goofball assistants cause all sorts of trouble. Although the humor veers towards slapstick which allows Fei Hung's drooling, bare-chested students to ogle prostitutes who break into song, the film does feature some incredible choreography from the peerless action director, Yuen Woo Ping. There is sort of a grab bag feel to the film which helps and hinders it. The manic opening sequence of young women running from the closing grasp of Gordon Liu (The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter) that includes a shot of one of them being ripped in half (sounds worse than it looks) sets the tone for a darker film that is at odds with the humor elements. Yet, Wong is consistent with his over-the-top hybrid style and it mostly works. Clearly, the standout scene is a duel between a giant centipede and Li dressed as a chicken. Yes, he's wearing a chicken suit. Of course, this is no team mascot here. He's sporting an iron beak and claws that Li uses to tear into the metal segments of the centipede. The whole scene is a terrific lampooning of the traditional lion dance that usually accompanies a Wong Fei Hung story.

Thanks to outstanding choreography and the creative humor of the director, Last Hero in China is more entertaining than it probably should be. Some of the jokes may be lost on viewers unfamiliar with either the Once Upon a Time in China series or Journey to the West. Even so, the sheer energy propels the viewer forward and with less confusion than found in Kung Fu Cult Master. And where else will you find the legendary kung fu star, Gordon Liu trade blows with Jet Li?

Review: How do you take some of the genre's top talent including director and action choreographer Corey Yuen Kwai, Donnie Yen, Jackie Chan, and rising action starlet Gillian Chung and turn out a complete waste of a movie? Try making The Twins Effect II (AKA The Huadu Chronicles). Saying this film falls flat on its face is too kind. It's an embarrassing piece of filmmaking and a perfect example of what's wrong with the state of Hong Kong cinema in the first decade of the New Millennium.

The Twins Effect II started out as a sequel to Emperor Classic Films' (formerly EMG) modestly entertaining vampire-slaying adventure Twins Effect (2003) starring the Twins, pop stars Gillian Chung and Charlene Choi. However, as the makers saw Mainland China as their main market they bowed to Communist censors who took a dim view of content that "perpetuates" the occult or folklore, in this case vampires. So with their central theme gone, the makers simply created an unrelated fantasy world for the Twins to continue their tailored brand of teen-friendly humor, romance and wire-assisted action.

Not even five scriptwriters were enough to salvage this project. It's basically a martial arts and fantasy version of Flash Gordon meets Star Trek: Insurrection. Where Mike Hodges' serial remake at least had camp value, number nine in the dying Star Trek franchise has no redeeming value. Imagine the worst elements of these two films brought together with a ton of overblown CGI nonsense and you have The Twins Effect II.

The premise is B-movie material all the way. A fictional kingdom ruled by women subjects men to slavery. The man-hating Queen (Qu Ying) and her former lover (Daniel Wu), who made a Eunuch out of himself after being caught getting cozy with the Queen's sister, are desperately searching to destroy a man prophesized to be the next Emperor. That man turns out to be a simple, peace-loving street performer named Charcoal Head, played like a block of wood in his first film role by Jackie Chan's son Jaycee. But for the time being, it's uncertain whether he or his friend Blockhead (Wlison Chen) is the true Emperor and with a "dumbbell" slave trader (Charlene Choi) and the queen's enforcer (Gillian Chung) who unconvincingly falls in love with Charcoal Head, they go on a quest to see who may claim Excalibur... yes, the sword from the Arthur legend. Along the way they encounter Morlock-like creatures who tunnel underground, devour aggressive people and party with fun-loving people. Bear with me here. Guarding the sword is Jackie Chan as a Terracotta-like warrior who comes alive to challenge Donnie Yen who plays a general with the idiotic name Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. He's in charge of an underground resistance group intent on overthrowing the Queen's tyrannical rule and making the sexes equal. The two battle until they realize they're both on the same side and Charcoal Head steps up to reluctantly claim the sword. Donnie leads an army against the Queen's forces, but they all decide to team up and the audience gets shorted a battle sequence. In response, the Queen unleashes her magic to turn all men into men with breasts... okay, enough of this.

The Twins Effect II is crap. As a full-time reviewer I usually try to come up with some witty description, but none suffice in this case. The film is laughable and/or dull from start to finish. The sets, especially in the town are horrendous and make Shaw Brothers' '70s-era sets look like the Taj Mahal in comparison. The costumes are worthy of a Dr. Who episode. Overall, the art design is the equivalent of using Pink Flamingos and porcelain gnomes to decorate a weed-infested lawn. Nearly everything is an eyesore that bears no consistency from one scene to the next.

The script is a jumbled mess with bad dialogue and bad acting to deliver it. The Twins are as attractive as ever, but that's all they have going for them. Their romantic hijinks with Wilson and Jaycee that takes up too much of the running time is their usual pop garbage targeted at 10 to 14 year-old girls. Gillian shows some signs of being a competent action star, but it will take a serious action role for her to make all of her physical training worthwhile. Jaycee Chan seriously needs more acting lessons. The rest of the young cast are just poor actors period. Wilson Chen, Edison Chen and Daniel Wu are all overrated and actually deserve to be in this film. Donnie Yen, who is capable of so much more, is reduced to playing a throwaway supporting character. In the most embarrassing scene in his career to date, he takes a whiff of a love potion and gives Tony Leung a look that will make your skin crawl.

Corey Yuen is capable of crafting some of the best action choreography on the planet, but it all goes horribly wrong in this film. Excessive use of slow motion, wires and heavy CGI drown out any life or excitement to the action. The CGI is also sub-par to Hollywood standards and looks more like a direct-to-video effort. One scene rips off what I thought was one of the worst camera usages in Azumi where it spins around two fighters dueling on a platform. It's not even done as well. The featured battle is between Jackie Chan and Donnie Yen and it's a big disappointment. It's only their second face-off after Shanghai Knights and ends up anything but the ultimate battle of screen fighting masters that it should have been. What we get is the two spinning on wires in slow motion while CGI swords fly around in the air. And making matters worse, there is no connect with the characters, story or anything else. We really have no idea who the characters are or why they're fighting. This fight alone is a perfect example of how not to shoot a screen fighting scene. Considering who all was involved in making it, it's a shameful disgrace.

The Twins Effect II goes far beyond the mediocre product that Hong Kong has been producing (with few exceptions) to be an exceptionally bad movie. My hat is off to the makers for unapologetically showing just how bad it can get. I just hope it never happens again.

Review: Kung fu movies hardly get any worse than The Steel-Fisted Dragon, another Bruce Lee clone film starring an unknown 'Steve Lee.' There is plenty of combat, but choreography is amateur and monotonous. The acting is atrocious and the editing blows big time. General viewers looking for something, anything of value can stop reading now. Brucexploitation fans may want to stick around.

As a general kung fu movie, The Steel-Fisted Dragon is garbage. But as a Bruce Lee knockoff, The Steel-Fisted Dragon is still garbage, but with a lead who looks and acts the part reasonably well. Steve Lee doesn't impress with his limited kung fu skills, but he does get the trademark mannerisms of Bruce down.

The plot is extremely thin with very poor acting and dialogue from all concerned. Steve's emaciated sidekick is a pansy named Sandy who is so annoying that one wonders why anyone would want him around. To offer an example of how ludicrous this character is, Steve is reduced to giving him a couple of hugs to cheer up his frightened little buddy. What the hell is sensitive male bonding doing in an old school kung fu movie? The only recognizable face is character actor Chan Lau, who usually plays the weasel-like goon in films such as 36 Deadly Styles and Fists, Kicks and the Evils. He's also appeared in a disproportionate amount of Brucexploitation films, which in part explains his presence here. Chan is thoroughly miscast as an elder martial arts expert called in by the lead villain to take on Steve. Their fight is hands down one of the worst ever filmed. Chan is a horrible screen fighter and the two end up doing pretty unconvincing sparring.

Exploitation elements beyond Steve's Bruce Lee imitations includes a couple of dull female cat fights and a skinny Chan Lau in briefs getting busy with a lady, which is more than anyone should see.

The Steel-Fisted Dragon is obviously a very low budget film and it shows in just about every scene. The only memorable moment is when Steve plucks out the eyes of a villain, but even that has been done elsewhere. The rest is just wasted celluloid and may leave the viewer wishing someone would pluck their eyes out simply to end the torment.

Review: There is kung fu so bad its good and then there is simply bad, bad kung fu. Big Boss II fits the latter category as one of the lesser in a string of Bruce Lee exploitation films.

The title is bunk. The story has nothing to do with Bruce Lee's The Big Boss. It bares more resemblance to Fist of Fury as it focuses on the pre-war struggle between occupying Japanese and oppressed Chinese. The painfully simple story is one only a Neanderthal could fully appreciate. Regular Bruce Lee impersonator Dragon Lee plays Lee Han-sun, a Chinese fighter who ends up on the run from a gang of Japanese thugs led by Bolo Leung. There really is nothing else going on. But to fill 90 minutes, he is shot, recovers with a family headed by Philip Ko, and exchanges gushy smiles with his pretty daughter. Lee also hooks up with Cheung Lik playing a streetwise beggar and his crippled sister. All of them are nothing but fodder for the Chinese actors... I mean Japanese to chew up. After countless little fights here and there, we get to the final battle of two the genre's buffest - Dragon Lee versus Bolo Leung. It's pretty uninspiring, as is the entire film.

What would a Brucexploitation film be without the 'Brucisms?' Dragon Lee is notorious for being one of the hammiest clones. Here, he regularly goes into overdrive by exaggerating all of the trademark hand gestures, facial expressions, and body postures, but without Bruce's charisma, speed, or delivery. The dubbing features equally exaggerated screams and high-pitched growling. A couple of his most ridiculous screaming sessions, including the very end are worthy of a laugh.

Then there are the many references to Bruce Lee's films. If there was any value in this film, it might be in making a game out of spotting these scenes and linking them to their corresponding film. But since few genre fans would even waste their time or money on this stinker, I'll point out the more obvious ones. Dragon does show off his dexterity by replicating the kick that Bruce Lee used to shatter a light bulb hanging above his head in Marlowe (1969). He goes on to do a flying kick to shatter a Japanese sign ala Fist of Fury. One of Dragon's friends is killed and strung upside down as Jim Kelly had been in Enter the Dragon. But most notably, Dragon gets the bright idea to master throwing chopsticks in order to disarm gunmen, just as Bruce used small wooden darts to do the same in Way of the Dragon.

The kung fu action in Big Boss II is not terrible, just repetitious and dull. But the acting is so bad and the plot is so thin that this is truly a painful experience. The "Japanese" thugs must be the most one-dimensional characters ever conceived of. They laugh hysterically after beating or killing someone. And their method of looking for Dragon amounts to walking down the street and asking every person they meet where he is while beating everyone senseless. If anything, the filmmakers should have taken a beating for putting together this lower than low exploitation film for it has no redeeming value.

Review: Super kicker John Liu occasionally found himself starring in films that fell outside of the normal boundaries of classic kung fu genre convention, but he hit new territory this time. Struggle Through Death is Taiwan's kung fu-infused answer to classic prison films of the West like Papillon and Stalag 17. A major difference apart from the obvious Eastern setting and kung fu action is that this low budget flick is intolerably bad beyond my worst nightmares of what a bad kung fu flick could possibly be. Overstatement? I don't think so.

