From the box: “Fighting Life is a remarkable film rejoicing the spirit of life. It is the dynamic tale of two brothers who overcome immense physical and emotional handicaps, and become vital members of society. The two stars of the film are both physically handicapped and truly prove that everyone can make it. Starring: All Star Kung Fu Cast.”

In reality, Fighting Life is a decent film rejoicing in the fact that they got the two stars of Crippled Masters together again for a couple hundred yen. It is the generic tale of two brothers who drive around in a specially built vehicle that looks like a combination of Fred Flintstone’s car and a Rube Goldberg contraption. The two stars of the film are both physically handicapped and truly prove that moviegoers can only take so much of the one guy’s Thalidomide flipper-nub flapping around before they get visibly ill. Starring: Two Guys I’d Be Hard-Pressed to Name, Other than “Dude with No Arms” and “Dude with Almost No Legs.”

Sometimes found retitled as Crippled Masters 3, this isn’t as good as the original Crippled Masters because — and I hate to say this — it’s not as exploitative. Instead of graphic scenes of blood and gore, you get elongated employment searches. If you’ve seen one kung-fu flick with Frankie Shum and Jack Conn — real-life guys who get all the best parking spaces — you’ve seen them all. —Rod Lott

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As expected, Jackie Chan is hardly in Jackie Chan’s Crime Force. But it doesn’t matter — the movie succeeds in being entertaining in its own plotless, over-the-top manner without him.

Known in some public-domain circles as Golden Queen’s Commando, it’s a crazy-Asian female version of The Dirty Dozen, minus five protagonists. The opening sequence introduces us to each of the felonious females, including the eyepatch-wearing Black Fox, the tattooed Amazon, the fright-wigged Black Cat, the pickpocketing Quick Silver, the whore Sugar, the pyrotechnic Dynamite and some alcoholic chick whose name I didn’t catch because the titles are poorly framed and cut off.

Upon her arrival in prison during World War II, Black Fox (Brigitte Lin of Chungking Express and Police Story) double-crosses each of the girls so they’ll all end up in the hole together. There she hatches an escape plan, and while it does gets the movie rolling, it denies us the usual women-in-prison clichés to which American renters are so pruriently accustomed (subbing a ballet-like basketball game and Keystone Kops-esque food fight instead).

Once they flee on horseback, Black Fox reveals they’ve been recruited to help her infiltrate an evil warlord’s chemical weapons plant. In a booby-trapped forest, they encounter the usual dangers — nets, spikes, sword-wielding skeletons — and are soon captured, but are allowed to go free when they beat their enemies at their own games — namely archery, blindfolded balloon shooting and noodle-eating.

Following a brief interlude in haunted woods, the girls finally arrive at the cat-stroking warlord’s Enter the Dragon-ish secret cave lair. Said warlord is portrayed for all of about two minutes by Chan. This is the best part, however, because the chicks shoot a lot of minions and do flips. You get all this plus severed limbs, a rat pierced with a chopstick and a fat guy named, well, Fatty. Arguably it’s the silliest thing Chan’s ever done outside of Fantasy Mission Force, yet still a better career move than The Medallion. —Rod Lott

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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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