Tiger der Todesarena

Version: English dub

I always thought Wei Lo made bad movies. He has such a reputation, and having only ever seen some of his later movies, I had concluded that this reputation was justified. I shall admit now that I was wrong, so very wrong. Watch 'Killer Meteors' and choke on your words, as you discover Wei Lo's directorial brilliance.

Sure, this just another cheap release by Siren, keen on taking any movies that feature an early Jackie Chan (before he was even famous in Hong Kong) and cashing in on his now famous name. Before I would have called Siren "greedy bastards", but I just had a thought: Maybe someone at Siren realized that if they released and advertised it as starring Jimmy Wang Yu, few people would be bothered to view this fine piece of cinema. But! If they made it seem as if Jackie Chan was the star, then more people would have the pleasure of seeing the greatness that is 'Killer Meteors'.

Jimmy Wang Yu stars in this as the Killer Meteor, a fighter whose secret weapon - the killer meteor, obviously - makes him invincible. I don't recall his character ever having a real name, so I can only assume that his parents actually named him Killer Meteor, and he worked on it from there. Anyway, Killer Meteor generally spends most of his time sleeping on a rock, accepting gifts from various people for reasons that aren't explained very well. Or at all. Killer Meteor finds himself employed by the villainous Jackie Chan, who is dubbed as the "Immortal" Wa Wu Bin. Ironically, Wa Wu Bin is very sick and close to death, thanks to his wife, Lady Tempest. Wa Wu Bin needs Killer Meteor to retrieve the antidote from Lady Tempest's cave, but first, Killer Meteor needs to defeat her bodyguards: a man who throws needles with deadly accuracy; a dude with hands so magnetic, that he can use them to attract objects that aren't even magnetic; a human microwave; and a fighter so cunning, that we never actually see him being cunning.

I must say that 'Killer Meteors' is one of the most confusing movies I've ever seen. Be prepared for levels of confusion that 'The Matrix' and 'House of Flying Daggers' could only dream about. There are about a billion double-crosses, a few billion more 'twists' in the story, and many characters who seem important yet seem to disappear for most of the movie. Throw in the most hilarious dub ever, and 'Killer Meteors' shapes up to be one of the awesomest movies ever.

But where would it be without the kung-fu awesomeness? Granted, there is not as much kung-fu awesomeness as I expected there would be. It is pretty hard to find time to have characters beat each other up when they're all so busy explaining to each other why they are being double crossed. Something like that. The fights pretty much define 70s kung-fu movies: very bad dialog during the fight, some rather poor fight editing, and most importantly - THE KUNG FU SUPER POWERS! Oh yes, 'Killer Meteors' is filled with kung fu super powers, and is another of those movies where *everybody* knows kung fu. Awesome.

So when you watch 'Killer Meteors' - and I must insist that you do - I hope you come to the same conclusion I did, and apologize to Wei Lo for ever doubting him. 'Killer Meteors' is a cinematic masterpiece. Well, maybe not a technical masterpiece, but it is a fine example of cinematic awesomeness, and in the end, awesomeness is all that really matters. 'Killer Meteors' transcends a numbered rating system, for a number cannot describe the awesomeness and the entertainment value of this movie, and so it is awarded this simple rating: pure awesomeness.

Jimmy Wang's movie always seems to have interesting theme to it. This one features a new kind of weapon called killer meteor.

Killer Meteor (Jimmy Wang) is hired by Tiger (Jacky Chan) to steal an antidote for a poison, and kill Tiger's wife who put the poison in his soup. She has four expert kung fu men as body guards, and Meteor has the defeat them to get to her.

The movie is made by Lowe Wei's company. Lowe Wei is the director who directed Bruce Lee's "Chinese Connection", but reportedly didn't get along with Lee, because he was listening in to horse races during production. After the sensation of "Enter the Dragon", Hong Kong cinema had hard time living up to its own legacy of kung fu movie. New actors were working for Shaw Brothers, and they were producing good kung fu movies such as the "Flying Guillotines" and "Executioner from Shaolin". Lowe Wei's production was too derivative, and didn't have the freshness that Shaw Brothers movies had. But this movie is pretty good. There's surprise at each turn of the story. Meteor is set up to be the fall guy, but Tiger, and his wife doesn't know how good Meteor really is.

Solid old school kung fu movie that deserves a viewing.

It's not the best movie ever made, but I recommend this one for martial arts fans who watch their kung-fu for the fighting, and the characters, as I like to sometimes. There is this incredible heirarchy of experts, which gets more compelling as the movie goes on. From the three fighters in the beginning who are good enough to break rocks, to the best fighters in the world, we get a look at the whole gamut. Half of them seem to be better than any fighter from most other movies, and the other half amaze you with how much better than the rest of the people they are!

Most kung-fu movies have one or two really great fighters, and they end up fighting in the end. But this one has a dozen or so, and I really get excited when I think about just how bad these guys are.

Director Lo Wei should have spent more time asleep in his director chair or at the race track instead of actually directing this movie. I tried to watch this for the third time and still can't keep my finger off the fast forward button. I had to wait at least 20 minutes for the first fight and it was between Jackie Chan and Jimmy Wang Yu. It was craptacular. By about an hour I totally gave up on fight expectations and slowed down for some eye candy but even the lovely ladies failed to hold my attention. Jimmy's career as an action lead had not totally crashed and burned, he had a few moments in films in 1977, but this movie was certainly where it ended for him. Jackie, once he totally escaped from Lo Wei's clutches, managed to recover. I cannot recommend this for even the most hard core fan as I myself am a hard core fan and I still have not watched the movie to completion after three attempts.

Not a Jacky Chan film by any stretch of the imagination. The movie had potential with the typical setup of the bad guys and the hero on a mission. It just got so out of hand with the twists and turns and the need to explain them all verbally. Some Kung Fu was present. Some pretty actresses were also in the movie. It's watchable but don't expect a Jacky Chan starring role type film. I'd watch it again, if only to sort out the plot twists.