The plot is unbelievable. Some generic thugs are randomly kidnapping men they happen to see roaming about the countryside and putting them into forced labor at a gold mine. John Liu, in lousy kung fu mode, is just about to catch a 'wascally wabbit' when he's nabbed and tossed into this camp. For the next eighty minutes or so, Liu and a pair of newfound friends repeatedly run away, are captured and beaten again and again and again... over and over and over. A lot of fists, feet, whips, and clubs left fly and I don't think a single blow is ever blocked. Liu himself gets beaten and abused so often that it literally becomes a joke. No, really. Both covered in bandages after taking their second or third major beating that should have left them permanently crippled or dead, Liu and Chin Lung 'humorously' bump into each other and fall down only to laugh at their light-hearted misfortune.

At some point, the endless cycle of abuse finally turns in the prisoners' favor, but by that point the viewer is more likely to feel abused than either the prisoners or villains. The acting, direction and art direction is awful, far beyond what's normal for a low budget kung fu flick.

Watch in amazement as extras posing as slave labor stand around shaking digging tools in mock anger as guards lazily whip the ground in front of them for several minutes straight. Witness the horror of three seperate mining cave-ins coming to vivid life as small Styrofoam rocks fall on heads and the same little piece of wood posing as a beam falls on three seperate victims who are 'crushed horribly' by its gargantuan, quarter-pound weight. Scream in agony as Fist of Fury's 'pet ass' Ngai Ping-ngo and friend entertain their fellow prisoners with 'witty' renditions of "Old McDonald" and "This Old Man." If only I had a dollar for every time a prisoner called a guard an "animal," or "worse than an animal." I lost count.

This flick is so annoying. Liu is usually a tough guy in his other films, but doesn't unleash his mighty right leg until late in the story. Instead of some great kung fu action throughout, we're treated with Liu and Ma Chin-ku getting into a series of pointless scuffles with guards where the only certainty is that they'll both end up tied and whipped or have their feet beaten to a pulp. There is no action gratification for ninety percent of the film. Chin Lung as Liu's overanxious pal is obnoxious and gets just what he deserves for being such a whimpering git.

The illusion of the mining camp as a place that could hold anyone against their will for any length of time is ruined by several factors. There are no gates and the guards are massively-outnumbered, rarely use lethal weapons, and only resort to killing to set an example after countless escapes and rebellious activities take place. Furthermore, the camp is a short walk from a village that Liu makes several unsanctioned visits to. The locals are either oblivious or resigned to the abductions and slave activity.

The sympathetic foreman, played by Chui Chung-hei eventually trains Liu's right leg. Yes, only his right leg. The truth is that Liu always favored his right leg in his films. He was able to do amazing things with it, but any fitness trainer or sensible martial artist could tell you that training both limbs equally is necessary for good health, balance and safety. Yet even with his mighty leg Liu is held back when the foreman asks him to help the whole camp to escape. After the foreman is killed, the prisoners finally rebel in a clumsily-shot uprising and Liu finally takes on the boss.

There are a few good kung fu moves that nearly get lost in the monotonous sea of mediocre brawling. There is a crazy, backward windmill-style kick that a thug uses. For his age, Chui Chung-hei unleashes some great moves including a low-level scissors kick, followed by a prone-to-standing flip. Liu shows off some amazing dexterity and control with his right leg. The best scene has him standing on his left leg and dishing out multiple kicks with his right to three successive attackers, all in one shot and without lowering that leg once. Unfortunately, the end fight is spoiled by one early mistake by Liu. His opponent gets a solid hold on that leg after a kick and any other smart fighter would have broken it right there or at least forced Liu to the ground. But Liu is supposed to be the hero now, so the boss generously lets go and promptly takes his medicine like a good baddie.

Ultimately, a few slick kung fu moves cannot do a thing for Struggle Through Death. The overriding issue is the seemingly endless repetition. Nothing is worse than having to watch slight variations of the same, bad scenes repeatedly in one movie. Even John Liu's legwork seems stale under Cheung San-yee's incompetent direction. I'm hesitant to lay blame on either of these two though as they had also teamed up for Incredible Kung Fu Mission, which is a fun classic. In closing, I do have to say that Struggle Through Death is an apt title as it accurately describes my state of mind as I suffered through what turned out to be a big disappointment for this John Liu fan.

REVIEW:
I think this whacked out fantasy film was meant to be seen while inebriated or as punishment for some hideous crime. Why on earth anyone would have made this incredibly sloppy effort is beyond me.

Chang Fu (Wong Yuen San) is a young man working for his cruel uncle who is plotting to send Chang away before he discovers that he is actually the heir to the family property. One day, Chang takes home a sea snail wounded by a snake. He has a dream about a beautiful woman played by Candy Yu who asks him to pour a drop of his own blood on the snail to restore it's health. It turns out that this sea snail is actually a "fairy" who becomes Candy. She leaves her mystical world after falling in love with Chang. The two get married in short order and she uses some of her mojo to help Chang out. One day, Chang's sniveling nephew makes advances on Candy and she retaliates with a little magic. He runs home with tales of a "demon" who has married Chang and the uncle tries to run her off unsuccessfully.

We finally get to meet the real villains who turn out to be demons who turn into snakes and surprisingly Simon Yuen is one of them! Simon's green-painted apprentice manages to sneak away to continue his long feud with Candy by posing as a Buddhist monk. The demon convinces Chang's uncle to have Candy's ring, which is the source of her power stolen. The thief happens to be a jealous woman who secretly loves Chang but is arranged to marry the wormy nephew. To wrap it all up in anti-climatic fashion, Candy is caught by the demon and Chang, who doesn't know a lick of kung fu throws the snail into the sea which signals Candy's ethereal sisters to come to her rescue. They beat Simon Yuen while Candy and Chang live happily ever after. The end... thankfully.

Kung Fu fans (not to mention everybody else) will be disappointed with this film. There is approximately 5 to 10 minutes of kung fu fighting in the whole film. The rest is all an extremely low budget series of visual effects and supernatural nonsense amid a senseless story and bad acting. Candy Yu, who starred in the equally dreadful film, The Deadly Sword (1978), is awfully attractive but without apparent martial arts or acting skills, she's nothing but window dressing. Simon Yuen is basically in an extended cameo. Its interesting to see that his scenes have practically no involvement with the special effects throughout the rest of the film, but then his character basically has no involvement with the story either. The martial arts action that does take place is poorly choreographed and executed and you don't even see anything in the first 45 minutes, assuming you're still awake.

Deadly Snail vs. The Kung Fu Killer is not really a martial arts film at all. Its more of a Chinese fantasy that relies on some of the cheapest and worst visual effects ever put to screen. The sets are thinly disguised and the vaguely familiar music is surely swiped from some other Western production. There are no redeeming factors to this cinematic roadkill.

Although mainstream martial arts movies have become somewhat of a rarity in China, the genre continues to live through B-grade direct-to-video and television venues. IRON LION is one of many and sadly its representative of the poor quality of such offerings.

This digitally-shot film is what I’d call a wire-fu movie. It combines elements of a classic kung fu movie with swordplay-style wirework action to produce a hybrid akin to the kinds of kinetic action films Jet Li was starring in during the early 1990s like FONG SAI YUK and ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA.

But more accurately, IRON LION should be called a wire-fu soap opera. Like many of China’s martial arts television series, this movie mixes its action up with heavy doses of twisty plots and emotional wrangling that in this case holds zero interest.

Set in Ming-era China, the story revolves around the rivalry between two martial arts schools that regularly compete in lion dances. Xi Xiaolong plays the star pupil of one of the schools. Through the scheming of a baddie who covets his blind gal pal, he has lost his brother, is wrongly accused of stealing money and is set up to look bad in the eyes of the public whether he wins or loses the next lion dance competition.

Joined by his martial arts brother Xie Miao (the kid in MY FATHER IS A HERO), Xi begins training for the next match with a lion head made of iron after discovering that his competitor is also using an iron lion. Meanwhile, the martial arts-trained daughter of the local governor forces the pair to teach her some of their iron lion dance tricks.

Eventually, the baddie reveals his schemes and the governor’s daughter battles it out with him while Xi and his brother compete in the lion dance competition.

The plot isn’t far off from some of Shaw Brothers’ classic kung fu titles that center on rivalries between schools. But this movie is a far cry from those films. In short, there is simply too much gabbing and not enough fighting.

What combat there is in the film is only adequately choreographed and edited by Wilson Tam. Little effort is made to hide wires as fighters zoom through the air. The camera wildly tilts left and right as combatants trade “power powder” blows with hands and feet. It feels like 1993 all over again, but this time the budget is smaller and the folks involved show less creativity and talent than past wire-fu movie makers.

The only fight I found myself enjoying was a pointless, but visually well-constructed sparring session between Xie Miao with staff in hand and relative newcomer Karen Cheung wielding twin swords. The two both show skill that in the right hands could be harnessed to a greater degree.

A true indication that the folks behind this project were running out of ideas is the inclusion of a new Bruce Lee clone. Dragon Shek, who does look a little like the late screen icon tosses in a handful of truly awful Lee-isms between his other mediocre martial arts moves. Having starred in a few recent “Brucexploitation” B-movies such as BIG BOSS UNTOUCHABLE and DRAGON IN FURY, Shek is only the latest in a long line of screen fighting impersonators who have appeared since Lee’s death in 1973.

It’s a shame that IRON LION isn’t even entertaining as a bad movie to laugh at. It’s just a bore. No visible effort is made to raise this feature, with its cheesy synth score and modest outdoor locations, beyond its many limitations. The movie is just there to fill up 90 minutes of the viewer’s life with limited amounts of mostly bland wire-fu action, bad acting and a dreadful story with a lot of empty dialogue to fast forward through.

Review: Korean cinema hits a new low when bathroom humor, slapstick idiocy, and a dance club invade the late Choson era as conceived by Yun Je-gyun in Romantic Killers. This appalling excuse for entertainment sells itself as a screwball comedy, historical drama, and fantasy swordplay film all-in-one. But the resulting unevenness, cheap martial arts action and tasteless jokes make the effort a waste.

The film constantly teeters between seriousness and nonsense. This added to visual gags like a bloody nose contracted by a man after witnessing several lovely ladies bathing betrays a strong anime influence. At first, four swordsmen hired to bring back a runaway concubine appear to be competent mercenaries, but soon display their true colors as buffoons. Yae-rang (Choi Sung-guk), the leader only has one fighting stance, to drop his sword, make faces at his enemy and pinch his own nimples. Yo-i (Kim Min-jong), is just as idiotic, but is given a touch of humanity as he works as a mercenary only to earn money for his kid sister. The four take the concubine and her lover into custody, but also inadvertently manage to ruin the chance for the ghosts of five murdered courtesans to ascend to heaven. The warriors agree to kill the man responsible which will set the ghosts free, but they must be taught a few tricks by the ghosts as their existing martial arts skills are nearly useless.

It's really hard to understand who the intended audience is for this film. Extremely adolescent humor is the dominant element and involves French kissing between males, cat fights and obscenities among female ghosts, nose pickings, and even a foul scene involving excrement not worthy of further explanation. The historical tone is turned into a parody where characters use modern slang and scantily-clad dancers gyrate in a 1630s discotheque complete with flashing lights and thumping music. Perhaps having an understanding of the Korean language or all of the film's references would have helped, but I didn't find any of these scenes particularly amusing apart from the odd gag here or there.

