One-Percent Warrior — you just know Warren Buffett favors that nickname in krav maga class at the club — isn’t your ordinary martial-arts movie. It’s meta meta meta. And fortunately in a fun way. 

Played by Tak Sakaguchi, Toshiro is a has-been action hero whose trademark of “assassination jitsu” has aged out of audiences’ favor. I don’t know why, because the guy’s so quick and agile, he literally can dodge bullets! 

Toshiro longs to make a “100% pure action film” — none of this choreographed, 15-takes bullshit. (This must be a nod to Sakaguchi and director Yudai Yamaguchi’s recent single-shot epic, Crazy Samurai: 400 vs. 1.) A decade after his last hit, Toshiro enlists his new apprentice, Akira (Kohei Fukuyama, TV’s Mob Psycho 100), to shoot his comeback vehicle Soderbergh-style (on a smartphone ), on an island housing nothing but an abandoned zinc factory.

Call it an ideal location for limb dislocation. Because at the same time, not one but two heavily armed yakuza gangs swarm the isle, thanks to a secret stash of 2 tons of cocaine.

The 20th (!) collaboration between Sakaguchi and Yamaguchi, One-Percent Warrior finds them moving away from the silliness of their past (Meatball Machine, Battlefield Baseball, et al.) and growing up. It’s for the better. Unable to rest on slapsticky laurels, Yamaguchi comes alive via frenetic camerawork, sweeping and surveying the action unfolding throughout the locale. 

It’s nice to see Sakaguchi do his thing free of gimmicky trappings or cartoon gore. A high point finds Toshiro in the dark, subduing his opponents with flying fists and a disorienting strobe flashlight, all scored to George Gershwin’s sublime Rhapsody in Blue.

Had this Japanese flick starred Jackie Chan (instead of name-dropping him) and came out post-Rumble in the Bronx, it would’ve killed at the box office. Instead, it’s set to stream on the little-seen and largely unheard-of Hi-YAH! channel. Give it and Sakaguchi a chance, because One-Percent Warrior has might and a mind. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Give Kick to Death: Death Kick this: It tells you upfront redundancy and ineptitude are afoot. What it doesn’t tell you: Prepare to see one man’s ego deep-tissue massaged as his apparent sexual fantasies are enacted. I speak of former St. Louis cop Michael Hartig, credited as the movie’s writer, main producer and lead actor. Considering this marks director William Patrick Crabtree’s lone IMDb entry, I wouldn’t be surprised if that were Hartig’s pseudonym.

Although he looks more like a toupée model or someone who must knock on doors to inform you he’s moved into the neighborhood, Hartig plays kickboxing attorney Adrian Lane, who’s pissed off too many clients: five, to be exact. So two of them, Robert (Chickboxer’s Jesse Bean) and Teal (Earnest Hart Jr., “Four Time World Kickboxing Champion” according to the opening credits), organize quite the revengefest by kidnapping Adrian — while what sounds like a rejected B-side to Alannah Myles’ “Black Velvet” cassingle warbles on the soundtrack — and tying him up in a federal safe house located in the back of a tile store. (Hardened criminals never purchase tile, right?)

All attractive women, the three other clients plunk down $50,000 apiece for a turn torturing Adrian with drills and spray-can flames before a hired fighter kicks his ass — to death, if we’re to believe that title. Instead, the ladies tease him with their nude bodies, which is an unusual play, but we’re in the Show-Me State, after all. With an oddly specific sexual kink repeated throughout like a spank-bank deposit committed to film, his narcissism makes that of attorney-at-law John De Hart — and his respective vanity project, GetEven — look tame. Death Kick plays like the Craftsman power tools catalog accidentally printed a rambling missive from Letters to Penthouse.

A choice exchange of dialogue between captor and captive as “Revenge time starts at 9”:

Robert: “I have a plan.”
Adrian: “The best laid plans of mice and men.”
Robert: “What? What? Shut up! Fuck the mice and fuck the men! You’re going down!”

Up first, a redhead (White Palace stripper K.C. Carr, reading her lines like a 45 record run at 33 1/3 speed) is so angry about losing custody, she unhooks her bra, straddles Adrian and says, “If I had spurs, we’d go for a ride.”

