Directed by: Tun Ying Pang
Starring: David Chiang, Jay Sefton, David Majuri, Yan Bing Zhang, Jacqueline Lee, and Joey Covington
When college student (?) Henry (Sefton) invites his friend
Bruce (Covington) to stay with him while in China, little did they know they
would be staying at a run-down orphanage/Tai Chi center run by the aging Master
Dragon (Chiang). While Dragon puts them through their paces during training
sequences, the guys find a budding romance with Lin Lin (Jacqueline Lee) and
Fay (Yan Bing Zhang). However, all is not right in the world of Tai Chi. Master
Dragon’s former rival is still bitter and angry about...well, their rivalry,
and organizes a fight to the finish with his crew of fighters, a bunch of
unscrupulous kickboxers led by Yuri (David Majuri). Will the power of Tai Chi
prevail?
A monument to the concept of broken English (that is, when
you can hear the muffled dialogue), Tai Chi warriors is a low-budget Martial
Arts film that looks far older than it really is. Maybe older film is cheaper
in Hong Kong, but even though the end credits state “October, 2004”
(interesting that they would put a month), it looks like it was filmed in the
early 90’s or perhaps even 80’s.
This is the type of DVD you might find in a gas station or
other place that sells dollar movies - and the only audio options are English
or Portuguese. Go figure. While it does go down a similar road we’ve all seen
before - a road traveled by American Shaolin: King of the Kickboxers 2 (1991),
among many others - here we’re treated to all the familiar low-budget pitfalls
as well: the aforementioned bad sound and picture quality, stilted
performances, slow moments, etc., but this time around it all feels very
childish. That particular vibe didn’t sit well with us, but there are a few
bright moments as well...
The scene of “no rules bowling” was a standout, as was the
bicycle fight, and there are some classically silly pretexts for fight scenes,
but it’s all mixed in with some wire-fu and needless Godfrey Ho-style jumping
around, plot-wise. Why a White college student in his early 20’s would be best friends
with a middle-aged Black gentleman was never explained, but it must go to show
that people were a lot less racist in the 80’s. I mean 90’s. Sorry, “2000’s”.
The whole outing is rather impenetrable and even Master Dragon’s mullet
couldn’t save it.
Normally we list misspellings in the credits when we find
them, but there are far too many this time around, so we’ll have to leave it to
your imagination as to which of the many words were spelled incorrectly. Or you
could watch the movie for yourself, but we wouldn’t necessarily recommend that.
Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty
2 comments:
Yikes. This sounds dreadful, duder.
Haha it really is a tough sit. But the bowling part is great. Haha
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