THE STORY:  It pains me not to admit that I have a soft spot in my infernal heart for Cynthia Rothrock movies. She's been in some stinkers and ol' Cynthia ain't the greatest actress, but she is hot! Oh, Cynthia, if only we had met in younger years....what a couple we could have made! You with your martial arts skills and me with my...my...uh...well, good looks. Kind of.

Anyway, in this movie Cynthia Rothrock is Tracy Pride a kung fu FBI agent. Kind of. You see, Cynthia isn't in most of the movie. She's on the cover, but her character isn't actually seen that much. Potential is lost in this movie. The plot is simple yet there are too many ill defined characters. Let me try to put in in a nutshell:

A nuclear trigger is stolen by parties mostly unknown. (What the hell that means is ill defined. As the audience we're just expected to believe that since its nuclear its can cause World War Three.) TV news reporter Joyce Pride is on the story and her chief suspect is a corrupt businessman, Slade. Now if you just think about that you'll think this is a movie about how Joyce uses her journalistic and kung fu skills to track down Slade and expose him. Nope.

Slade is so cartoonishly evil its crazy. The actor that portrays him is pretty bad and it just makes the whole thing worse. Cynthia Rothrock's character, Tracy, is barely seen and its only to sluggishly pull along a subplot about how Joyce is mad at their father, a CIA agent. There's the a kung fu teacher that helped raise Joyce that's easily ignored after he's first seen, and the bodyguard Slade employs that has a change of heart, named Armstrong. That's just the "major" characters. We've neglected Silk, the crook guy, Mickey, the young kung fu guy, Dragon, a Hong Kong law officer that for some reason is in the US and Mickey, another throwaway  character.

After we find out how evil Slade is there's a lot of padding...I mean a lot. It wouldn't be a lot if there was, like, a [unwrite]ing story in this movie. Various distractions like the thing Joyce has against her father are pretty much glazed over without much explanation. There's a minor romantic subplot that builds concerning Armstrong and Joyce, but its quickly ignored. I guess the fact that Armstrong is black and Joyce is white is the reason for that.

All in all, its a pretty cheap little flick. Nothing that you need to go out and rent. The fights are few and not interesting. The inevitable showdown wasn't too interesting. For that matter I was just hoping they'd get it over with. Considering the potential in this movies story is little, I'm still disappointed. A b-movie, even a b-karate movie doesn't necessarily mean a bad movie. Yet this one was pretty [unwrite]ed up. A lot of time spent to watch with no payoff.

Best Lines: "If you get if for me I'll pay you five million, but if you fail I'll peel your testicles like grapes!"- Slade warns Silk about failure in getting the trigger. That's a pretty nasty threat. (How do you peel a grape?)

"I have arrived at the top of the world, no man has control of more money, no man can fight me and live, no woman can share my bed and not be mine for life...I am like a god!"- Wow! Slade has issues! I almost expected him to turn into Galactus with those last words!

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?:

1.) Hmmmm.....I've seen Dead Alive's kung fu priest and that was pretty hilarious. This movie has a kung fu reporter! Be warned though...if you're in the news industry and you happen to disgrace a politician out of office his children will attack you on the street with switchblades!

2.) Slade is already suspected of various crimes when we first learn of him. So I'm to believe that it takes all of this crap in the movie to get him? He doesn't seem to smart to begin with and the poor performance of  John Miller doesn't help. He's no actor, but I will give him credit in the "being muscular but you won't know it until he takes his shirt off department". When Slade first appeared I thought "I could kick his ass." Then they showed him working out and I thought "Well... if I had my M16 I could kick his ass!".

3.) Silk is an idiot. He's doing business with Slade to buy the MacGuffin..I mean nuclear trigger. But he's accosted almost instantly by Tracy...and he knows she's FBI. Yet he still continues with the deal. If an FBI agent rousts you about an illegal activity you haven't yet committed doesn't that ring a few bells? to make it even more ridiculous he only gets away because Tracy's father intervenes. At this point is wasn't clear to me that he was a CIA agent so I was even more confused. Its like they had a twelve year old write the screenplay. Things are only supposed to make sense "Jus' 'Cuz."

4.) Oh man, there's so much I could rag on this movie about...like when Dragon and Tracy are spying on the Arab guy that wants the trigger. They sit in a bright red car right outside the dude's house, yet the Arab guy and his henchmen don't notice until hours later...specifically after they finish a phone conversation of their illegal activities. (a conversation that any sane person would realize was monitored) This scene was only there to set up a kung fu fight, I know, but its like reality went out of the window with this flick. If only all criminals were so stupid.

NUDITY AND SEX:  none.

HUH?:  Slade needs to spend more time watching Sesame Street. He berates two of his bodyguards telling them they're like the 3 stooges. Uh, Slade...there's only two other guys in the room with you.

When Slade gets peeved at Silk he tells Silk the only way out of the room alive is to go through him. Silk sullenly says he has no choice and they begin to fight. Slade naturally kicks Silk's little ass easily. I think Silk should have groveled a little more. Then he might have escaped sans the beating. Look, I'll admit that in times past I've let my mouth write checks my ass couldn't cash, but I know most of the time when I'm outmatched. (Luckily I haven't been outrunned yet!) The way I see Silk's position is this...Slade's going to kill him out of anger, more so than anything else. Why fuel the anger if you have only a maybe 1% chance of actually winning a fight with Slade? Slade only challenged Silk because HE KNEW he could beat him. With that in mind I'd just say "Look, kill me now or let me go. I'm not playing this pointless macho game so you can feel macho about it." Yeah, that probably would have gotten Silk a beatdown anyway, but its the principle of the matter. Check out the flex move Slade does after he beats Silk up...is he auditioning for a role as The Incredible Hulk?

I hate it, hate it hate it when a popular actor is used in such a way. Cynthia Rothrock may not have a lot of great movies under her belt, but she a favorite of some b movie fans. She's hardly in this movie and the cover of the box would make you think she's the premier character. She's not. But in order to 'sell' this crappy flick they put her all over the box. Dirty pool. I hope Cynthia kicks their asses for it. And if she ever reads this...(which is doubtful, but I can hope) Cynthia..you're great!

THE TALLY: While I wouldn't recommend this movie the very patient movie watcher may find at least some entertainment with it. The Inferno awards it one devil. Which means it pretty much sucks the devils butthole, but hey, its better than a trip into the Gorge of eternal Peril. Keep in mind, only the presence of Cynthia Rothrock, who is just plain  naturally cool, keeps this flick from total damnation!