Then there is the dramatic angle involving Yo-i's tragic relationship with his little sister. It only slows the story down and doesn't fit in with the rest of the absurdity at all. There is a sense that Yun Je-gyun is trying to replicate the formula Stephen Chow has excelled at by mixing drama with comedy, but he treats both aspects as too extreme to ever find common ground.

Lastly, there are the fantasy and martial arts elements which are obviously derived from Hong Kong's '90s wire fu boom. Choreographer Won Jin, a great martial arts performer himself who appeared prominently in Lau Kar-leung's Operation Scorpio is unable to salvage much from the limited action sequences and wirework. Many of the "fight scenes" are only played for laughs with no real action. When the fights are taken "seriously," heavy editing wirework, and excessive slow motion turns them into minor self-parodies. The female ghosts are treated as kung fu experts who possess the bodies of the four swordsman so they can fight. Of course, the baddies have a Taoist priest to counter this and we get to experience the fun of watching our heroes repeatedly go from idiots to sword masters and back again. There are a few decent action shots, but anyone looking for solid swordplay action here will be sorely disappointed.

So the question remains, who is the audience for Romantic Killers supposed to be? It's a crude comedy that makes Dumb and Dumberer look smart and a martial arts film without competent action. With unnecessary drama thrown in the middle, there is little reason for anyone to be pleased with the outcome. My advice is to skip this mess and reserve your time and money for just about any other martial arts comedy.

REVIEW:
Up for the least-entertaining comedy actioner of 2004 is Protégé de la Rose Noire, a pop culture quagmire of horribly-unfunny gags, an incoherent plot, and slick, yet pointless martial arts action. Although co-directed and choreographed by Donnie Yen, there is little reason for action fans to even consider watching this turkey.

The character of Black Rose is based on a popular super-heroine along the lines of the Green Hornet who was featured in a TV series and several films. Teresa Mo, who played the role in The Legendary La Rose Noire (1992) is back again along with Twins Effect stars Gillian Chung, Charlene Choi, and Ekin Cheng. Ekin and the Twins wind up trapped in Rose's home and despite her eccentric behavior and a predisposition against men, they all become her apprentices to do battle with Rose's foxy sister and her deadly accomplices.

The direction of this film is a mess with emphasis put on incidental gags rather than any kind of a story worth following. Basically, we're looking at a superhero parody, but it's a failure on that level. References to superhero clichés are weak with Ekin Cheng running around in a Robin costume as prime example. The Twins are charming and crank up the type of humor they display in other films like Twins Effect. But whether a cultural, generational, or quality issue, I don't get it, any of it. Call me crazy but having a robot that runs around for the sole purpose of chopping off male organs, or the stars breaking into a mock-operatic song about becoming superhero apprentices, or a mobster with a cleaning fetish just isn't that funny. Making matters worse, the pacing on the film is awful with scenes that try vainly to draw laughs dragging on far too long. And the soundtrack with it's '80s synthesizers and Star Trek klaxon sound effects is bad beyond belief.

Poor Venoms star Lo Meng, who made a fool of himself in Anna in Kung Fu Land is back doing it again as a gangster who has a hot soup-eating contest with a rival gang leader. Whah? He then gets the crap beat out of him by Donnie Yen's sister, Chris Yen, who plays a Go Go Yubari look-a-like with nunchacku. She's the only highlight of the film and she hardly even speaks. She takes on the Twins in an extended fight that features some sloppy sparing, but Chris delivers several good wushu moves and does a remarkable job of handling twin nunchacku considering it's her first time doing so. Teresa Mo's fight with gangsters in a restaurant features a long take where her character (most certainly a double) puts the smackdown on several thugs in quick succession. But unfortunately, it takes nearly an hour of lame comedy to get to any action and by then the story and characters have been established as completely ridiculous, thus making the action seem nearly as trite as everything else. Viewers may be left wondering why exactly anyone is fighting. Nobody seems to care much, least of all the filmmakers.

There is an homage to Drunken Master that accurately reconstructs the training sequences from the 1978 kung fu classic with the Twins performing as Jackie Chan clones. Taken on its own, the scene is interesting simply to see it being done, but in context to the rest of the film, it's just another hollow scene.

Protégé de la Rose Noire is tacky, brainless, and dull. Donnie Yen is wasting his talent away and I'm sorry to see his sis, who has plenty of potential, introduced in this way. I used to be able to blame this kind of tripe on Wong Jing, but with equally banal comedy actioners like Anna in Kung Fu Land and Star Runner clogging Hong Kong's dwindling film output, the future does not look bright for fans of Hong Kong martial arts action.

REVIEW:
When good kung fu goes bad and bad dubbing gets worse. All the dubbing is cheaply layered over the old track and sounds completely out of place. The voice acting is the worst I have heard yet and English dialogue like, "We're being pursued by baddies" is so juvenile its painful. 'Baddies'... ugh! The action is poorly choreographed and emphasizes riding skills and acrobatics more than martial arts. The only interesting feature was the setting which often featured interesting ruins that were completely wasted on this film. Take my advice, get a shovel and bury this one for good. Even die-hard genre fans will have a hard time digesting this heartburn-inducing entrée.

Carter Wong plays the lead role in this uninvolving film about a man on the run. With the kung fu boom in the seventies churning out all manner of kung fu films, there are bound to be some stinkers and this is one of them. Carter Wong was never a great actor and here he shows why, being a rather unintelligent young man who stumbles from one bad situation to another and seems too dumb to know why. He’s even a poor kung fu expert according to his teacher. After finding a dead body, he is accused of murdering the man and what’s worse, the man was a Shaolin priest. He goes to his master, who instructs him to steal a valuable object from the monastery and winds up finding another dead body and not doing much to clear. Polly Shang Kwan arrives in town looking Carter’s master and eventually ends up helping Carter as the murderer slowly reveals himself.

Like I said, this is no great film by any stretch of the imagination, even the fight scene’s are staged poorly and they’re usually the best thing about kung fu films. Polly, as usual acquits herself admirably but her role is far too small for her to do anything with it other than make Carter Wong look good. If you see this one, just keep on walking because otherwise you’ll be wanting an hour and 30 mins of your life back.

REVIEW:
On Yuen Biao's exceptional filmography where virtually every film on it is a classic in it's own right, this is a huge disappointment.

Firstly, this isn't really a Yuen Biao movie (thank goodness), despite being listed first in the credits under the name of Yuen Bill. Yuen Biao is in this movie for about a total of only 30 minutes.

The problem with this film is virtually everything. Firstly the plot is appalling. Even "gweilo in exile" Bey Logan would have a problem writing a script as bad as this. The major problem is that it really doesn't make sense. The plot lumbers from one illogical step to another. It is a travesty. It really is.

Also, the soundtrack, which can make or break a movie, is annoyingly repetitive. Go and watch other Yuen Biao classics such as The Iceman Cometh and Mr Vampire 2 and just see how brilliant their soundtracks are and wholly complement the actual movie. Here the music must have been composed by a toddler.

The direction by Philip Ko is terrible. Although, he does show some very few glimpses of talent throughout. The acting by the main actor is terrible (he can't fight as well, despite being handed most of the fights in the movie). However Yuen Biao is flawless as always. The fights in this movie are so badly choreographed a baby could have choreographed them better. Saying that Yuen Biao is so talented, when he fights, he actually makes the choreography look good.

The end fight really is shockingly short (about a minute). And it doesn't help the fight is 3 on 1 (3 god guys, one bad guy). The bad guy, Chin Siu Ho, who was in the fantastic Fist of Legend, gets only like a minute throughout the whole movie to show his talent and even then at the end he is lumbered with terrible choreography. The only film that could have saved this movie would have been to let Yuen Biao and Chin Sui Ho fight at the end one-on-one but it wasn't to be.

All in all, this is not really a Yuen Biao movie. Everything really does smack of badness. But I guess the laws of averages must mean that even Yuen Biao has to have a bad movie somewhere on his filmography. Here's a tip for you. Disregard this as a Yuen Biao movie (as he is only in it for less than 30 minutes) and just watch his other movies to show yourself how great Yuen Biao really is.

REVIEW:
Despite extensive location shoots and plenty of action this B-rated, James Bond-like film starring Asian cult hero Sonny Chiba pales next to "The Street Fighter," his most infamous film character.

As usual, Chiba snarls and frowns his way through the film in his characteristically stiff but brutally charismatic performance as the mysterious hitman, Golgo 13. Unfortunately, all the other actors perform horridly, diminishing any credibility Chiba's character might have had. The film plays like a comic book come to life with goofy dialogue (at least in the English dubbing), two-dimensional characters and over-the-top violence. But any attempt to capitalize on this as a cult hit is lost as the overall effect just makes the film laughable for the wrong reasons.

Although much of the filming takes place in Hong Kong with a number of recognizable players, the fight choreography is handled poorly including dreaded roundhouse punches (usually associated with American film) swinging wide. Chiba, who isn't known for his graceful fighting style doesn't get to put his skills on display much and its a good thing since no one looks particularly flattering here.

With an interesting plot wasted on bad acting, worse choreography, and a lack of vision, "Golgo 13" has little to offer. Diehard fans of Chiba or '70's exploitation film might find something of interest here but others are advised to stand clear of this cooked turkey.

From the start, director Stephen Sommers had engineered the MUMMY franchise to be a big, brainless summer event that largely relied on over-the-top digital effects, light humor and conventional adventure themes culled from the same serialized Republic Pictures-era material that gave inspiration to the INDIANA JONES films. With previous director Stephen Sommers taking the producing role and handing direction to XXX helmer Rob Cohen, TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR manages to hold on to the high energy and overall formula of the two previous films yet his approach is less coherent and we end up with something truly geared for only a grade school mentality and not even ample fighting action, explosions and stunt work can rescue it.

Although the villain has changed, the plot is still a rehash of past entries. In one of his least engaging roles to date, Jet Li portrays a near-mindless world conqueror who is tricked by a magic user played by Michelle Yeoh. After Li kills her lover (Russell Wong), Yeoh puts a curse on Li and his army that turns them into stone. Really, have we not had enough Terracotta references yet? You would think the producers might have learned something from Jackie Chan’s stinker THE MYTH but chances are their knowledge and understanding of Asian action cinema is limited, otherwise they wouldn’t have even bothered to film the embarrassment their efforts produced.

Yeoh narrates an entirely forgettable back story at the beginning that is actually helpful as it provides the perfect opportunity to step away from the screen to grab a bucket of popcorn or use the crapper. Really, you won’t miss a thing, except seeing ROMEO MUST DIE star Russell Wong in period garb. I really don’t like beating down Chinese-American actors but Wong has been like the harbinger of doom for everything he has touched. It’s like having Billy Zane or Lorenzo Lamas in your cast list except less unintentionally amusing. Thankfully, his Mandarin dialogue is minimal.

Forward to the present and we’re burdened with the painfully bad chemistry of Brendan Fraser and Maria Bello. Fraser got on with Weisz well enough in the previous films but here with Bello it’s horribly forced. Their dialogue, mixed with the awful antics of John Hannah, is mostly played for laughs, laughs that never come. There was one person in the half-filled theater on opening day who could be heard lightly chuckling at two or three bad gags. Other than that, the audience remained silent.

