Never The Dragon Shall Meet

 

 (imdb)

NINJA DRAGON-1986-In Hong Kong, a businessman (Richard Harrison) seeks revenge on a group that killed his partner. Meanwhile two gangs are involved in a turf war. As usual with director Godfrey Ho, this movie has two story lines that never intersect. After the tragic ending of one story, the master ninja fights the red ninja (Paulo Tochi) to the death. Star Harrison played the same character in several other Ho paste up jobs.

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Ho!

 

 (imdb)

POWER FORCE-1991-In Bangkok, Benny is fighting with help from the CIA while rebels stage an uprising with lots of machine guns and hand grenades. I admit I didn't really understand what was going on most of the time but this movie was directed by Godfrey Ho (using the pseudonym Charles Lee) so it seems like this was a movie made by someone else with Ho adding unrelated scenes of his own.

That's a weird poster too!

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Battle of the Century...Would you Believe the Week?

 

 (videospace)

ZOMBIE VS NINJA-1989-Korean kung fu movie turned into a comedy by Charles Lee aka Godfrey Ho. Part of the original story has to do with a bad guy named Titus who runs a village where a young man works with a stupid undertaker. Ho regular Pierre Kirby (in his second to last role) shows up occasionally as a brightly clad ninja in added footage.

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Robo-Ho

 

 (imdb)

 

ROBO VAMPIRE-1988-This crazy paste up job of a movie seems to concern a gang's search for a cache of drugs plus hopping vampires controlled by a monk. A group of mercenaries goes into the jungle to rescue a kidnapped narcotics agent. 

Meanwhile a "Robo-Cop" type fighter (Harry Miles) roams around killing bad guys. The whole thing is a confused mess with Robo-Clone battling a monstrous hopping vampire in the too long finale. 

This Hong Kong production was of course directed and written by “the king of chaotic movies” Godfrey Ho. Some sources say it also uses footage from another movie (not an uncommon move by Ho).

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Rothrock

HONOR AND GLORY-1993-Tracy (Cynthia Rothrock), an FBI agent leaves Hong Kong for Washington DC to investigate something about a Soviet warhead detonator. Her sister Joyce (Donna Jason)) beats up a black woman in a parking lot. They both practice martial arts. Most of this badly directed and acted martial arts crime drama is Joyce investigating corrupt banking CEO Jason Slade (John Miler) who calls Ronald Reagan an "old bastard". Eventually Tracy gets involved and gets help from (the unfortunately named) Asian FBI agent Dragon Lee (Robin Shou later in MORTAL KOMBAT) when it turns out Slade has the warhead.

 The whole thing is very disjointed. It almost seems like two movies edited together but it was directed by Godfrey Ho the master of the Kung-Fu paste-up job so that could explain a lot! It even takes time to deviate from the time story to focus on Hideo (Richard Yuen), Slade's disillusioned bodyguard. It also features phony shieks and one actor waits for his cue. Like a lot of Shaw Bros. films at the end four good guys fight the main bad guy.

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Bad Movie Ho!

ANGEL'S MISSION (aka BORN TO BE BAD)-1990-A policewoman Cynthia (Yukaro Oshima/Cynthia Luster) goes to Hong Kong to visit her mother who's boss is a gang leader. It's very anti-Japanese  and a guy gives a ranting speech about how all kidnapped women (from Japan) must be checked for AIDS. Later Cynthia is recruited by the local authorities to smash the crime ring which her mother is connected to. This is another incoherent martial arts bundle of ineptitude by Godfrey Ho (MANHATTAN CHASE). Some of the fights are very well done though.

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Inept Action

MANHATTAN CHASE-2000-A hit man named Jason (Loren Avedon) is busted in NYC by Nancy (Cynthia Rothrock), a tough female cop. After spending only 6 years in jail he gets out and wants to live a normal life with his young son. Meanwhile Jason's ex-boss searches for a stolen drug cache. He wipes out a family who's stupid abusive father may have been responsible but his step-daughter escapes and runs smack into Jason. His ex-wife shows up too and as it goes is also Nancy's sister. 

This movie is badly acted and directed and the fights pretty ineptly staged except when Nancy kicks ass which is about the only highlight unless you count the fact that many scenes were shot in NYC and the outer boroughs. A bad movie was shot in my hood!!! 

This was the last film by the incompetent Godfrey Ho (using the alias Godfrey Hall; he's used other names too) who also directed Rothrock in HONOR AND GLORY.

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Ultra Crap

ULTRA-COP 2000-1995-This crazy comedy/fantasy/action film from the Philippines is very hard to follow! A special police team tries to infiltrate a gang called the Black Dragons. Meanwhile 2 Martians (?) have a couple of sword fights. Two cops one male (Ricky Davao) one female (Yukari Oshima aka  Cynthia Luster) search for a drug dealer named Wong. In a very weird comical scene a suicidal gay guy comes on to one of the Martians. He later explains his story to the duo but the male cop says "Maybe he was just the same like you, a queer!". The Martians seem to be sucking the life force from helpless Earthlings. There's several gun battles and a car chase (with explosions) but the movie really descents into stupidity with jokes about the gay character they are trying to protect. The two Martians later fight it out in an airline hangar while the police shoot it out with the drug dealers.

Fortunately it all seems to be a dream. Some movies are based/inspired/ripped off from other movies ULTRA-COP 2000's only inspiration is stupidity. The direction, dubbing and fights are terrible. Director Phillip Ho may have once been married to lead actress Oshima.

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Hong Kong

DRAGON ON FIRE (THE DRAGON, THE HERO)-1979-Wow! I was so confused by this typical old school '70's martial arts movie made in Hong Kong. There were a lot of characters and they all fought each other in various styles. I think it had to do with two fighters who become enemies. One fighter is actually a spy sent to infiltrate a smuggling ring. There's a pasty faced Asian bad guy Tang (Tino Wong) and a non-Asian villain (Jim Jones) too.  Dragon Lee/Bruce Lei is in it imitating his hero. Mostly it's fights and fighters laughing. Much of the dubbed voices are ridiculous even for a Kung Fu movie! A very dark scene of a guy eating food and fondling a woman and an attempted rape where the rapist is castrated by a dog (!) seem to be from another movie. This shouldn't come as a surprise since DRAGON was directed by Godfrey Ho (MANHATTAN CHASE), a prolific B-director known for his "paste up" jobs (the Al Adamson of Hong Kong?). The finale goes on for ever where in one of the fights the pasty face guy turns into some kind of zombie (with green skin and blue hair) and fights Lei. Occasionally the music lapses into a cover of the SHAFT theme! Most reviews say Bolo Yeung has a cameo but I think it was cut out of the version I saw.



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