American Commando Ninja (1988)

American Commando Ninja (1988)

Director: Lo Gio

Stars: Martin Chan, Daniel Garfield, Yolanda Kuk

You see the name listed as director? Don't be fooled my friends. Looking up Lo Gio only brings up two credits...this film and one from 1974. I almost gave Joseph Lai the benefit of the doubt that he had employed another hack to make his films but then in the closing credits I saw it...Story by Godfrey Ho.

I'm 100% convinced I just suffered through another Goddamn Godfrey Ho crapfest.

This movie is a rare one, as it's really one of the only martial arts films that was shot on video. Yep, not only is Godfrey Ho and Joseph Lai involved, but they brought their camcorders with them. 

The "story" concerns a scientist with a germ warfare formula and several groups of people that are trying to retrieve said formula. They include a white guy in an office with a circus clown for a girlfriend, a crazy uncle with his own army and two nieces fighting over who will have the ugliest haircut, and a ninja and his new found bromance who are the heroes of this story. The two guys are named Larry and David. Please, curb your enthusiasm.

Unlike most of these films, it doesn't star Richard Harrison and it isn't made up with half a decent movie and half a movie where white guys run around with headbands that say "ninja" on them. But even without those obstacles,  these guys manage to make a film that's completely fucking incoherent. Now that's talent.

Things I Took From American Commando Ninja

- Wise advice from this movie "never trust a scientist". That's why I know Jupiter's gonna crash into us any day now. Just you wait, assholes.

- If you know someone has a homing device on him, take the coat with the device on it and throwing it 20 feet isn't going to throw the bad guys off much. Maybe irritate them a bit though.

- Why is this girl wearing confederate flag shorts?

- Speaking of shorts, why the hell is everyone wearing short shorts. It looks like half the cast is only wearing a shirt and it creeps me out. 

-And while I'm on the subject, whoever was the costume designer on this film should be put out back and shot. Lime green pants, tons of daisy dukes, and shirts of many neon colors. It's like the late 80's surf craze threw up on everyone.

- Apparently a mysterious form of martial arts is called...and I shit you not...Hocus Pocus. This ancient technique includes blow fire out of your fingertips and pulling a rabbit out of your hat...but a rabbit with a katana sword.

- I like when the uncle yells at one of the heroes about being too young to know suffering. "In our day, it was either starve or eat another person, and we LIKED IT!"

- Look out for the "Tusken Raider in Star Wars" tribute every time some fires a gun more than once. Also dig those magically appearing ninja stars.

- One of the girls is so stupid, she thinks her parents were killed during world war 2, despite being maybe 25 years old. Someone's getting an F in history.

- I was going to make a joke about how the final battle looks like it takes place on a giant playground until I realized it actually WAS being fought on a giant playground! 

- The final scene is sweet, when Larry and David do the patented bro handshake and gaze into each other's eyes, holding back their true feelings. You don't believe me? The whole movie's on youtube. Go watch it and see. I expect an apology.

Five Fingers of Death (1972)

Five Fingers of Death (1972)

Director: Chang Ho Cheng

Stars: Lieh Lo, Ping Wang, Hsiung Chao

If you've watched at least a hand full of old Kung Fu Theater style flicks, you know the story. Guy goes to train for tournament with new master. Rival school is made up of a bunch of dickweeds who fuck with the good school. When that backfires, they hire assholes to murder them. Good guy gets his hands broken by bad guys so he doesn't learn the Iron Fist technique, but he learns it anyways. Good guy wins the tournament, but at a cost of several people's lives...and eyeballs. Served with a nice dish of revenge.

This was the movie that kicked off the kung fu movie craze here in the United States. Before long, we were overwhelmed with both good and mainly awful martial arts flicks. Personally, I love martial arts films. I remember waking up as a kid on Saturday mornings and watching it. Cartoons, Memphis wrestling, then Kung-Fu Theater. Good times.

This one is definitely one of the films you need to see if you're new to the genre. It's got fun action, lots of blood, and bad dubbing. You don't have to have all three of those requirements, but at least two of them. Godfrey Ho movies only have the bad dubbing...and white guys named Ira wearing ninja headbands. You're just not ready for that yet, noob.