The entire cast was horrid and their interactions worse. Luke Ford, who only happens to be 13 years younger than Fraser, unconvincingly plays his adult son in one of the worst father-son depictions in movie history. After witnessing Harrison Ford’s similar onscreen relationship with Shia LaBeouf in INDIANA JONES AND THE CLOSE ENCOUNTER OF A CRYSTAL E.T., this must be the year for depicting estranged father-son relations in adventure movies. Fraser looks and acts too young to be the father of a grown child.

Ford’s character comes off as an ass and his romantic relationship with Isabella Leong doesn’t work. Leong is attractive to be sure but looks like just another insubstantial actress like Huang Shengyi or Cecilia Cheung. Hong Kong has a lot of pretty faces but few actors - you know - who can act. Anthony Wong is one of those actors but his talents are completely wasted in another example of throwaway casting, much like Simon Yam in the equally atrocious TOMB RAIDER. I guess I should be impressed that a Hollywood movie can even manage to get a Chinese actor to play a Chinese role.

The real problem, apart from a rudimentary script is Cohen, a filmmaker whose inability to direct people rivals George Lucas. Too bad his action is just as bad. Some of the scenes have salvageable material, thus showing some talent was involved behind the scenes. After all, the film does have veterans like Vic Armstrong (MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 3), Mike Lambert (THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM, Mark Southworth (TROY), and Jet Li’s Hong Kong team all contributing to the action. Cohen has the tools to make great action, even if it is devoid of meaning or purpose. He fails miserably though with bad camera angles, incomprehensible hyper-editing, too much unnecessary CGI and wirework, and rollercoaster pacing that never knows when to let the audience catch up to what’s going on and appreciate it. This is action filmmaking for inattentive children.

The fights between Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh and Jet Li and Brendan Fraser are disasters. When the camera, which is consistently too close let’s us see it, some of the moves are actually good. Half the time, actors are either blocking the view of a fighter’s move or have been pushed off screen. The best shots we get are from stills posted online. Good luck trying to make anything out on screen. The abuse of short-take editing is beyond comprehension and I wonder how much Lambert and Southworth had to do with this. At least in their BOURNE films where I still felt it was excessive, the Jabberwocky cam as I like to call it, at least fit the realistic tone. It’s meant to be a way to put the audience into the perspective of people thrust into a situation that threatens to overwhelm their senses. That’s what the action scenes in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN were all about. This approach has no place in a lightweight adventure movie where the heroes are rescued by CGI yetis that look like they stepped right out of a Pixar movie.

Yetis?! What the hell were the screenwriters smoking when they thought that one up? I literally dropped by jaw when they showed up. I understand this is a fantasy movie that puts fun ahead of realism. We are talking about undead armies battling each other. It was way too random though. It just reinforces the perception that the writers were stabbing at the dark and had little or no real control over their own story. The whole movie plays like this. One random thing happens after another and little effort is made to mask the fact that the audience is literally being taken for a ride. The problem is, the roller coaster keeps jumping tracks.

Another annoyance are the many digital action cliches such as a rain of arrows, thousands of neatly lined up soldiers and the dramatic overhead pull away to reveal digital creatures clashing. Are we supposed to be impressed by this? It’s like the MATRIX bullet-time effect or the explosive ring in space cliche that turned up everywhere after debuting in STAR TREK 6: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY. Once these things appear in a movie, expect to see them used over and over again by filmmakers with few ideas of their own.

Randy Edelman’s score is yet another reminder that soundtrack composition is practically dead as an art form today. He runs through every clichéd modern adventure riff known to man and gives nothing unique or memorable to the movie. Then again, the movie doesn’t deserve anything creative.

The only praiseworthy aspect of this production was Rob Cohen’s excellent production blog which I consider a model for how filmmakers should reach out to their fanbase.

THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR is the epitome of soulless, artless and meritless genre drivel. As far as I am concerned the movie ended after Jet Li briefly fought fellow wushu action star Jacky Wu Jing, appearing in a cameo in the first ten minutes. If I seem a little angry it’s because once again Hollywood has dumped Jet Li into yet another bad movie that completely wastes his talents, much as WAR did. Rob Cohen deserves some kind of award for actually making Jet Li look bad. That isn’t easy to do folks. On top of that, he wastes Michelle Yeoh’s talents, wastes Anthony Wong’s talents and lets far less talented actors bumble around in a movie that better damn well put the lid on the coffin of this rotting franchise. This garbage is how Hollywood blows $150 million. That’s staggering when you consider that Jet Li’s best movies in Hong Kong were made for a fraction of that amount. At $40 million, THE WARLORDS is Li’s most expensive Asian film to date and that was largely a result of his salary which was almost half of the budget. And Tony Jaa is having a stress-related breakdown for mismanaging $8 million for ONG BAK 2 which so far is shaping up to be an excellent martial arts movie. There is no justice in this world, only creatively challenged morons holding all the money.

REVIEW:
Bruce Lee: A Dragon Story was the first semi-biopic to cover the life and death of Bruce Lee. Its a highly fictionalized account that gets many of the facts wrong and aside from a few exceptions, manages to trample over Lee's memory without being even marginally entertaining.

You know the filmmakers were using their imaginations rather than research when the film opens to Lee delivering "Washington Post" newspapers, while he was supposed to be living in the state of Washington, not the capitol. The film skips over his education at the University of Washington and shows him participating in a competition through a series of sloppily edited montages. While with some of his students from the "gung fu" school he's opened, he's asked to join the cast of the Green Hornet. His happy marriage to Linda and the birth of his two children are glossed over and he decides that he's unhappy living in the United States, especially since random Japanese thugs continue to challenge him?! Lee flies to Hong Kong, but returns home after getting a lame offer from Run Run Shaw to work for Shaw Brothers. The wife of director Lo Lieh (it was actually the wife of Raymond Chow, Golden Harvest's chairman) convinces Lee to sign a contract and he begins work on his first film.

Aside from some really bad directing, acting, and voice acting, the film has been a marginal facsimile of Lee's life. But at this point the story shifts to a supposed love affair he had with Betty Ting Pei and completely loses its footing. While this reviewer does appreciate the way in which Lo Wei is portrayed as a real jackass, which from all accounts is true, a decision to spice up the story with a sordid love triangle between Lee, Betty Ting Pei, and Nora Miao (Lee's co-star in Fist of Fury and Way of the Dragon) kills the film.

Its really impossible for anyone to capture Lee's intensity and charisma and Bruce Li doesn't even seem to be trying in this film. Then to have Lee's remaining life reduced to revolving around a love affair with Ting Pei, played by an actress who really hams it up, Li becomes nothing more than a supporting cast member in the movie he's supposed to be starring in as one of the most fascinating personalities of the 20th century. Instead of seeing how Lee fought for respect in Hollywood and worked to show his philosophy in his films, we're treated to Lee shown as an indecisive young man who has abandoned his family to cater to the whims of a spoiled film starlet. This film is the tabloid version that magnifies the rumors and ignores the facts. Yet the worst was to come when Ting Pei herself starred in an even less flattering exploitation piece entitled Bruce Lee and I in 1976 that dealt with the same affair.

Although this is a hideous film on many levels, the action is fairly decent, if sporadic. Li is probably the best of the Lee clones and his martial arts skills were actually impressive. Li doesn't make a huge effort to replicate Lee's moves, but physically, he does a better job than Jason Lee who portrayed Bruce in the overall best biopic to date, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993). Its actually a shame that the filmmakers had not taken their subject matter more seriously since Li could have done a much better job if given the chance.

This film really isn't for anyone except Bruce Li fans or anyone fascinated by the exploitive world of Bruce Lee knockoffs. While it at least does not try to pass off Li as a clone of the real Bruce which lesser films attempted, it does degrade his life by playing loose with the facts. Did Lee ever have an affair? I don't have an answer, but I do know he wasn't the near lifeless husk of a man who appears in this near lifeless husk of a film.

REVIEW:
A paper thin plot, softcore sex, and ultra-hyped action is what Wong Jing's latest film, Naked Weapon is all about. What was originally thought to be the film to outdo Naked Killer (1992), a violent erotic thriller and cult favorite in the West, turns out to be even more shallow and devoid of logic.

The film's premise is flawed from the beginning. Hundreds of young girls from around the world are being abducted and sent to a training camp. They are chosen for their athletic ability and undergo rigorous training over the course of six years in martial arts, survival, computers, and of course, cosmetics. Light-hearted hilarity ensues when the queen assassin Madam M, played by Almen Wong of Her Name is Cat (1998) fame begins a selection process by having the girls first kill male attackers, then each other. A final step involves a cage match with three girls being chosen as worthy assassins. A rather tasteless rape of the three follows and the next time you see them, they are assassinating various politicians and crime bosses by using their sexy bodies to seduce their prey. The hero out of the trio is Charlene, played by a luscious Maggie Q. During an assassination, Charlene sees her mother and is tracked by CIA agent Jack Chen (Daniel Wu), who has been following the case of abducted girls for six years.

From here the plot begins dropping holes and loose ends at an accelerated pace. Charlene and Jack get it on and poor Chen Pei Pei not only endures being in a lousy movie, but gets a knife in her gut courtesy of the third assassin played by Jewel Lee, and for no good reason. Also for no good reason, Charlene is given the opportunity to quit her life of killing in exchange for one more hit, as if the time and money spent to train her by a ruthless criminal turned old softy no longer mattered. She and Kat are lured into a trap by their target who turns out to be a maniac yakuza leader out to avenge his boss's death at their hands. Kat is captured and Charlene returns to face the villain in a final, overblown martial arts duel.

This is yet another failed attempt by Hong Kong movie mogul Wong Jing to write and produce a film designed to entertain you with the basest film conventions. He's actually written some decent films over his long career, such as The Prodigal Son and The Kung Fu Cult Master. Yet, he's basically admitted himself to being bereft of any artistic integrity when it comes to pleasing his audience and it shows in the majority of his work.

Technically, the film looks great. Veteran director and action choreographer Ching Siu Tung knows his craft well and the scenes and action are framed brilliantly, even though the only fighting cast member with extensive martial arts experience is Daniel Wu. The combat is very flashy and constantly borders on the supernatural, but this is forgivable given the current state of action films in Hong Kong and Hollywood where excess is the order of the day.

What cannot be forgiven is the ridiculous story or the pitiful acting by Maggie Q and Daniel Wu. I've seen more convincing performances from sock puppets. Both of these stars are actually from the U.S. and speak English in the film. Wu looks like he has the chops to be a credible action star, but he's given little to work with here. A former model, Maggie Q is reminiscent of Rebecca Romijn-Stamos in that they are both pleasant on the eyes, but completely lacking charisma. To give them a break, it is doubtful that anyone could have excelled in this brainless project. Cheng Pei Pei tries her best and only makes one wish she could be cast in more worthy projects befitting both her status and abilities.

Naked Weapon doesn't work on any level. As an erotic thriller, the film is too derivative and laughable to be stimulating in any way. Plus, its less bawdy than the marketing suggests with a lesbian relationship only hinted at and selective editing in place. As a drama depicting a girl's attempt to reclaim her humanity and supposedly enduring a brutal six-year ordeal, the film completely flops with a plot full of holes that actually evaporates before the film even ends. The viewer is given the impression that the CIA are going to hunt down Madam M, but she just disappears while the CIA agent goes on his own hunt for Maggie Q. Finally, the only decent element is the fighting. As an actioner, the film does offer a few well-staged scene with creative moves and editing that might appeal to fans of The Matrix or The One. Unfortunately, this action hardly fits the film and without a better story to back it up, it has all the impact of a modern automobile commercial. This is a waste of time and talent.