Sexier by a mile, a wealthy blonde (frickin’ gorgeous one-timer Corinne Malcom) in a purple leather suit walks in heels so slowly that she looks in fear of forgetting the foot order required for the act of walking. Upset because post-divorce, she no longer gets invited to the right parties, she and her sizable bust put on a “private fashion show.” In between changing four outfits, she wavers between complimenting Adrian’s “tight ass” and threatening, “I’m gonna eat from your eyes.”

Speaking of eyes, a literal tear is coaxed from Adrian’s by the exposed breasts of Matty (Deborah E. Loveless), whose Taco Tico wrapper-patterned blouse screams “PTA treasurer.” In between these teasing faux seductions, the aforementioned freelance tuffies force Adrian to:
• spar with a hired stickfighter in genie britches (Terry Cramer, “American Kumite and Kata Champion”)
• trade blows with a guy in an ill-fitting Everlast shirt (Michael Stocker, “North American Light Heavy Kickboxing Champion”)
• and nut-punch a sweaty, coked-up mullet man (Greg Oldham)

Are you not entertained? Because Robert also saws a board in half, then roars through gritted teeth, “JIGSAW PUZZLE, ANYONE?” At the end, everybody fights everybody else while Adrian’s noosed, presumably to give him time to go flaccid. Naturally he escapes and quips, “Whaddaya think — is it too late for med school?” Fade to the rest of your life.

The last two and half minutes of credits have no actual credits, because Hartig lets the song he paid good money for play out, by gum. Since Kick to Death: Death Kick kicked its way into, I dunno, maybe 14 or 15 VCRs nationwide, Hartig hasn’t appeared in front of a camera — a damn shame, especially if you’re sitting on a script for a John Astin biopic. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Also known as The Big Brawl, the not-set-at-Kellogg’s-HQ Battle Creek Brawl represents Jackie Chan’s first — and ill-fated — attempt to break into American cinema. Although it shows signs of his trademark humor and acrobatics, it’s not a fitting vehicle for his talents.

In 1930s Chicago, which looks every bit 1980, Chan’s Jerry Kwan protects his father’s restaurant from the neighborhood mob — a premise lifted wholesale from Bruce Lee’s Way of the Dragon. Scraping to get by, he and his sexy American girlfriend, Nancy (Kristine DeBell, Meatballs), enter anything-goes roller-rink contests to score quick, easy cash.

Liking what he sees, local goon Dominici (José Ferrer, Exo Man) kidnaps Nancy, forcing Jerry to participate in Texas’ annual Battle Creek free-for-all street fight — a “brawl,” if you will — in which he must punch and kick his way through a succession of burly men. This includes the ever-dreaded bald dude with a handlebar mustache and the fright-inducing, knee-quivering name of Kiss (H.B. Haggerty, Hollywood Vice Squad’s Tank).

Decent action sequences exist, from the aforementioned roller-skate madness (making for a crazy 10 minutes) to an early scuffle in which Jerry tries not to fight, but fails (trust me, that makes sense when you see it). Despite that, this Brawl doesn’t benefit from an utterly cheap look and color palette limited to every shade of brown. Can you believe director Robert Clouse is the same guy who gave us a martial arts all-timer in Enter the Dragon?

You sure can, if you’ve seen Clouse’s in-between work, like Force: Five, Golden Needles and/or The Ultimate Warrior. As Battle Creek Brawl stands — and wobbles — it’s a most minor entry on Chan’s filmography, yet not the all-out disaster its nil impact may have led you to believe. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

When we last left karate expert Masutatsu Oyama (Sonny Chiba) in Karate Bullfighter, he was ripping the horns off a charging bull. With such strong chopsocky powers, whaddaya do for an encore? Ladies and gentlemen, may we present the Toei Company’s immediate sequel, Karate Bearfighter.

From Wolf Guy director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi, it plays like two movies in one. In the first half, Oyama does little more than make a sake-and-meat soup, whore himself out for some freelance bodyguard work, ignore the woman who loves him and anger some karate students. But when some of his closest friends are killed, he’s thirsting for revenge.

