Lady Dragon

THE STORY: I'd be lying if I said that Cynthia Rothrock doesn't turn me on. I find her very attractive. That being said she's also been in some pretty horrible movies. 24 hours to Midnight was so bad that I've been looking for a copy just so I can consign it to the pit! Lady Dragon wasn't the worst movie I've seen (By a long, long, long shot....) but it was pretty lame.

Cynthia is Kathy Galagher. Kathy has some issues to deal with. Mainly because a criminal guy named Ludwig Hauptmann had her husband killed on their wedding day. (In front of the church! What a bastard!) Why? He was getting too close! Close to what I didn't get. All I know is Hauptmann is a bad guy. I'm not even sure what Kathy's hubby did for a living. I'm definitely not sure of what country this is taking place in, but I'm guessing Bangkok. (Is Bangkok, a country or a city? I dunno. Don't care much either. Note to Erica at Terminal 42...don't start singing that song either!!! :) )

Kathy's husbands former partner, Gibson, tries to talk her out of revenge, but to no avail. To make a living in this foreign land, Kathy fights big strong karate guys in tournaments for cash. All this so she can use her master plan to kill Hauptmann. Her master plan was to go into a disco where Hauptmann was partying and get her ass caught. Then Hauptmann rapes her and dumps her in the woods. She's found by the average Annoying kid and his elderly Grandfather. They nurse her back to health and she grows to care about them. But Kathy's desire for vengeance leads her back to the city where she fools Susan into hiring her. Susan is one of Hauptmann's flunkies and runs some of his businesses. Susan is also pretty idiotic. She has a thing for Hauptmann but gets upset when she catches him with other women. Look girl, if you know the man is a dog then just give up. You can't teach a dog like like that new tricks.

Anyhow, Kathy discovers that one of Hauptmann's flunkies, Alan, is really an undercover cop. She breaks into one of his warehouses and discovers something illegal. I'll be honest...I missed the explanation of what it was because I wanted to get a beer from the fridge. It doesn't matter really, because we know that anything that Hauptmann has to do with is EVIL! Hauptmann recognizes Kathy when he sees her working with Susan and has Susan invite her to a party at his place. Hauptmann pretends to wine and dine her but when he gets her alone he lets Kathy know the jig is up. Then Gibson shows up. It will come to no suprise (and it was established in an earlier scene) that Gibson is Hauptmann's partner in crime. This little cameo ends with Kathy grabbing an Uzi that was conveniently laying around and drilling a dozen holes in Gibson. Hauptmann flees while this occurs. Kathy commandeers a motorcycle and escapes.

Susan now knows about Kathy's secret and that Grandfather and the Annoying Kid have helped her. She has some goons kidnap them and burn their house down. Then she confronts Kathy and tells her that Hauptmann wants a To-The-Death Showdown. Let me backtrack for a minute and tell you how Susan tells her this....Kathy was staying at Susan's house while pretending to her friend. After the party she actually GOES BACK to the house! Any sane person would figure that Susan, who is part of Hauptmann's criminal empire, would be really really pissed and try to kill her! Yet Kathy says she wants to take a shower and goes back there! Hmmmm...then again, since Hauptmann could have killed her before and he could have had someone just [unwrite]ing shoot her if she tried to return to Susan's the term "Criminal Empire" might be a little too good for these morons.

Kathy meets Hauptmann in the appointed place (a meat warehouse) and they have their fight. Just when Kathy has Hauptmann at her mercy and is ready to kill him, Susan shows up with Grandfather and the Annoying Kid as her hostages. Kathy is forced to let Hauptmann beat the [unwrite] out of her or Susan will shoot them. But after Kathy takes a beating that would probably kill most humans, Alan arrives with a gang o' cops and arrests Susan. With her friends free, Kathy proceeds to stomp Hauptmann a new asshole. She doesn't kill him, but her ending to the battle is to kick him in the balls about three times. Any guy will tell you that once is enough, twice is really painful and probably "Pass-out country" and three times is permanent damage time. Oh, and there's this guy, Chin, who takes bets on fights. Since Kathy succeeded in beating up Hauptmann she gets a boatload of money.

