| A
long time ago Canadian Tire Matt, who you should all be familiar
with by now (if not, just play along), donated approximately
one million bad movies to Crappah Moovah Fridah. Among these
terrible movies was a tape that contained not one, not two,
but three movies. Furthermore, they were, according
to the title, GREAT MARTIAL ARTS MOVIES distributed
by American Home Treasures. However, upon viewing, these movies
were only great in "skucking", a word I came up
with because I needed something that sounded nastier than
"sucking".
I
have to admit that when we first watched these our attention
spans were equal to about 2 minutes. After which we just started
talking about other things such as McDonalds Promotional Characters
and, perhaps, shoes. Now, I tried watching the first movie
on the tape again but I lost interest around the 40 minute
mark. It's just no good watching these movies alone, and when
you're not alone you'll inadvertantly start talking about
wheather or not The Grimace wears Nike.
Now
that I've got all that said, I believe the tape has something
to add before we get started:
Says,
"Due to the fragile nature of the original materials
used to produce this program, the screen quality and continuity
of this film may not be equal to current standard."
Apparently,
the people at American Home Treasures know that these films
aren't, shall we say, nearly up to par with any movie, ever.
They cite the master as being of poor quality and fragile
as if it's some kind of rarity. They've presumably had to
remove entire scenes thereby making the movie not as continuous
as it once was. I would have just settled for "We screwed
you over, you just bought three shitty movies. LOL!!".
However, we did have a good chortle over it.
The
first movie on the tape is called Blood of the Dragon.
It begins with our hero kicking the crap out of some guy in
what appears to be ancient China, but no one is really sure.
This seems to go on for the better part of the film, but then
you look at the clock and only four minutes have passed. This
is the temporal nature of this entire tape, and by my calculations,
284 minutes, the length of all three films combined, feels
more like a couple of decades. Although, my math is terrible
at best.
Our
hero's name is Long Ti played by Jimmy Wang Yu. Jimmy what
me? Ahem.. Anyways, people seem to call him Master Long throughout
the movie, and with good cause! I mean, it is his name. After
he gets tired of filming the opening sequence the titles roll
and a soundtrack that rivals Ninja in Action's kicks in. The
soundtrack was recorded by Flood. Now, I don't know
if this is the same person that has worked with the likes
of U2, Dpeche Mode and New Order, but I have high hopes that
it is. And if it actually is, I'm farily sure that was ripped
off.
After
the opening titles, two very important people, one in a wheelbarrow,
are on there way to deliver a special tube containing the
location of the secret rebel forces to some guy at The
Palace. They're suddenly attacked by, yes, that's right,
the guy that inadvertantly played Betty in Kung Pow. It's
strange to hear this guy speak in a somewhat normal voice.
I say somewhat normal because the English dub is so terrible.
I mean, they got an old chinese man sounding british! (Though
there is a perfectly good explanation to that, but that's
no fun). But I digress. Betty and his cronies kill the woman
but the guy gets away on a horse. Of course, he couldn't forget
his sword, which he conviently placed through his back. I'll
give this sequence some credit as the death of the woman was
actually kind of creepy, and this is coming from a guy that
doesn't find horror movies scary, just rediculous.
Next
Scene: Here we are introduced to the other main character
in the movie, a small, blind orphan. OR IS HE? In reality
he's just a brat trying to trick people into giving him money.
We'll call him Mewtwo because I can't distinguish what people
are calling him when they say his name. When the old british
chinese man tells him to get lost, Mewtwo kicks his ass and
runs away into an alley. Lo and behold, the guy with the tube
and a sword through his back comes riding into that very alley
and then dies. His dying wish is that the tube be delivered
to the palace. Mewtwo then runs back to this hot asian chick
he somehow knows and tells her what happened.
Just
then, Betty and his cronies trash the place, looking for das
ge-tuben-heimlershmidt. Betty chases Mewtwo and hot girl outside
and starts beating on them, knowing that Mewtwo has the tube.
But fear not young viewer! Master Long is there to save the
day, for some reason, and once again starts kicking ass. I've
got to hand it to him, Long's ability to alter his facial
hair length at will is a most impressive skill for anyone.
In
the end, Long severly injures Betty's hand by pulling on his
chain really hard. You heard that right. Not only is Betty
in the movie, he's swinging his chain again! Betty et. al
go running off into the woods while Long and Mewtwo head off
on their quest to deliver the tube.
I
seriously don't know how many more times I can type the word
tube. It's starting to wear on me.
This
is where my attention was starting to focus more on shiny
things rather than the movie. I do know, however, that they
reach the palace about half way through the movie and nobody
likes Master Long there. Apparently the guy he randomly killed
in the beginning was some other guy's father. Strange how
that works. Master Long tries getting out of fighting by claiming
that he has killed so many men in his day he could not possibly
remember which one was this guy's dad. That's kinda like a
car thief saying that he couldn't remember every car he's
stolen, and then urinating on everybody. That's pretty offensive
folks. So they battle it out, Long gets cut on his back and
bleeds Kool-Aid.
I
seriously don't know what happens next and I'm sorry. There
are, however, some stark similarities between this and another
movie, Star Wars. Let's take a look shall we? First of all,
they're both movies, that's plain to see. Secondly, they both
have secret rebel bases. Thirdly, they both seem to have people
with british accents in peculiar places. And lastly, in the
end ***SPOILERS*** Master Long dies ***END SPOILERS*** just
like Obi-wan Kenobi.
In
retrospect, the actions scenes weren't too terribly bad considering
that they probably should have been a lot worse. The sound
effects, all two variations, were all recorded at the same
volume, ear hemorrhaging loud. But you know what? That's what
we paid for and that's why these types of movies are so enjoyable.
I know not what happened to the tube, but nobody really watches
these movies for that anyways.
FRANK
ZAGARINO HEAD RATING
Stay
tuned to NinjaCulture
for reviews of Blood Fight and Champ against
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