Things I've Learned/ Things to Watch Out For

- There's a female character in this film who is a singer. I thought "cool, I always wanted to hear what music was like there". I'm really hoping this is a bad example, because she sounded like a cat that got caught up in barb wire. Her backing band seemed cool though.

- If you look like a Chinese Alfred Molina, chances are you're going to be a bad guy.

-If you get jealous because your dad/Master likes this other guy better to teach him his super secret fighting technique, joining the bad guys to have them break his hands is probably a bad idea. Of course, that's made apparent when they proceeded to kick his ass later and rip out his eyeballs. Well at least he doesn't have to see that he looks like Elvis anymore.

- That crazy sound in Kill Bill when Kiddo sees one of her enemies and everything turns red? Yeah, came from this movie. "It's an HOMAGE, damn you!'

- So the beginning of the movie, the main guy is sent out to train for a tournament. Next thing you know, it's been a year and he still hasn't finished training. How far in advance were these tournaments? It would be like inviting someone on Facebook to my son's graduation, even though he's in the fifth grade. And the main guy is STILL LATE for the fucking thing.

- Chinese people think that Japanese folks are long nasty haired mute savages if this film is any indication.

- Having watched quite a few of these films, the one basic rule of thumb to live is when bad guys start fucking with the hero, and the hero humiliates them, you move as far the fuck away from there as possible. Because pal, you're gonna get yer guts spilled out in front of you while you're watching Growing Pains reruns.

Karate Warrior 2 (1988)

Karate Warrior 2 (1988)

Director: Fabrizio De Angelis

Stars: Kim Rossi Stuart, Amy Lynn Baxter, Ted Pryor (?)

Never thought I'd see an Italian Karate Kid ripoff, but here we are. Not sure why I didn't see the first one, but I'll remedy that soon. They actually made six of these films, but only the first two has Kim Rossi Stuart in it. after that, it was a revolving door of wannabe Macchios. 

After saving the day in the first film, our hero Anthony Scott and his sweet pillowy girl lips is going off to college! His grandparents give him a sweet new car, which he promptly runs into the swamp when some douchebags in a car airbrushed with a tiger runs him off the road for no reason. 

After getting picked up by some rich guy named Luke and becoming friends, Anthony goes out to find who fucked up his sweet ride. Turns out the culprits are a gang of karate geeks called the Tigers (big shock), lead by the appropriately named Dick. Anthony challenges Dick to a fair fight, and Dick, trying to rig the fight with chloroform, still gets his ass kicked. If that's not enough, Anthony also is stealing Dick's girl! So what should Dick do? If your answer is hire a karate champion that just got out of prison for drugs to kill Anthony, then you've seen the movie already and are just being a dick yourselves.

Will Anthony beat this new psychopath? Will true love blossom between Anthony and a playboy/penthouse gal? Will Luke actually get a spine? 

Six Things I Took From Karate Warrior 2

1. The Tigers are the goofiest gang I have seen in a movie, and I freeze frame the Warriors at the big gathering scene to pick out all the goofy looking gangs. These guys look like average douchebags jock college guys. That's all. And for a gang that terrorizes the town so badly, they sure as fuck have a lot of supporters when Dick gets his ass beaten by Anthony. Oh and great job giving one guy the hokiest hick voice this side of Hee Haw.

2. Luke is the wimpiest sidekick in recent memory. They dubbed him in this whiny voice, he barely has his buddy's back, and gets his ass kicked even when he has a gun pointed at someone. The only thing I didn't see was someone kicking sand in his face. Maybe Eddie Deezen turned down the role.

3. Forcing someone to become your friend in exchange for a ride is worse than forcing them to have sex with you. Look pal, I'll give you a handjob, I just don't wanna hang out in your house eating caviar.

4. I find it odd that Anthony wrecks his car, some guy in an airboat offers to help, and I guess steals it for his own because we never see the sweet ride again. You'd think Anthony would be more concerned about getting back the car that his grandparents probably hocked their life savings for instead of trying to pick fights and cock block leaders of gangs. I bet he don't send christmas cards to them either. Sad.

5. Fun fact: chloroform when apply to the face by sponge doesn't knock you out but merely makes your eyes blurry so Dick can kick you in the face and blurry it some more. How do you not know your cornerman is rubbing a substance that has one of the most distinct smells in the world all over your face?

