I’ve never seen anything quite like Game of Death II, in which the late Bruce Lee unwittingly reprises his role as Billy Lo from the misbegotten Game of Death. Like that 1978 turd, this is a Bruceploitation film, utilizing as much Bruce stock footage as they can get away with, and creating an illusion that he’s the star by shooting a double from the back, from the side or obscured by household items. But whereas that film was a chore to sit through, this hack job is a hoot.

If there’s a story to it, I sure didn’t catch it, but Billy fights his way through several colorful opponents before tragically dying at the film’s midpoint when he falls from a helicopter. For the second half, his brother, Bobby (Tong Lung), enters and becomes the main character, seeking revenge for Billy’s death.

That’s when things get crazy. Like my favorite scene, when Billy is sucking face with a fully naked skank. She tries to kill him, the lights go out, and a lion (obviously a guy in a suit) bursts through the wall and chases them around the room. Read that sentence again and let it sink in. I also dug the finale, which takes place in the underground “tower of death,” a high-tech, booby-trapped, spy-type lair that suggests the film is a cut-rate Enter the Dragon impostor. There Bobby takes on several henchmen and a guy in a Tarzan suit, just because.

Although the film itself is pretty funny (not on purpose), the martial arts on display in Game of Death II are pretty serious stuff, courtesy of fight choreographer Yuen Woo Ping, of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; The Matrix; Kill Bill and just about everything else that rules. —Rod Lott

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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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