REVIEW:
An incredibly poor offering from the great Chang Cheh that revels in cheap special effects and an ill conceived plot will no doubt disappoint fans of his Shaw Brothers films.

This is not a Shaw film or even a Venoms film as Ground Zero packaging would lead you to believe. Produced after Cheh left Shaw Brothers and co-starring only two of the Venoms in forgettable roles, "Nine Demons" is a feast of cheesy visuals with plastic skulls supposedly sucking the blood of their victims illuminated by overbearing disco lighting while Cheng Tien-chi looks on sporting a gaudy witch doctor suit and matching makeup. The demons who are controlled by a pocket mirror turned into the "Power Plaque" alternate between these after-Halloween sale skulls and eight young children bouncing off the walls, led by one young woman.

Even the English dubbing rates lower than normal with renamed characters like Gary, Joey and Johnson populating the film. Lines such as, "Baddies always end up hacking themselves for money" makes most other kung fu flicks appear to be masterpieces of screen dialogue. The sampled soundtrack is dismally familiar and even includes a bit of Vangelis off their "Blade Runner" soundtrack.

Thankfully, the martial arts itself is entertaining. The film's finale features a terrific series of battles on and around an impromptu bamboo structure spanning a mock-frozen pond. If only Cheh had stuck to the fighting and ditched the frighteningly bad supernatural elements, "Nine Demons" might have have been at most an average picture. This film can only be recommended to fans of grade B effects films that would surely make Ed Wood proud.

Review: Owing more to silent-era serial films of fantasy from China than Hong Kong's early '90s New Wave, The Beheaded 1000 is a lumbering epic overburdened by a mix of genres, outdated visual effects, and intolerable melodrama. Overlong and mediocre in every way, the film is only notable for having one-time superstar Jimmy Wang Yu's last starring role and Joey Wong's last action role.

The Beheaded 1000 is basically a live-action comic book that gets progressively outrageous and inexplicable in action and story. Its major flaw is having a convoluted plot that rambles on aimlessly while frequently stumbling around amid massive holes. On one level it deals with the passing of old, regretful heroes and tortured villains forced to contend with their karma, but on the other it devolves into a comic book style, supernatural battle that has the wind plucked from its sails just as it climaxes.

Jimmy Wang Yu plays Ren De-tie, the region's top executioner who has successfully beheaded nearly 1000 convicted criminals including notoriously vicious members of the Blood Brothers gang. Despite their fierceness and martial arts skills these villains with names like Flower Shadow, King Pin, Claw Fingers, Blue Demon, The Flute Prince, and Cripple all fall under Ren's golden sword. Only the elusive Blood Lotus (Joey Wong) with her unmatched skill continues to escape capture. This is in part due to Lui Biu (Siu Yuk-lung), the captain of the guard whose growing love for her impairs his judgment. Surrounded by an ill-aura for the many deaths he has caused despite his righteousness, Ren retires and takes his wife, daughter, and his oddly named protégé Quick Kid (Chin Siu-ho) and opens a restaurant. But Blood Lotus takes advantage of the situation in order seek her revenge in a rather gruesome fashion. She's unable to finish the job, but the ghosts of the Blood Brother gang return to sentence Ren to death. A magical struggle begins involving the ghostly gang, Ren and Quick Kid, a mob of demon kids, one imp, and even the powerful Guardian of Hell (Wu Ma) who prefaces his actions with the amusing chant, "magic powers activate."

What could have been another decent Hong Kong fantasy film in the vein of The Bride with White Hair only falls flat under its own weight. The story is riddled with inconsistencies and seemingly random acts of nonsense that appear to be the result of quickly piecing together a script moments before each scene is shot. At over two hours in length, the film is in desperate need of major cuts to repair its sluggish pace. But that wouldn't help the fact that this film is merely a ragged patchwork of better Hong Kong films.

Joey Wong is cast in a role very similar to Brigitte Lin in The Bride with White Hair. She gives it the old college try, but she lacks Lin's intensity and ends up marginalized by the fantasy elements. Visual effects in Hong Kong films have been rare, even after being reintroduced by Tsui Hark in 1983 with the release of Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain. They only began to rival Hollywood when CGI was introduced at the end of the '90s. The Beheaded 1000 throws in just about everything including animated spiders, miniature sets, creature effects ripped out of Gremlins, and tons of cut and paste work resulting in unintentionally humorous beheadings and walking corpses.

It is nice to see Jimmy Wang Yu in one final action role, even if its in a film no better or worse than any of his other second-rate films produced since the mid-'70s. There really is very little quality kung fu action and only a single fight with thugs in a factory midway through that is worth mentioning. The rest of the film's action is all posing, effects, and other fluff. Much of it harkens back to the days before real kung fu action was introduced in the '70s. You will see Joey Wong fly around on a giant kite, Wang Yu performing only a swashbuckling style of swordplay, and even genre veteran Chin Siu-ho reduced to stabbing at thin air overlaid with poorly animated spiders. I actually don't mind these references to the film industry's roots, but it appears less an homage and more like the best some uninspired filmmakers could do on a small budget. For action fans, it certainly offers nothing of value, except to sate the curiosity of anyone looking for a lot of leftover, '80s-era special effects applied to an inferior min-'90s swordplay film.

The Beheaded 1000 would be tolerable if it had stuck to its modest action and fantasy effects. But the painfully contrived angst and ultra-heroic tone towards the end, especially when its drawn out endlessly is terrible. For this reason alone, there should be no regrets in passing up on this film altogether.

Review: Tai Seng continues their custom repackaging of Asian martial arts TV series for Western audiences with the release of Master Swordsman, an elaborate wuxia mystery based on a Gu Long novel previously made into two older series, as well as the feature film The Duel (2000). It's an ambitious effort for a TV series originally released in 2001 that brings together big-name talent in front of and behind the camera with cinematic direction, elaborate choreography, and impressive set design. Kung fu movie legend David Chiang even has a sword duel. Sadly, a lot of uninteresting dialogue is interspersed with a scattered jumble of heavily-edited swordplay while Tai Seng's condensed version makes a royal mess of an already complicated story.

You really can't blame Tai seng for failing in the hopeless task of squeezing 20 hours of soap opera swordplay into three, but they should have considered another option. They botched Donnie Yen's Fist of Fury (their first attempt), but managed better with it's prequel Sworn Revenge and Donnie's previous series, The Kung Fu Master. But these two were relatively simple kung fu sagas, whereas Master Swordsman is based on a beloved and complex wuxia novel from Gu Long. Anyone who has seen a Chor Yuen-directed wuxia film like The Web of Death knows that means convoluted plots of intrigue, esoteric martial arts, and a lot of colorful characters.

Master Swordsman is bewildering to begin with and never recovers, although some semblance of a plot can be discerned. What matters is that a swordsman and talented sleuth named Lu Xiaofeng (Jimmy Lin) begins investigating a plot to steal a royal treasure after the king of the Jin Peng kingdom dies. A map leading to it's whereabouts ends up in the hands of his loyal aid Yin Zhengdao (David Chiang). The dead king's other aid desires the treasure for himself and Lu soon finds himself caught up his elaborate scheme to get the gold by manipulating court officials and masked assassins. That's simply the framework for the story which is filled out with a dizzying array of characters, both good, bad or somewhere in between such as Lu's friend, Ximen Chuixue (Christopher Lee), a brooding sword god who successfully bests one duel after another until he's nearly undone by love.

For certain the series is undone by the severe cropping of the episodes. Since hours of footage is omitted, supporting characters awkwardly show up out of nowhere or disappear with no explanation while events never seen are referred to and supposedly important objects shown have little relevance. This is essentially a soap opera with action, so drama, relationships and character development is vital, but is ruined here. The dialogue scenes that do appear have little meaning and are hard to follow. What's almost comical is how repetitious elements within the series that would normally go virtually unnoticed spread out through 20 episodes become stacked within mere minutes apart of each other. One example is the constant killing of just about every lackey in the series.

The plentiful action scenes fare no better. The directors, who include Black Mask helmer Daniel Lee, do bring a cinematic style to the series' martial arts scenes. They are full of inventive camera work, wirework, and fancy posing from mostly non-martial arts actors. But the scenes amount to little more than a ridiculous series of blisteringly-fast snapshots showing sword tips, limbs, or randomly inserted imagery that is impossible to follow or enjoy. This is definitely Lee's handiwork and is comparable to the sloppy work he offered in Star Runner (2003). This post-New Wave excrement is served up with shameless handfuls of Japanese Chambara references like blood geysers, limb cleaving, and skewered swordsmen hitting the dirt in a delayed and synchronized show while the main fighter stands motionless in an exaggerated pose for what seems like an eternity. The Japanese connection is pretty strong all around in this series with Chinese "ninjas" and shurikens turning up all over the place, while even the Ming-era costumes and sets bear a certain resemblance to Japanese styles (something also pointed out with historical context by Tai Seng's Frank Djeng in a commentary on the film.)

Looking at the cast, David Chiang is by far the most exciting member for old school buffs. He gets in on the action, but only appears for the first hour. The best action lead role goes to Christopher Lee, a popular actor from Singapore who plays the moody Ximen Chuixue (the last name being properly pronounced just like a certain male discharge). No one needs to be a good martial artist in a classic wuxia tale, but they should be able to sell themselves with presence and body language. Lee succeeds very well. In contrast, Taiwanese pop star Jimmy Lin with his little fake mustache is a joke as a heroic sword master. He does try to fill the role, but his boyish looks and persona can't be masked in a role meant for an older individual. He also performs the theme song for the series. Stunt actor and choreographer Xiong Xin-xin has a small role as a backstabbing assassin. The rest of the cast who hail from all parts of Asia including China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan features a few recognizable faces like Max Mok (The Assassin) and Kenneth Tsang (Die Another Day), along with a number of attractive leading ladies.

Kudos to Tai Seng for bothering to even attempt to subtitle and release martial arts TV series from Asia, which are otherwise only available for home viewers on VCD with no English subtitles. But as is, Master Swordsman wasn't worth the effort. Daniel Lee's awful direction shreds potentially good action scenes while Tan Seng's heavy trimming turns the series into a confusing highlight reel. It doesn't help that the original series is marketed to audiences presumably already well-versed in Gu Long's popular stories. Without the ability to connect to the characters or follow the story, the end product is just tedious. Only hardcore wuxia enthusiasts need apply.

REVIEW:
Dragon Lee tries his darnedest to be a champ, but ends up more of a chump under the inept direction of Godfrey Ho in Wu Tang Champ vs. Champ.