6. As you may have noticed, Ted Prior's name is in this film...only it's spelled Pryor. I was excited because I know that Ted always gives a pretty fun performance in whatever he does. But when his character is seen for the first time (he's billed as the psycho karate champion) I notice one problem...IT'S NOT FUCKING TED PRIOR! I came here specifically for the Prior, and instead I got this generic beefed up blond dumbass. Not that I didn't like this film, but the lack of Ted made this film from a B+ to a B-. That's a lesson to you all, if you advertise the Ted, you better fucking deliver the Ted!

Exit The Dragon, Enter the Tiger VHS Artwork

Must be the Dragon's quitting time. Hope Tiger doesn't have to work over when Crane calls out due to a hangover.

Also, that guy is in some serious pain there.

The Prodigal Son (1981)

The Prodigal Son (1981)

Director: Sammo Hung

Stars: Biao Yuen, Ching-Ying Lam, Sammo Hung

In this Hong Kong martial arts classic, A young man is known as the ultimate street fighter in his area. He's fought over 300 times and hasn't been beaten once. Of course, he doesn't realize that his rich dad is using the young man's servant to bribe the opponents into losing so he won't get hurt. This earns him the nickname of Prodigal Son. When he's beaten easily by a  very feminine stage  actor/ Wing Chun master, he decides to buy the theater company so he can be trained by the master. There's also another rich guy looking for fights, and Sammo Hung plays a goofy Wing Chun master who also tries to train the Prodigal Son. 

Loaded with humor, lots of killing, and great martial arts moves. It's well worth a look at for fans of the genre.

Six Things I've Learned from The Prodigal Son

1. Never tell your servant to attack you at random times for training. I learned my lesson when mine threw me into a lava pit. I was a hot mess!

2. It doesn't matter who does it, but the feminine actor/Wing Chun master looks like a creepy baby without his eyebrows.

3. Considering that (SPOILER) the theater group is slaughtered and the tent burned down, maybe it's best to NOT have someone in the troupe who keeps kicking people's asses. Maybe throwing confetti a lot. Rip Taylor is a blackbelt in Wig-Fu though so he's out.

4. Protip: if someone has beaten you in a fight so badly that he renders your arm useless, not amount of training is gonna prepare you when you lose both arms. Dumbass.

5. If I was the Prodigal Son, after I learned real martial arts I'd beat the shit out of all those people mocking me. I'd EARN those 300 fights back.

6. Any move can be used as a martial arts technique, as demonstrated by Hung's toilet technique. I'm currently working on a technique that involves eating pizza. Classes start soon.

Rumble in the Bronx (1995)

Rumble in the Bronx (1995)

Director: Stanley Tong

Stars: Jackie Chan, Anita Mui, and Dozens of broken bodies

In Jackie Chan's American breakthrough film (which I also saw in the theater), Chan plays a Hong Kong Champion (I'm thinking knitting. Chan's an awesome knitter) who comes to New York for his uncle's wedding. Chan stays on to help the new owner of his uncle's grocery store and encounters a rowdy gang intent on chasing him around the city. Meanwhile, there's some plot about diamonds being stolen, ANOTHER gang of well dressed bad guys, and lots of shit being destroyed. In short, a fun ride of violence. Get your ticket at the door slamming into someone's face.

Six Things I've Learned from Rumble in the Bronx

1.  I never knew New York had such beautiful mountains!

2. Playing glass bottle baseball in a dead end alley is no way to welcome a visitor to your city. Use plastic bottles first to get them accustomed to your culture.

3. The Syndicate practices unfair hiring practices by only hiring large giant headed white guys in suits. I'm sure there are many other ethnic types who are large, have giant heads, and also own themselves a nice suit. Don't discriminate assholes!

4. People you have just beat the shit out of will instantly forgive you if you say that you wanna drink tea with them. People love their tea time.

5. While refrigerators should never be used to lock someone in (your safety tip of the day), they are quite fine to use to protect yourself from swords and sticks and in certain cases used to cause concussions by slamming them into your enemies. The more you know.

6. After getting the Syndicate arrested, the cops will have no problems with you driving a hovercraft onto a golf course to run over the head of the Syndicate and expose his buttocks for all to see. It's police procedure.