I have never seen a film with Cynthia before this one with the exception of the much newer Santa's Summer Home and she was pretty cute in that one, in this one she blew my mind with her cuteness. Her yells as she does her karate and kicks are even cute! If she were kicking my butt, I would also be falling in love. Unfortunately, she is paired with the not nearly as charismatic as his father, Chad McQueen and the film is not as good as it could be due to this and a few questionable decisions in terms of plot and such.
The plot has a guy who is an excellent martial arts cop whom they refer to as Martial Law! His brother though is a dumb dude who wants to work for David Carradine who is an evil dude who demonstrates his karate prowess by taking out the James Bond villain Oddjob! His brother actually does a good job for Carradine, but the problem is some crazy dude really wants to work for Carradine again despite the fact Carradine loathes him. So the younger brother ends up dead and Martial Law must be enacted along with his super cute girlfriend!
David Carradine is pretty good in this and does good as the bad guy. Too bad they could not come up with a better fight for him and Chad at the end because it was a letdown after all the buildup. I much preferred Cynthia's portion of the fight with the guy with the heavy British accent, mainly because I enjoyed watching her beat him up as much as I enjoyed watching that crazy guy who wanted a job finally being killed! Seriously, Carradine did not like you, what did you think he was going to do?
So it had some good action and watching Cynthia made my heart aflutter; however, the disappointing final contest between Chad and David plus David's lack of charisma dropped this film down a notch. There is a sequel to this and Chad is gone and I think Cynthia is the star so I will have to check that one out for sure! This one is not bad, bad and was entertaining, it just needed a bit of work.
Martial Law
1990
Action / Crime / Drama
Martial Law
1990
Action / Crime / Drama
Plot summary
When it comes to maximum law enforcement, only police officers Sean Thompson and Billie Blake can deliver the power of justice...with their bare hands. Sean and Billie's talents in karate as well as their knowledge of the criminal underworld will be put to the test when they find themselves on a collision course with Dalton Rhoades, a criminal mastermind who runs a cartel-for-hire business, using his dojo as a front for his illegal activities and recruiting new talent. In addition to being a career criminal, Rhodes is also a master at rare forms of kung fu and the last practitioner of the deadly 'dim-mak' (death touch) technique. When Sean's troublesome baby brother Michael falls in with Rhodes' crowd and becomes a victim of their murderous exploits, the police duo will be forced to take the law into their own hands as their fight with Rhodes and his criminal empire gets very personal.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
Director
Tech specs
720p.BLU 1080p.BLUMovie Reviews
Cynthia Rothrock is so cute!
Bog standard actioner
In terms of early '90s martial arts vehicles for Cynthia Rothrock, I really enjoyed CHINA O'BRIEN and its sequel, which were thoroughly entertaining and full of slick action. This film, not so much. It's saddled with the chubby and decidedly uncharismatic Chad McQueen as the lead, and the storyline and action just aren't interesting enough to get excited about.
The plot sees McQueen and Rothrock going up against a minor crime lord, played with overacting relish by David Carradine. Philip Tan is the Cockney-speaking henchman, and there's a hell of a lot of scenes of Rothrock kicking various goons in the head, but it's all underwhelmingly shot with below par choreography. I suppose if you're in a deeply forgiving mood then this sort of thing might just about pass muster, but it's not my cup of tea at all.
Disagreed
My teenage self who was watching these types of movies would disagree with me as stern as he could. While I hope he would not be tempted to rate it a 10 out of 10, I know he would indulge in it and rate it higher. And some say I'm being too nice with my ratings.
But back to this, which has Cynthia Rothrock and a guy I can't remember seeing in my youth, when I watched hordes of movies like this. He does have a short introduction at the beginning at it is a decent scene overall to be fair. Except that the stunts dated so badly, it hurts watching. Which is incredible if you think about it: you can actually see how the punches are way off target! But of course it was still enough to spawn a sequel, which is also not a bad thing in general