The first half of the film plays out in non-linear fashion with a confusingly interspersed flashback before settling on Dragon Lee's lost leg and his subsequent training to get revenge. The story starts out with Lee returning to a village ruled by a villainous martial arts leader named Kai who is trying to squash a conspiracy to overthrown him. Lee beats a number of his men and then the story shifts into the recent past where we meet Tai, the leader of a movement to remove Kai from power. Lee, accompanied by his father comes to visit Tai to arrange a marriage between his daughter and Lee. Kai's men eventually capture Tai and kill Lee's father. The film then shifts to the present and Lee arrives to fight Kai, but he's beaten and his leg is poisoned. Tai's daughter comes to his aid and has a doctor with a southern drawl (dubbed version) remove the leg. Lee miraculously manages to recover, recall a legendary kung fu expert with one leg that turns out to be the girl's deceased grandfather, fashion an artificial leg out of steel, and learn the old man's 18 Kicking styles kung fu. Then he proceeds to fight his way through a number of fighters including four women who disappear at will through the use of bad editing and a man who breathes fire, all in order to take on Kai and save Tai.

This is a dreadfully bad film with little going for it. The only recognizable star is Dragon Lee who was one of several Bruce Lee imitators for most of his career and a regular of Godfrey Ho's Southeast-Asian low budget pics. Even though he's looking more like Phillip Kwok from Chang Cheh's late '70's films, he still vainly attempts to use gestures and facial expressions patterned after Bruce Lee. Although he has the looks of a star, Dragon Lee has virtually zero charisma and his martial arts performance is average, although he does get some decent legwork in.

Everything about the film seems amateurish and a failed attempt to copy Chang Cheh's work is obvious. The choreography is slow and clunky, often relying on gimmicks such as cheap pyrotechnics, film school grade editing, or wirework where the wires are clearly visible. Dialogue between fight scenes are static and painfully dull, made even worse by the horrible voice acting of the English dubbers. Expect to see arguably the most ridiculous villainous laugh scene ever where the actor playing Kai doesn't even crack a smile as the voice actor laughs in monotones. The sets are very cheap, with the villain's hideout in a cave is the worst.

What really sinks Wu Tang Champ vs. Champ is Godfrey Ho's lame direction. This guy may have been responsible for some entertaining, if cheesy films in the '80's, but this one goes straight to the bottom. I can only describe it as sloppy filmmaking that isn't likely to generate much interest from even the most ardent kung fu film fan.

REVIEW:
By far one of the oddest kung fu films in Hong Kong history is Shaolin Invincibles. That statement could easily be followed by praise for its creativity, but this lower than low budget schlock fest gets no points for having two extras running around in gorilla suits while their handlers wag tongues that hang two or four feet out of their mouths depending on the scene.

Chia Ling and Doris Lung star as two sisters whose family has been killed by the king while they were children. A Shaolin monk snatches them away to the safety of Shaolin Temple. Interestingly, a narrator bothers to explain beforehand how the king's killing rampage began when one of his officials made an unsavory remark about him. Furious, the king kills the official, his family, his friends, his friend's family, acquaintances of his friends, their pets, farm animals, etc... Although the king's officers clearly see the monk taking the girls away, they never bother to check the Temple. Oops!

Years later, the two girls are now kung fu fighting women with a mission to kill the king. Sadly, neither of these attractive actresses have either a strong presence or martial arts ability. But you won't notice once you see how poorly executed the rest of the film is. Carter Wong gives one of his weaker performances as a Shaolin student who is sent to help the women. He had already hit his high mark on his long running collaboration with director Joseph Kuo with films like Blazing Temple (1976). Bootmaster Dorian Tan was also seeing his career begin to falter and this film is a great example. His role as Carter Wong's chum is small and his skills are seen only briefly, although he performs well. This film also includes a notable appearance by mega veteran Blacky Ko. He plays a misshapen old man with one bulging eye who is thrown into a dungeon by the king and aids Chia Ling. The king, played by Chen Hung Lieh ends up dressing as the old man to dupe all of the heroes. I still think Blacky, who was an agile and acrobatic kung fu performer played this role basically until the king removes the mask. Lastly, but certainly not least is the appearance of Jack Lung, who has an entertaining and bloody fight with the gals using an iron fan. Also that same year, Tan, Ko, and Lung came together for a measurably more enjoyable film entitled Boxer's Adventure.

Getting back to the story, Ling and Lung manage to get hired as servants in the service of the king to get closer to him. Chen takes a liking to Ling which ends up in a failed assassination attempt on her part. She's thrown into a dungeon while Lung escapes with Wong and Tan. Despite talk of the many traps within this dungeon (which comprises of a single hallway), Ling basically walks out unhindered and rejoins her co-conspirators in planning a final assault on the king. The set designer must have spent a lot of time on this dungeon, because everyone has to go through it to get basically anywhere, including to the king's throne which is out in the middle of forest. While his kung fu skills are potent, its his two gorillas that really know how to kick butt. Ok, in reality they look like a pair bungling idiots in cheap gorilla costumes who make weak attempts at appearing animalistic and even weaker attempts at performing kung fu. They prove to be unstoppable until their weak point, which is their heads is revealed. Their handlers are two bizarre men dressed, one in black and one in white. But for some reason they have these enormously long tongues that hang out of their mouths. Carter Wong ends up tying them together and ripping them out which immediately kills the two men. Remember that the next time you're assaulted by men wielding arm-length tongues!

What the filmmakers were trying to accomplish with Shaolin Invincibles is a mystery. Considering the wealth of talent involved in such a hideous effort, its likely a few favors were cashed in. This is an uneven, poorly crafted film with lame ideas and a cheap budget. Its a clear example of why general audiences dismiss this genre and I don't blame them. Do yourself a favor and disregard this tripe unless the concept of kung fu fighting gorilla men inspires you.

REVIEW:
While Chi Kuan Chun has starred in a number of good kung fu titles including Eagle's Claw (1977), Snake Shadow Lama Fist is an utter waste of time except for the last ten minutes which features a number of animal styles in the final fight.

The plot is very similar to Thunder Kick (1974) where a martial arts master plots this elaborate and unnecessary revenge against three gangsters before killing them in a fight. In SSLF, Chi Kuan Chun is getting revenge for the murder of his family. He busts one of the criminals out of jail who had gotten himself caught for another crime. Kuan Chun pummels him for information leading to the whereabouts of his two brothers. After dispatching with him, Kuan Chun discovers that the leader of the group has become a "legitimate" businessman. After witnessing the severe nature of the region's new governor when doling out criminal sentences, Kuan Chun plots to make it appear as if the gang leader is sleeping with the governor's wife. Too bad that she's actually fooling around with the leader's brother. That brother has managed to become the governor's deputy. While buying time for his elder brother, he figures out who Kuan Chun is in an unlikely circumstance - hiding underneath the governess's bed. The two make a beeline for the door, leaving the confused governor behind with his adulterous wife. They agree to meet at a set location to duke it out. But as the fight begins, the elder brother joins his partner in crime to give Kuan Chun's various animal styles a real test.

Usually a film that is only 69 minutes long would be reason to complain, but I would not care to endure a full 90 minutes of this one. The film doesn't waste any time killing off Kuan Chun's family in the first five minutes. His brother uses a ridiculous cat style and goes so far as to die like one too with "paws" up. The next 55 minutes is filled with hideously dubbed chatter, rudimentary situational comedy with lame sexual references, and three or four fights which take place at night and are nearly impossible to see. I will say that there was one mildly entertaining scene Kuan Chun witnesses when the governor commands an accused felon to bat his accomplice over the head. If the second felon manages to dodge the stick, he'll be set free. It has nothing to do with story aside from showing how idiotic the governor is, but then maybe that's why I enjoyed it.

Finally at the end, Kuan Chun shows off some of his skills in a fight with the two remaining killers. Not surprisingly, he uses several animal styles including Eagle's Claw, Tiger's Claw, and a Cobra Fist. This is the best scene in the whole film and really the only one worth watching. Sadly, Ground Zero's abysmal DVD manages to make even this last scene now worth the effort. My recommendation is to steer clear of this title at all costs. It'll only cause you pain.

REVIEW:
Inheritor of Kung Fu is Ti Lung in one of his weaker moments in his long career. This Taiwanese produced film suffers from a confusing plot and weak performances by most of the co-stars.

Its not really necessary to try and explain the plot as even understanding it doesn't really help. The film is just a jumble of different sub-genres from fantasy to clan wars. The film begins with the typically stern kung fu master sending out his cronies to deliver messages to all the other clans. The significance of this is lost somewhere on the editing room floor but the story eventually shifts to Ti Lung who surprisingly plays a bungling oaf at the beginning of the film. After trying to help two young ladies from a rival clan, Ti brings them home to his master who promptly throws them out and sends Ti into the mountains as punishment for his bad taste in friends. Ti just happens to meet his master's former lead student who was cast out years before. He's the obligatory drunken master who trains Ti, and he also has three arms and legs?! After another chunk of missing footage, we find Ti being accused by his master of stealing the Kung Fu Manuscript. Ti tries to prove his master wrong but the previously mentioned clan leader has gotten hold of it and Ti gets the stuffing kicked out of him from his master and a number of odd assassins. The two girls come to his aid and while he recovers, he ends up taking over a clan of children! After more lost footage, everybody convenes at a martial arts contest between clan leaders to determine who is going to be top dog. After a series of fights at the base of a waterfall, Ti walks away with the honors and his bruised pride for appearing in such a hideous film.

Most of the film takes place on poorly disguised sets. The costumes, which have a sort of Mongol motif to them generally look ridiculous. Most of the actors are unknowns that try to rip off better performances in Hong Kong productions. As clearly stated above, the plot is a convoluted mess which almost looks like two films were sliced together. The English dubbing is worse than usual with loads of Western expressions used while odd synthesizer music drones on in the background. Amateur use of wirework results in wires being seen and the action being slowed down whenever someone takes flight.

About the only good thing about this film is Ti Lung himself who continues to looks noble amidst this quagmire of atrocious filmmaking. Some of the kung fu is actually pretty good but neither can save this film. I cannot in good judgment recommend Inheritor of Kung Fu to anyone but the most fanatical Ti Lung fans. It also serves as a good example of what not to do when making your own rip off of Hong Kong produced martial arts films.

Little effort has ever been made to give Chan a real Hollywood script to work with. His films in the U.S. have always just been vehicles to carry a fading measure of what was once one of the most entertaining and talented physical comedians and martial arts stars rolled into one. RUSH HOUR 3 takes this sorry trend to new lows.

With flimsy justification, Detective Carter (Tucker) and Inspector Lee (Chan) team up three years after their previous exploits to investigate the assassination of a Chinese official who was about to pull the veil off the secretive Triads.

In a potentially promising casting choice a few years too late, former Japanese idol and martial arts star Hiroyuki Sanada plays Kenji, Lee’s wayward adopted brother who is now a prominent Triad member. After Kenji acts as the trigger man in the assassination, he and Lee become destined to clash from opposite sides of the law.

Clues in the case lead Carter and Lee to Paris where they get mixed up with a local cab driver who has a love-hate relationship with America and a burlesque starlet marked for death by the Triads. Along the way, film legends Max von Sydow and Roman Polanski fill out throwaway supporting roles that will likely go unappreciated by fans of either the actors or this franchise. Routine car chases, comedy exchanges and ultra-light screen fighting mixed throughout provide a weak buildup to a final confrontation high up on the Eiffel Tower. Didn’t we see something similar with Chan on Big Ben in SHANGHAI KNIGHTS?

After pitiful Hong Kong entries like THE MYTH and ROB-B-HOOD it was hard to imagine Chan falling any more flat, until now. It’s depressing to see him this way. Imagine watching a champion racehorse limping down the greenway long after his prime while his talentless rider vainly eggs him on to the finish, knowing that audiences will stay on their seats just to see the sorry spectacle.

