Director: Steve Wang
Year: 1992
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Kung Fu; Action/Comedy
Plot:
Hoping to take over the world, a warlord plans to move into a new area of the country that will lead him to a special piece of weaponry to help ensure his plans. While waiting for the time to strike, a group of well-meaning thieves steal a part of the map needed to get there and try to escape the situation as they’re beset by a slew of henchmen, fighters, and other creatures looking to retrieve the map or their master. Finally realizing the truth behind the map and how to effectively use it, the team of heroes set out to bring down the warlord and his giant monster army to save the world.
Review:
This was a rather fun and enjoyable genre throwback. Most of this comes from the series of throwback elements in play that set up a series of likable setpieces here. Offering an excuse to engage in a series of cheap but effectively silly martial arts battles featuring all sorts of enthusiastic performers engaging in well-choreographed battles with great comedy mixed in, the film comes off rather well at maintaining a great pace full of cheesy creatures and appropriately silly settings. As each of the creatures here look like a great mix of low-budget cheese and genuine enthusiasm for the material, there’s a lot to like here as it leads into the big monster battle at the end which leans into the wackiness of the bizarre setup featured here so everything adds together into a fun time before the chemistry with the cast give this a fun enough time.
While it’s all fun and has a lot to like, this one does have a few minor factors to get over. The main feature here is the immensely troublesome family-friendly style of humor that takes place here with the whole thing being ridiculous and goofy for some to try to get through who aren’t fond of that particular brand of humor or content. It’s thrown around so much that it’s somewhat hard to get a handle on the type of material present here, from names to world-play jokes and just the general cheesiness of what’s going on that could be damaging if not in the right mindset. That goes equally for the effects here as the cheesiness works well for the content depicted but there’s also the fact that it takes such a confirmed will to take in these kinds of presentations as everything plays into the tone but also comes off cheap enough that there’s a potential problem here with these all managing to hold the film down.
Overview: ***/5
An overall fun light-hearted monster movie/kung-fu hybrid, there’s a lot to like here which works incredibly well for what it is even though some of the action is more of a personal preference than anything else. Those with an appreciation for this type of genre effort or are curious about it will have a lot to like here while those turned off by these factors should heed caution.
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