Onto the second half, where Oyama befriends a little boy who steals his suitcase. The boy, Rintaro — Japanese for “runt,” I assume — lives with a boozehound father. As Oyama teaches the tot the skill of catching fish with one’s fists of fury, news arrives that Rintaro’s dad has been smashed by a falling tree, and without a costly operation, will die.

Someone agrees to pay for the operation, so long as Oyama can kill a bear with his bare hands — hence the title. (Try this tactic with the next spam call you receive: “Yes, I’ll sign up for your auto warranty service … if you slay a grizzly in return.”) Thus begins Karate Bearfighter’s best scene: Oyama battling to the death with a live bear. Or, as is painfully obvious even with the animal obscured by weeds and whanot, a guy in a bad bear suit.

Where does a Chiba movie go from there? Having him kill some dudes who come at him flinging chains and spears, that’s where. Oh, and poking a guy’s eyes out for dessert. —Rod Lott

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At the height of Jackie Chan’s U.S. box-office bonanza, he was set to star in an update of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, but with the little people swapped for shaolin monks. Two decades later, the project has yet to start — a shame, if not for the existence of Thrilling Bloody Sword. From Taiwan and Kung-Fu Commandos director Chang Hsin-Yi, the wild wuxia film already had beaten Chan to the fairy-tale punch.

On the cusp of giving birth, a queen’s womb is hit by a comet. With one yelp of pain, a slimy, pulsating oblong of meat pops out. Exercising a pro-life-until-birth policy, her highness’ royal subjects send the abomination down the river in a basket; within seconds, it’s found by the seven dwarves of Happy Forest. What to do with this mysterious “flesh ball”? Eat it raw and serve with a salad, obviously. Upon stabbing it, the dwarves are alarmed to find an infant girl inside. They name her Yaur-Gi, instead of Brunch.

Years later, when Yaur-Gi is grown-up (and played by Fong Fong-Fong), it’s mutual love at first sight for her and Prince Yur-Juhn (Lau Seung-Him). Unfortunately, timing is bad, because the kingdom is beset by monster invasions of the crazy kind, starting with a rampaging cyclops tearing up the multistoried rice and wine restaurant appearing in every martial arts period piece. Who can slay such monsters? Without so much as a résumé, “woman exorcist” Gi-Err (Elsa Yeung Wai-San) is hired to protect the palace, but her assistance is all a hoax to dethrone and usurp. That’s why she turns the prince into a bear, albeit one with a smashed face that resembles Bell’s palsy.

To cure her love, Yaur-Gi and the dwarves seal Prince Yur-Juhn in a wooden hot tub filled with herbs. (Every couple of minutes, a new rule like that comes spouted from the movie’s Tinkerbell equivalent.) After returning to his rightful flesh, the prince acquires a magic cloth and “thunder sword” to help him defeat not only Gi-Err herself, but all types of creatures. Thrilling Bloody Sword has no shortage in that department. If it’s not a nine-headed dragon, it’s a giant chattering teeth (just like the wind-up toy, if fanged) or quacking frog things (clearly people with rubber swim flippers on all fours). The thunder sword also works well for stabbing thy enemy in the anus and then lifting him up above one’s head.

By the time of the movie’s all-out monster mash, Yaur-Gi becomes next to incidental in the story department, ceding the spotlight to the prince. The dwarves fare no better, not that it matters much, as they’re barely treated as individuals. One is dressed like Baby Huey, while another is outfitted like Robin Hood, right down to the curlicue mustache. Still another sports a mohawk that leads into a scorpion-style tail and wears a necklace of bagels. If the Three Stooges hadn’t already made their own Snow White parody, Thrilling Bloody Sword’s dwarves could step into their slapsticky shoes.

From one fantastical scene to the next, using presumably every color in the visible spectrum, Thrilling Bloody Sword has a lot going on. If it looks like Hsin-Yi has stolen costumes from Dino De Laurentiis’ garage sale, it’s quite possible, given he’s pilfered unlicensed needle drops of The O’Jays’ “For the Love of Money,” TV’s Battlestar Galactica theme and Dave Grusin’s sappy Electric Horseman score. If little makes sense, that’s probably because there’s no room for it, what with all the flambéed demons, rotating heads, independent appendages, rooster puppetry and the awkwardly translated subtitle of “Let me imitate the voice of cock!” —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.