Chan manages a few token fighting moves reminiscent of the good old days but really, those days are gone. The only fight worth mentioning takes place between Chan and Sanada and only because of the people involved. In this and all other action scenes green screens, poorly disguised wirework and stunt doubles do most of the actual work. Chan has become an artist without an inspiration, a singer without a voice. Actually, the latter is untrue. Chan makes up for Tucker’s annoying attempts at comic karaoke by revealing his Chinese opera-trained singing voice which has been put to use on past Hong Kong soundtracks and Canto-pop albums. Chan might want to keep that throat in shape because it’s increasingly looking like his action-comedy acting days are numbered.

The only part of RUSH HOUR 3 that possesses any spark of creativity is the original score where Lalo Schifrin freshens up his pervious RUSH HOUR theme music with a funky new twist. The rest of this film is a dismal affair that I can’t recommend to anyone in good conscience. A pair of ten-to-twelve year olds that I was sharing the theater with seemed to be having a good time. I guess jokes about rectal exams, conning dancehall girls out of their clothes and casually generalizing all Americans as gun-crazed murderers are popular on schoolyards today, although the uninspired physical humor got the biggest laughs. Oh but the movie is once again another commercial success, if less so than its predecessor, and marketed perfectly for a mainstream audience fed on a daily diet of media reports covering the latest pop star meltdown.

Congratulations to Brett Ratner. If his goal was to direct lazy commercial fluff, the equivalent of cheap filmic fast food, then he has definitely earned his pay. It looks like Hollywood officially has its own latter-day Wong Jing. After X-MEN: THE LAST STAND and RUSH HOUR 3, I am afraid to see what franchise Ratner demolishes next, whether his own or someone else’s.

If like me, you’re suffering ill effects from watching this waste of 90 minutes then I would prescribe a sizable dose of DRUNKEN MASTER 2, followed by either POLICE STORY 3 or PROJECT A.

REVIEW:
This is a silly little film. Okay, I'll elaborate further. The story is actually refreshing for an old kung fu yarn and reminded me of the farcical antics of Danny Kaye in The Inspector General which shared a similar plot. Unfortunately, the acting is too over-the-top for any real laughs giving one the impression that the actors were trying outdo each other with contorted facial expressions.

The main character's kung fu is meant to look bad in a comical fashion but never comes close to the charm and creative movements found in comedy classics, Encounters of a Spooky Kind and The Drunken Master. An opportunity to spoof the styles of kung fu is never fully exploited by the likes of the "Stumbling" or "Nasty" used in the film. And you'll definitely get a chuckle out of the surgical tubing that miraculously becomes a defensive kung fu style. Then again, maybe you won't.

Of course, if your tastes in kung fu lean towards the absurd, you might still enjoy the film. It does feature many recognizable Shaw Brothers regulars and the bald-headed lead plays a great ignoramus.

Despite its few entertaining moments, Crack Shadow Boxer's lackluster story, humor too juvenile even by classic kung fu standards, and sleep-inducing fight scenes lead the film to not only "stumble" but fall flat on its face.

It’s really hard to get into the story and not because it’s complicated or convoluted. On the contrary, it couldn’t be simpler and that’s the problem. The fiery-eyed Angela Mao is a boxing swordswoman on a quest to find her missing master, who is locked away by some dastardly villains. When she comes snooping around, they try to stop her. Don Wong is the typical enigmatic warrior who shadows our heroine, remaining somewhere between being a rival and ally. There are some other elements such as Man Kong-lung playing a poisoned swordsman forced to fight for the bad guys to gain the antidote and the villain’s desire to get his hands on Mao’s “Jade Lion” figurine so he can somehow rule the martial world with it, but it’s all just lame filler.

Fu fans may get excited by the prospects of seeing Mao and Wong tangle onscreen. Both possess equal parts screen fighting skill and charisma. They do go head-to-head, but it’s a letdown. The action choreography favors fantasy fighting, with emphasis on a lot of trick editing, stunt-doubled acrobatics and cheap Ed Wood-style wire-work with hurling props. There’s nothing wrong with having these stars, who more commonly appeared in traditional kung fu movies, do a wuxia pian. However, the action directors fail to adapt their abilities to it.

Another problem with the choreography is a complete lack of creativity. Most of these independent movies copy one another, but the set ups and executions in this one are painfully redundant for a 1979 movie. Mao and Wong square off in the typical teahouse encounter that begins with tossing bowls and teacups to size up ability. A finishing move shown towards the end looks exactly like a routine in MILITANT EAGLE (a superior wuxia pian minus big name stars), where a fighter leaps back and forth over the head of his opponent repeatedly before delivering a killing blow. Just as derivative, but more enjoyable is a scene where Mao battles Doris Lung and her fighting formation army. Like the ubiquitous training sequence, formation fighting is a genre staple and often a highlight of films. Here we have a group of “female” fighters (mostly made up of male stunt actors with wigs) wielding identical ball and chain weapons. The “ball” looks like a plastic flower bulb or shower head. Initially, they look quite harmless until spikes and sparks begin to shoot out from them.

Later, Lung makes more trouble for Mao when she unleashes a series of booby traps on the heroine as Mao attempts to infiltrate the baddies’ lair. Typical nonsense like flying discs of death and shooting acid is thrown at Mao, until she’s captured and forced to wait for someone to come along and save her.

Mao’s weapon of choice throughout the film is a short spear with a handle that collapses for use in both close and mid-range fighting. It has to be one of the flimsiest-looking weapons I’ve seen on film. It always appears bowed, as if made of cheap plastic or rubber. I expect that from a long bamboo or wooden spear, but not a short weapon painted silver to look like it’s made of metal.

The bigger problem with MOONLIGHT SWORD is the direction. The camera work is solid, but Karl Liao Chiang-lin doesn’t know how to handle his stars or make a fun movie. His previous film THE STORY IN TEMPLE RED LILY was another wuxia clunker that misused talented stars Dorian Tan, Chia Ling and Lung Fei. If ever there was an example of shooting a martial arts movie from the hip, this is it. It misses time and again with sluggish and pointless transitional scenes that fill up places that should contain action or least some comedy, anything to maintain a modicum of interest.

So while Sammo Hung, Yuen Wo-ping and Lau Kar-leung were creating kung fu movies that were actually creative and pushing genre boundaries with their action and comedy, Karl Liao was stuck in a ten-year-old rut and trying to put a square peg into a round hole with his kung fu stars miscast in a dull swordplay yarn. Fans of Angela Mao and Don Wong may want to pick up this title just to see them doing something a little different. Beyond that, there is little to recommend.

Review: On the drawing board, Star Runner looks promising. An impressive array of notable past and present kung fu movie stars fill out a cast supporting newcomers Vaness Wu and Kim Hyun-joo in an indie-flavored film with semi-real martial arts and a romance that challenges cultural and student-teacher boundaries. Writer/director Daniel Lee scores points for the attempt to craft a well-rounded film, but fails to make the grade when it comes to execution. The story is formulaic, the characters are distant, action is cut to ribbons by awful editing, and the film ends up a gushy, feel-good retread that wastes considerable talent and potential. But it still contains a bit of nifty training and three Shaw Brothers legends all in one film which makes it at least worth glancing at.

Pop star Vaness Wu in his first film is alarmingly similar to the unremarkable likes of other recent discoveries like Edison Chen and Daniel Wu who all need more acting lessons and substance. Vaness is about as emotive as a lump of cold oatmeal. As a kickboxer named Bond Cheng, he's emotionally detached, spends his days training slavishly or talking to his grandfather (David Chiang) who's been in a coma for two years, and sleeping through his school classes. In other words, he's a real charmer, or so the new Korean-language teacher thinks. Early on, Kim Mei-chiu (Kim Hyun-joo) is conveniently accosted by unruly youths after leaving school and it's Bond to the rescue. Despite talk among faculty and the efforts of Kim's homely male roommate to court her, love blossoms between Kim and Bond. Meanwhile, there's drama at the gym. A big, mixed-martial arts competition is coming up and Bond's kickboxing coach (Gordon Liu) makes a late decision to replace him as the fighter to take on the current champion. Bond angrily walks out and hooks up with a former fighter (Max Mok) who pairs him with masters of Wing Chun (Ti Lung) and Hung Kuen in order to prepare him for the competition. When a fair-weather former love of Kim's shows up, Bond must endure the possibility of life without her as he takes on Tank in the finals.

Films centering around ring matches have the distinct disadvantage of generally having nothing new to offer that Rocky didn't provide back in 1976. Sure there's a wider variety of moves on display here, but it all comes down to the same scenario of two men beating the crap out of each other in a small square. Daniel Lee flubs the action half of the film, which is generally the only reason anyone reading this would bother to see it in the first place. Vaness has one street fight and it's awful. Vaness is no martial arts star, the choreography is sloppy and the editing is choppy. The film begins to redeem itself slightly when he begins some outdoor training with two martial arts masters. It's a pure joy to see Ti Lung back in action, if only for a short, non-speaking role. He displays his real Wing Chun skills in sparring with a wooden dummy and later with Vaness. The other master is Father Sun, played by an unidentified aged gent who displays some very slick Hung Kuen forms. It should probably be stated at this point that David Chiang and Gordon Liu, the film's other two SB alumni are only in supporting dramatic roles. David only appears either in a coma or in flashbacks.

The final thirty minutes is devoted to the martial arts competition and it's a thorough disappointment. The whole thing is shot like a manic montage with takes that get shorter and shorter, until literally every punch or kick is met with a new camera angle. It goes on and on and there's no sense of real tension or progress. It might as well be the nightly news running sports highlights, except that this is a lot more annoying. Chin Kar-lok directs the action and also appears in a supporting role as one of Vaness' former gym mates. The choreography is solid enough, but the way its edited and scripted ruins the flow. It's chaos, really.

The other half of the film is devoted to the romantic and dramatic elements that are all disposable. The story is too broad and loose with excessive, rambling diversions related to the former life of Vaness' grandfather, Alfred Cheung's wooing of Kim that tries to play for laughs and fails, Vaness's broken relationship with his coach, and the chilly relationship between Andy On and Ken Lo who plays his brother and coach. This last item is seemingly an afterthought to "humanize" the lead antagonist.

Daniel Lee plays around with too many different angles in the story and in the editing room. Star Runner is weak on just about every other level as well. It's like a rough cut or a first draft that is in desperate need of revision. Gordon Liu, David Chiang, and Ti Lung deserve better in their later years than to be marginalized in this mediocre martial arts film that plays lip service to the genre without having even a portion of the entertainment value of the trio's many great classics.

REVIEW:
Pressured by the Manchu government, the magistrate of Lung Wei Village (Lo Lieh) enlists the aid of the Four Dragons to squelch a rebel uprising led by Chu Har Ming. The Four Dragons must discover the true identity of Chu Har Ming, uncover a traitor amongst them, and put an end to the Ching rebellion.

Uninspiring fights, a muddled plot, and a failed attempt at self-parody are actually overshadowed by the absolutely horrendous final battle that features the so-called "99 Sword Stroke" which is more akin to cheap fireworks than martial arts.