With her nemesis beaten and a hoard of cash, the last thing we see is Kathy driving off with the Grandfather and the Annoying Kid in a brand new BMW.

Well, no matter how ya slice it, this was never going to be a good movie. The plot was too generic, the dialogue was, well, pitiful and the acting just bearable. All of the characters were just caricatures. (Although I thought for awhile that Susan may have had a glimmer of morality and turned into a good guy...uh, gal) Not that it mattered. As far as bad karate flicks go, this one was bad, not unbearable but pretty bad. Like those leftovers in the fridge that ain't bad yet but you still don't want to eat the crap. Kathy was played by the beautiful Cynthia Rothrock. After a quick little snooping around on the Internet Movie Database I discovered that Cynthia has recently had a baby daughter named Skyler! Congrats to her. I also feel the need to say that Cynthia was born in Delaware, my home state! Man, if only she was the girl next door when I  grew up! Gibson was actor Robert Ginty, star of Programmed To Kill and the Exterminator,.

Best Lines: "Don't just stand there, put him out before he ruins the lawn!"-  Ludwig to some of his goons after he sets one of them on fire.

1.) I don't care how much karate any woman might know, Cynthia's ribs would have given up the ghost and caved in after being kicked about five or six times by the big bruiser dude at the beginning of the flick. Hell, Hauptmann kicks her a few times in the ribs and she shakes it off. It never ceases to amaze me how much punishment a person can take in a martial arts film! I slammed my finger in a door and cried like a baby! People in the movies get hit about a dozen times and don't even freakin' bruise!

2.) Here's a way to find out if you're too easily entertained....if you find women mud wrestling erotic, you need to expand your horizons.

3.) While escaping from Hauptmann's goons at his warehouse Kathy's car magically leaps into the air and crashes through a gate. It lands in a fashion that lets you know that car ain't movin' after that. Remember the old Dukes of Hazzard TV show or The Fall Guy? That's what it was like. The most ridiculous part is that Kathy isn't hurt at all afterward. No seatbelt, but nope, she ain't hurt. That's not all that suprising, considering the movie.

4.) Let me me get this straight....Ludwig has a trio of martial arts goons that practice all day, everyday. Fine. But then explain that while they're practicing their skills, Ludwig can run his criminal empire, go to parties and discos, generally lead the high life YET be good enough to beat all three of them? BULL[unwrite]! That's like saying I could support a guy to play chess, have him practice and play and study chess all day, everyday for months while I run around chasing women and drinking wine, yet I can beat him at chess in three moves.

NUDITY AND SEX:  None, but Cynthia Rothrock has a nice rack!

HUH? : So what was Cynthia's master plan? She dresses like a whore goes to the club where Hauptmann is and starts a fight with his henchman. This ends up with her kung fu fighting a bunch of thugs, thugs that have never seen a karate flick because they don't just swarm her, but ultimately gets caught and Hauptmann rapes her. This is a plan? If she's been dreaming of killing Hauptmann for a year or so, why not come up with a better scheme then "go into a crowded disco and fight his goons"? Did she hope that Hauptmann would die from laughter at her bumbling idea?

Too add to the stupid plan thing, why didn't Hauptmann just kill her when he was done rodeo-[unwrite]ing her? For a master criminal that's pretty lame. Didn't it occur to him that this woman who obviously wants him dead might come back and try again...maybe with a better idea of how to kill him...and a damn good reason since he raped her.

The scene where the bad guys chase the motorcycling Kathy through the market was not just supposed to be in slow motion...the vehicles were probably only going at 15 MPH! You can tell because if they were going faster than that the fruit and stuff they hit would have shattered spectacularly or been thrown higher into the air.

THE TALLY: I can't really recommend this movie as even a mere time waster since it won't hold much of your attention. It was just there. Too bad, because I think that Cynthia Rothrock could have made some decent martial arts flicks if she was ever given a script that wasn't like vomit on toast.