Quick! What was the first martial-arts movie to unspool across American cinemas? Five Fingers of Death? Fists of Fury? Nope! ‘Twas the no-budget, black-and-white oddity Karate: The Hand of Death.

In it, a Yank named Matthew (Joel Holt) is vacationing in Japan when he mysteriously comes into possession of a coin owned by a former Nazi who was murdered via karate chop the previous night. Because said coin contains hidden secrets surrounding the dead man’s fortune, bad guys come out of the woodwork to prey on Matthew; the one pestering him the most is Ivan Mayberry, a near-7-feet tall homosexual who talks like Mr. Belvedere and smokes all of Matthew’s cigarettes.

Luckily, Matt is skilled in the fine art of karate — black-belt style! Or so says the script. He’s got scars on his knuckles and we see him break a couple of boards, but he doesn’t hit much beyond a teapot, which he assaults in a rage in his hotel room, hilariously. He also stops a taxi cab in its tracks and kills a man simply with a bale of hay, but I don’t think you need a black belt to do that. When Matt fully busts out his kung fu in the to-the-death finale, it’s still so stilted and awkward, it’s like watching Ward Cleaver.

The film’s middle is an extended lesson in the sport of karate, during which Ivan won’t stop asking annoying questions (“Why do those chappies have their fingers extended like this?”). Karate sure doesn’t work as a straightforward action film, because it’s largely in a state of inertia, but it works well as a comedy. —Rod Lott

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And now for a title that tells you everything you need to know: There’s an alien. There’s ninja. They fight.

And now for everything you need to know: It blows.

It shouldn’t, because that’s one of those seemingly can’t-miss concepts, but leave it to Japan to drop the ball. It takes no time at all for the meteor bringing the titular alien to fall from space, but an agonizing 15 or 20 minutes or so for the alien to appear, and then an even more agonizing hour for the whole thing to end. The best part about the movie may be the first credit that greets you at the conclusion, telling us that Alien vs. Ninja was brought to us by Sushi Typhoon, whatever that is. All I know is that it was over, thank Buddha.

But to address what comes before: The alien does look a little H.G. Giger-esque, although it’s clearly just a guy in a rubber suit. They took no effort to slime it up, but did craft its head to make it resemble the creature from the real Alien franchise, if affected with Down syndrome, and given an alligator mouth and noggin holes from which its fetuses emerge. Its real selling point is that from its body bursts what I’m assuming is an elongated penis, which splits and, this being Asian, turns into tentacles.

Being shot on HD, it at times resembles a fan-made Mortal Kombat sequel, but with more wire work than the busiest of orthodontists’ offices. Is something like this really in need of broad comedy, like a feminine fat man or a ninja acting like a doofus that’s very nearly on the slapstick level of The Three Stooges? The likes of Infra-Man had scads more imagination at a fraction of the budget. —Rod Lott

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When 9 Deaths of the Ninja hit theaters, I was 14 and, thus, too young to get in. I was visiting family in Kansas City, Mo., at the time, so while my cousin went to this, my younger brother and I made do with F/X elsewhere in the multiplex. Afterward, we asked how Ninja was, and all he could talk about was seeing this woman have her bikini ripped off underwater. He was a horny virgin at the time.

Now that I’ve seen it, the nudity is about the last thing I would impart to others, because this Philippines-lensed Crown International affair is among the decade’s hokiest action spectacles. Good ol’ Shô Kosugi plays Spike Shinobi, the strong, silent type of ninja. The James Bond-style credits sequence depicts a shirtless Kosugi slinging his sword as three ’80s skank hussies do interpretive dance around him and a cloud of dry ice.

Anyway, a tour group to Volcano Island is taken hostage by nondescript bad guys doing the bidding of the aptly named Alby the Cruel (Blackie Dammett), who’s confined to a wheelchair, wears fingerless gloves and strokes his pet monkey. His hostages — “such a pitiful group!” — include a Congressman, a girl on heart meds, and Kosugi’s two real-life sons, one of whom lights a would-be rapists’ ass on fire.

With the help of two American agents, Spike tosses his stars to take down all the villains, including the Amazonian woman named Honey Hump (Regina Richardson). There are a lot of whores in this movie, too (“My girls are sanitized, sterilized and lobotomized,” promises one madam), but no sex. Spoiler alert: In the last scene, Alby is thrown from his wheelchair, only to be trampled by horses during a polo match, then everyone enjoys lollipops. —Rod Lott

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Positioned as a sequel – but bearing absolutely no relation – to Jet Li’s hugely enjoyable Die Hard knockoff Meltdown, the Hong Kong actioner Another Meltdown (formerly known as The Black Sheep Affair) stars Man Cheuk Chiu as Officer Dong (couldn’t they have changed that in dubbing?), a cop reassigned to the USSR after infiltrating an airplane hostage situation.

Upon arrival in Russia, he goes head to head and toe to toe with a Japanese terrorist who offs some Interpol agents at the subway station. Eventually, the bad guy kidnaps Dong’s saintly girlfriend (Shu Qi from The Transporter).

There are some good action scenes – particularly the ones that rely more on martial arts than guns, or the vehicular assault that rips off Clear and Present Danger – but the story gets too bogged down in politics, a move that also marred the then-recent Korean film Shiri.

Plus, unlike Qi, it looks really ugly. —Rod Lott

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Taoism Drunkard — one in a short line of magic-themed wirefests from Yuen Woo Ping’s clan — has been called one of the wildest martial-arts movies ever made. And for good reason: It is!

There are bad guys who put their enemies on a boiling-hot slide, a guy who has spikes pop out of his elbows and kneecaps, an old alcoholic who drives around haphazardly in a buck-toothed car, a ruler looking for young boys to pleasure him, a rotund woman who looks to be Asia’s Wendie Jo Sperber with hair drawn up in Shrek ears, gratuitous breakdancing, poison that turns women wrinkly and haggard and, perhaps most famously, an enormous Pac-Man-like bowling ball thing — aka “the Watermelon Monster” — with very sharp teeth who likes to pop out of a box and fight people.

If you’re scratching your head and thinking, “How does all that come together?,” you’ve hit upon Taoism Drunkard’s major flaw: There is no story to it, making it a bit long in the tooth. It makes the Yuens’ similar (and highly recommended) Shaolin Drunkard look positively lucid. Still, it’s nuts-ass-crazy with a lot of anything-goes inventiveness (and not just in the fight scenes), and that has to count for something.

Plus, lotsa mistranslated subtitles!
• “Astronomic bastard, you have no conscience.”
• “With you know what is swollen face & nose.”
• “Want me to rub the arse again.”
• “Let me relax tonight and sleep on your bosom… very afraid of the wake up time.”
• “Remember, I want cherry boys.”
• “I give my face & mouth a wash & to urinate.”
• “Damn it, banana addict again.”
• “Perversive old man, goes back.”
• “They are her bastards? Does it really give birth to them.”
• “I want my virgin chicken.”
• “I am fallen down to death.”
• “Saliva, nose mucus, I am give you 20% discount more.”
• “Don’t beat, don’t beat, I am Mountain Dog.”
• “Don’t hurry, I am using abdominal language to joke with you.”
• “That’s why I need to have a permanent rice coupon.” —Rod Lott

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