Bloodfist II (1990)

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Bloodfist II (1990)

This Bloodfist sequel follows hot on the heels of the huge video success of the first film. World champ’ Jake Raye (Wilson) decides to quit competitive kickboxing after he kills a guy in the ring, only to be lured back into battle when he receives a desperate call from a buddy in Manila. No sooner has Jake landed in the Philippines is he shackled, kidnapped and thrown on a catamaran heading to the forbidden island of Su (Avellana, who confusingly played Jake’s mentor in the first film), where the kingpin has kidnapped the world’s best fighters to take part in …

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Five Element Ninjas (1982)

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Five Element Ninjas (1982)

A perennial favourite, particularly in the west where the film has gathered a cult following despite representing Chang Cheh‘s increasingly hokey, blood-drenched and downright bizarre 1980s output and the tail-end of Shaw Brothers’ kung fu movie dominance. Chang Cheh uses two of his Venoms cast – Lo Meng and latter-day Venom Ricky Cheng (the others were in Taiwan shooting another ninja film, Phillip Kwok’s Ninja in the Deadly Trap) – to lead his own studio-based slasher. The sets, coupled with the outlandish weapons and costumes, add to the overall artifice and cheapen the look of the film, whereas the script …

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Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016)

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Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016)

One-joke rom-zom-com which places the walking dead into a re-imagining of the Austen classic, with the Bennet sisters attempting to find an eligible bachelor in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. There is a neat little joke about Mr Bennet (Charles Dance) sending his daughters to study the Chinese fighting arts at Shaolin instead of a more expensive martial education in Japan, which adds a further dimension to the family’s social ostracism. The sight of blood, brains, bonnets and blades in rural Hertfordshire is a funny enough concept, however the film’s pulse quickly flat-lines when it begins to take the …

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Deadpool (2016)

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Deadpool (2016)

You may remember Marvel’s foul-mouthed antihero Deadpool from a Wolverine origins film back in 2009, played by Ryan Reynolds but doubled by Scott Adkins during his high-wire bout with Hugh Jackman. They completely sidelined the character, gave him strange laser eye powers and cut out all of his fourth-wall-breaking knowingness and sass, which are precisely the elements which make him such a perennial favourite among comic book fans. These are also the elements which make him all but impossible to place on the big screen, or even within Marvel’s own X-Men universe. Aside from lapses into the sort of routine …

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Martial Law (1990)

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Martial Law (1990)

Chad McQueen – son of Steve – takes the lead in this meat-headed straight-to-video punch up. He’s hard-boiled LAPD cop Sean Thompson (nicknamed ‘Martial Law’) who breaks up a bank heist by disguising as a pizza delivery boy and kicking the hoods through the windows. To add further macho points, he wears biker leathers and teaches at a karate school. He has a sensitive side, too: he dotes on his wayward younger brother Michael (McCutcheon) – the black sheep of the family – who has sided with the criminals at Jet’s Gym, owned by David Carradine’s suited kingpin Mr Rhodes. …

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Dragon Inn (1967)

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Dragon Inn (1967)

This wonderful wuxia film from auteur director King Hu had the rare distinction – like most of Hu’s work – of being both critically praised and popular with the masses. In Hong Kong, it out-grossed The Sound of Music and helped to make the classical wuxia film acceptable again as a uniquely Chinese cinematic force. Along with Hu’s next work, A Touch of Zen, these films have ultimately become the benchmark by which all future interpreters of the wuxia film are judged; not only in relation to the film’s direct spin-offs – like Tsui Hark’s New Dragon Gate Inn (1992) and Flying Swords …

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Bloodfist (1989)

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Bloodfist (1989)

Roger Corman’s Bloodsport rip-off may follow his prison-girl exploits on movies like The Big Doll House in using the cheap filming locations of the Philippines as a money saver, but at least he provides a fighting cast with good pedigree. The film features three world karate and kickboxing champs – Rob Kaman, Billy Blanks, and Don Wilson, making his leading man debut in the first of 11 movies he would make with Corman. Wilson plays sweet-natured valley boy Jake Raye, part of Hal & Jake’s Self Defence School in California, who travels to Manila to investigate the death of his …

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Sword of the Assassin (2012)

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Sword of the Assassin (2012)

Sumptuous action drama from Vietnam which aims to recapture the romance, political intrigue and wire stunts from Hero, only with the occasional detour into CGI nuttiness.

Huynh Dong plays the affable backwater orphan boy Nguyen Vu, who is raised in the ways of combat and spirituality by a reclusive monk in a serene temple idyll. Nguyen reaches such extreme levels of enlightenment that he becomes almost supernatural, moving opponents and objects with the power of his mind. The fantasy element stops here – probably in a bid to save on the CGI budget – only to return quite incongruously towards the …

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Pound of Flesh (2015)

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Pound of Flesh (2015)

Garbled, earnest action film in which a naked Van Damme wakes up in a Manila hotel to find his bed sheets covered in blood and one of his kidneys missing. “Where is my kidney?” he shouts at a waiter; and before you ask, yes, this is the actual story. Van Damme was intending to donate the kidney to an ailing niece in a selfless act to save the girl’s life, as well as reconcile his relationship with his estranged brother. His sibling is an American called George (John Ralston) who doesn’t seem to question why his brother has a French …

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Shootfighter 2 (1995)

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Shootfighter 2 (1995)

Another illegal shootfighting ring has sprung up in Miami, where musclebound egos duke it out to the death in a steel cage. The new mastermind, Lance (Joe Son – the guy who throws his shoes at Austin Powers), is a sadistic kung fu suit who stabs his own boss in a bid to exploit his other lucrative business schemes. Instead of using sane police methods, chief inspector Rawlins (Randolph) decides to set up a convoluted sting operation involving the combative skills of Ruben, Nick and Shingo, who have now returned from their previous shootfighting adventure in Mexico. Before you can say …

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