First to contend with is the plot. A relatively simple theme of hired kung fu masters fighting a group of criminal rebels becomes burdened with the introduction of three other characters also fighting the rebels. The star of the film is actually Polly Shian Kuan who spends most of the film dressed as a man and nobody can tell otherwise, including a female barmaid who falls for her. The situation becomes a love triangle as Polly's character, Chan Qwan Tung falls in love with one of the other fighters trying to stop Chu Har Ming. During all this, the Four Dragons are trying to figure out which one of the four is a traitor while regularly encountering Chu Har Ming who looks suspiciously like the tavern owner. Have I lost you yet?

The film seems to run dry near the end as Chu Har Ming is easily drawn out into the open by Chan Qwan Tung and her two companions. A strange ritual dealing with the whole yin/yang, male/female energy featuring some dismally cheap special effects is topped by the first appearance of the great "99 Sword Stroke," a multi-sectioned sword that when assembled fires the sections like rockets at it's targets. We finally get the Scooby Doo/Sherlock Holmes style ending explaining that all the events prior were carefully planned to foil Chu Har Ming. And he would have gotten away with it too if it hadn't been for that skunk hat (don't ask) and the 99 Sword Stroke.

While the intended humor in the film was typically cheesy, the film did provide some genuine laughs thanks to the goofball dubbing and a few creative stunts involving china (the dinnerware, not the country). The video and audio is acceptable with no glaring faults save for some cropping that occasionally cuts out some of the action on the sides of the screen.

99 Cycling Swords is an extremely average film with nothing to distinguish it from the pack and plenty to complain about. The great Lo Lieh is wasted in this picture and no other actors stand out. With weak kung fu action, an overly complex and contrived plot, and lame visual effects the film will certainly disappoint most viewers.

Review: Following the success of Stephen Chow's Royal Tramp, Tony Leung reprises a previous TV role for Hero from Beyond the Boundary of Time. It's a clunky, nonsense comedy full of crude humor, improbable circumstances and general stupidity. But, the last twenty minutes contains some mildly-diverting wire-fu action in the Ching Siu-tung tradition.

Most Western viewers probably know Tony Leung as the talented actor who delivered subtle performances in superb films like In the Mood for Love and Hero. But one look at Hero from Beyond the Boundary of Time is almost enough to ruin that image. Leung plays Wai Siu-bo, a "friend" of the Emperor who is forced to try out a Shaolin monk's 17th century time machine that looks like an oversize, gold kettle. Wai's mission is to find a virgin bride for the Emperor in the future, since apparently it's even more difficult to find one in their own time. In the present day outskirts of Hong Kong, Wai is taken for an illegal mainland immigrant. He is arrested by officer Chiu (Dicky Cheung Wai-kin), a bungling cop who is caught up with triads. But the two soon become partners in looking for a suitable virgin while engaging in various sexcapades and run-ins with underworld thugs. They eventually settle on Siu-ha (Jacqueline Ng), a beauty Wai met earlier and has slowly been falling for. Into this situation walks two of Wai's wives who have also traveled to the future and two kung fu-fighting assassins sent to stop Wai from succeeding.

For the most part, this film is not going to interest action film fans. Even general Hong Kong buffs will be challenged in finding enough entertainment value to justify a viewing. It's a mediocre rip-off of Stephen Chow that wastes the bulk of the running time on tasteless gags involving a lusty transvestite, physical and verbal abuse of women, homophobia, aphrodisiacs, and the drawn out act of looking up a woman's skirt. Leung isn't funny as a participant in these activities and is certainly no 'hero' in any sense. As a non-martial arts actor, his only trick here is overusing the freezing, pressure-point finger jab. Dicky Cheung is just plain obnoxious as his idiot partner who winds up 'man'-handled and shot in the ass, among other things.

The only highlight comes near the end as two assassins, played by Sophie Crawford (Buffy the Vampire Slayer double) and the super-talented Kim Won-jin finally inject the film with a little martial arts excitement to help wash away some of the comic crud. There are two fights, a warm-up in a house and the finale at an amusement park. On display throughout these scenes is a mixture of wushu swordplay, wirework, explosive and sharpened projectiles, Won-jin's fantastic legwork, and edited-in special effects. The camerawork and editing is hyper-stylized with a multitude of cuts, but competently put together. Director Blacky Ko, a seasoned Hong Kong stuntman, handles the action much better than the non-action scenes. The film could haven benefited had Ko thought to mix in more of this action throughout the film rather than bunching it all at the end.

Hero from Beyond the Boundary of Time is a cheap frills flick that's good for catching a few weak laughs and a touch of fantasy martial arts. On DVD or VCD, it's also good as a coaster for your drink. But I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for either use.

REVIEW:
The premise of Dreaming Fists with Slender Hands is solid while the actual execution is less than desirable.

Ho Hu and San Lung (Ching Kuo Chung) are two martial brothers sent by their aging master in search of better training. But really, their skills are so weak that they're easily defeated by a pack of thugs led by Shen Piao (Lung Fei). Shen and his men just happen to be extorting money from the town and two of his former martial art school pupils each decide to train Ho and San, although it all appears to be an accident. After the townsfolk gets the mistaken idea that Ho and San are top fighters, they send them after the thugs and Ho ends up thrown into their underground prison. With him is a wily martial arts master played by Hau Pak Wai who easily breaks them out. Appreciating the elder man's skills, Ho performs the necessary groveling in order to become his pupil. Meanwhile, the rotund San Lung has found work in a restaurant in order to pay for his healthy eating habits. The proprietor played by the devilishly attractive Woo Gam turns out to be Hau's former martial arts peer. In what appears to be a form of browbeating sadism, Woo verbally abuses the simpleminded San as she trains him to fight as a woman. The poor sap is even forced to where woman's shoes, the kind once used for women with bound feet. In a completely unflattering and dull series of training exercises, both young men slowly learn to master their new martial skills. The pair eventually team up to challenge and defeat Lung Fei and his cronies.

Talk about uninspired, this film is about as predictable and lazy in its narrative as humanly possible. Lung Fei is in a throwaway role as one of the most pathetic villains I can recall in recent memory. He takes money from the town's leaders, argues with Woo Gam who berates him the same way she does poor San and does nothing about it. Then he's beaten by two misfits, one a fat man who "fights like a girl." The "Dreaming Fists" refers to Ho's training which allows him to appear asleep when he's fighting. This type of style has been performed much more effectively in other films. The sleeping swordsman in John Woo's Last Hurrah for Chivalry (1979) is a good example. The "Slender Hands" refers to San Lung's "fay" kung fu style and provides ample fodder for tired gay jokes. The sight of this large fat guy performing dainty kung fu is meant to be entertaining, but its not. Had it been Sammo Hung in the role, it probably would have worked. At least the martial arts would have been worth watching.

Woo Gam is one of those regular female actresses who has appeared in dozens of low grade Taiwanese films and usually in the role of a bitchy teahouse owner. Nothing's new this time, except that her role is more prominent and she's portrayed as a martial arts expert which is a joke. Her fighting and training scenes are pretty lame. The two young leads who play Ho Hu and San Lung, both look like extras. They're just not star material and they lack charisma and skill. Hau Pak Wai is a Simon Yuen rip-off without the pipe, wine, or charm.

Though meant to be a light-hearted comedy, Dreaming Fists with Slender Hands is more like a kung fu fan's worst nightmare. Clunky choreography, a disengaging story, and a complete lack of effort shown on the part of the filmmakers to even try and make a decent film results in a prime example of the cheap Taiwanese product that once flooded the market.

Review: Synchronized fighters covered in metallic paint are a surprisingly common occurrence in classic kung fu movies. They originate with a legend concerning 'eighteen bronze men' employed at Shaolin temple to test students. Their skin is supposedly capable of deflecting bladed weapons and in the films, you often hear a metallic clank when they are struck. Rivals of the Silver Fox is an independent feature that takes this premise and mixes it with the idea of clan warriors, a sort of 18 Bronzemen meets 72 Desperate Rebels. One viewing of their antics and you'll understand where Stephen Chow might have gotten his idea for lampooning the bronze men in God of Cookery, but more on that later.

Rivals of the Silver Fox is a gaudy production that borrows many elements from previous kung fu classics, but since this genre repeats itself infinitely, this should not be a major concern. Though filled with kung fu action, the film's selling points boil down to the presence of the stately Casanova Wong and the fierce Phillip Ko Fei. Adequate performances from their co-stars, a bit of drama, and some visually impressive landscapes assist, but circus-like choreography and a sloppy narrative bring the whole picture down a few notches in quality and enjoyment.

Ma Tien-shun kills his master and becomes the new leader of the 72 Silver-Bronze Lo Han Clan. They are named so for the 72 painted warriors who guard their homestead. All Ma needs now is a special kung fu book which ends up lost. Enter Casanova Wong with his infant, who we learn through flashback, is after the person who stole the book from him originally and killed his wife. Of course this eventually leads him to attack Ma and his 72 warriors, but not before befriending a mischievous thief who poses as a monk and a pretty lass whose father was killed by Ma.

Yet, Wong needs the obligatory training before he can possibly succeed, so he meets the 'old master' of the story, Priest Wu Kuo who is played by Phillip Ko Fei. He's the silver-haired character referred to in the film's title, but this is misleading. 'Silver Fox' came into being with Hwang Jang-lee playing a silver-haired villain named Silver Fox in The Secret Rivals. The popularity of this film clearly led to the use of the wig and name again, although the characters bear no relation in any way. Ko fans should be disappointed with his role here as it seems like a throwaway and his action scenes are few. He should have been the lead villain instead.

Much of the fighting in the film is quite animated with Wong delivering some outstanding moves, but the editing and overall choreography is poorly done. Casanova Wong is much like Hwang Jang-lee in that he was a powerful martial arts star who became popular just as the classic kung fu boom was winding down. He appeared in a number high profile films such as Sammo Hung's Warriors Two, but ultimately had to suffer in lesser independent productions. Rivals of the Silver Fox is one such example. His performance is excellent. He delivers blistering leg work and acrobatics, combined with a strong presence and dramatic acting potential. The touching scenes of grief over his wife's death and the bonding with his infant son are nicely juxtaposed with his ability to floor opponents. Wong's character appears more vulnerable, more human as a result. Then the director ruins it all by turning the action into a three-ring circus. The main attraction is the fight against the 72 clansmen, but it is the most ridiculous battle in the film. I'm all for elaborately choreographed action with silly costumes, but it needs to be either excessively violent or creative and this is neither. As Wong fends off attackers, you can see more of them running in coordinated circles in the background. Whah!? Since they all have "metal skin," he cannot really kill them, so there is no payoff when they're hit and he never decisively beats more than five of them. And this "metal skin" starts to wear off as the fighting progresses. Some of the paint even ends up on Wong. I don't even want to go into the vital points that mysteriously appear on the fighters in red spots of paint after Wong's thieving buddy mentions this as a weakness. The cymbal-banging warriors are pretty stupid too. Suffice to say, this end fight is a joke that goes on for way too long. The only thing left to stick around for is Wong's duel with the lead villain and I was not impressed by him at all.

Rivals of the Silver Fox is an uneven jumble of mixed action and a convoluted story with a whole subplot about another revenge-seeking fighter not even worth mentioning. Casanova Wong deserves better, especially after showing himself to be so capable in many of his action scenes. Sadly, this film has a lot going for it and could have been better with more accomplished editing and direction. As is, it's hardly worth a rental beyond collectors.