Honor & Glory

Like a lot of the martial arts movies of the early 90s,, this is terrible. Lol,, the rifftrax version makes it better though.

FBI agent Tracy Pride is on a mission to capture businessman Jason Slade, who is involved in extortion and murder. Teaming up with her is her sister Joyce, a news reporter; Dragon, Tracy's partner in Hong Kong, and Jake, a bodyguard who worked for Slade. Can they stop Slade before it's too late? ...

With Honor and Glory you get a simplistic plot, amateur acting, simplistic dialogue that has a hint of self-aware humour especially when it comes to the main villain, who is really over top, sprouts dialogues like "Do you know a nuclear trigger from a Bulgarian dildo? I don't." "I thought you lived by the law of the fist too Armstrong, but you're just a damn cherry!". Unfortunately, mediocrity is ripe in this Rothrock entry, and in addition to some quirky dialogue, some decent spin kicks and punches can keep this watchable.

Kung fu black belt TV reporter Joyce Pride (Donna Jason) and her equally tough FBI agent sister Tracy (Cynthia Rothrock) attempt to bring corrupt businessman Jason Slade (John Miller) to justice with help from his former bodyguard Jake Armstrong (Chuck Jeffreys), Hong Kong cop Dragon Lee (Robin Shou) and martial arts student Mickey (Yip Yim Hing).

Honour and Glory features an awesome line-up of bona fide martial arts stars (Rothrock, Shou, Miller, Jeffreys) but very little in the way of genuine acting talent; normally, this doesn't bother me too much, just so long as the action comes thick and fast, but with less than impressive fight scenes (largely thanks to the typically lousy direction from king of crap ninja flicks Godfrey Ho) and a plot that is all over the place (another Ho trademark), the film proves very disappointing indeed.

Admittedly, a certain degree of fun can be gleaned from the sheer naffness of the whole affair—OTT villain Slade and his henchman Hideo (Richard Yuen) are hard to take seriously, and further giggles can be had from Jake Armstrong's hideous fashion sense—but for the most part this is forgettable nonsense and an unforgivable waste of its stars' formidable fighting skills.

(I can't decide if I'd want a universe in which seemingly everyone (even random, angry hecklers) knows martial arts or if that would be awful. I guess it couldn't be any worse than what we have now, so why not?)

It's easy entertainment that you don't have to pay much attention to during chores. And, really, that's the best thing I can say about it, aside from appreciating it having a diverse cast. The actor playing the villain is laughably bad, but props to the attempt, anyway. It's definitely not good, but at least it's inoffensively entertaining in that you don't feel insulted by its badness but can instead have a chuckle and go on about your business and likely never think of this film again.

HONOUR AND GLORY is a feather in the cap of Hong Kong director Godfrey Ho, the man best known for his cut and paste ninja movies of the 1980s. Before and after those films, however, he had quite a career making low budget action features, and those of the early '90s have aged quite well. These are classic examples of so-bad-it's-good cinema, with elaborately staged fight scenes and plenty of jaw-dropping overacting.

This film's no exception. Ho shot the film in America with an American cast and the plot is simplistic stuff about various characters teaming up to fight back against a crime overlord. Headlining the cast is Cynthia Rothrock, who doesn't get too much screen time but is more than adequate when she does show up. The little-known Donna Jason plays Rothrock's sister, a roving reporter who also knows a thing or two about martial arts.

The best thing about this film is the human he-man John Miller as the villain of the piece. He goes way over the top in the acting stakes and is completely hilarious as a result. You may or may not remember him as Rothrock's cop partner in the even funnier UNDEFEATABLE. Miller is surrounded by bodyguards and spends the whole film beating on people. The fights are slow and quite awkward but like the cinema of Amir Shervan, HONOUR AND GLORY is too much of a treat for bad film lovers to dislike.