Writer: Keith W. Strandberg
Here's a martial arts movie posing as a thriller. Or is it the other way around? Whatever the case, the fighting part of the movie is rather good, while everything else is pretty much horrible.
The structure is typical of serial killer movies: There's this guy that kills people left and right. In charge of the police investigation is a funny black guy who's of course unable to find the killer, so the chief of police (Frank Gorshin in yet another gratuitously over-the-top performance reminiscent of his Batman days) asks a retired detective (Gary Daniels) for help in order the prevent the crazy maniac from killing everyone on the planet and causing an apocalypse. Of course, the victims are not randomly selected and finding the connection between them means finding the killer and it will also give Gary Daniels an opportunity to win back his wife who's pissed off about something, blah blah blah... Fairly standard stuff, without a trace of innovation of any kind.
However, what's of interest here is the way the murders are committed - each of the victims is a champion of some martial arts discipline and the killer is beating them in their own discipline before killing them. He's like Michael Phelps among the serial killer martial artists. It should also be mentioned that he wears a dreadfully silly costume and he's a computer wizard who teases the police by sending them cheesy provocative messages.
The fights are numerous and well choreographed, which comes as no surprise since pretty much everyone involved in the movie is a martial artist of some kind (this includes the director, the writer and all the lead actors). Unfortunately, there are some scenes where nobody's fighting and instead they're trying to talk and what not and it's really embarrassing. The highlight of this cheesiness is the scene where Daniels wins back his wife. I blushed during that one even though I was completely alone. Having someone walk in while you're watching this scene is worse than being caught watching porn by your grandmother. Everything except fighting is cliché after cliché and it gets really boring and tiring after a while. If you're a fan of martial arts, I recommend fast forwarding through these scenes and if you're not, skip the movie altogether.
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