Shadow of the Dragon

In the beginning of the story, it reminds me about the movie Karate Kid, because of Pat Morita. He died so soon in the movie. There are lots of scene that are not so convincing. In times that Madsen, the bounty hunter, was already down and helpless, Takero, who has the opportunity to kill the man who killed his creator, just walked away. Anyway, Takero's reluctant to kill Madsen is one of the factor that lead them to battle Kismet. 7/10

Why did I rent this, you ask? I was hoping for a new martial arts hero. Boy, was I wrong! There are not enough words in the great American thesaurus for me to describe how dreadful this was. Acting was worse than a pornographic film and the action was lame. I suffered through the 90 minute, straight-to-video release and almost threw the disc out my window! Guess I'll be sticking to Chan & Li for the time being.

In the near future, a vengeful scientist, Dr. Oh (Noriyuki "Pat" Morita) sics a ninja clone (Masakatsu Funaki) on his former associates. Panicking, they obtain the services of a sullen killer for hire (Sam Bottoms) to go after the ninja. But our supposed antagonist is actually struggling against the compulsion to kill since it is something he's been conditioned to do, and not something he truly wants to do. The ninja falls in love with a sweet-natured hooker (C.G. Walker), ultimately teaming up with the hitman to exact some old-fashioned justice.

For a routine B movie with a rather familiar storyline, "Shadow Fury" entertains adequately. Certainly, if you're a fan of mixed martial artist Funaki, you may be amused; his performance is stiff, but it does seem to suit the role. He gets the most to do with his character, which adds some weight since he is living that old science-fiction trope of an automaton discovering or strengthening their humanity. For MMA fans, it will be nice to see Funaki square off against his peer Bas Rutten, although the latter only comes in near the end. Morita, a.k.a. "Mr. Miyagi", does look like he's having some fun playing a cliched role, even sporting cliched mad-scientist hair.

A lot of the writing and acting is pretty cheesy. Still, it's fun to watch Allan Kolman do his thing as the villainous Dr. Hillier. You may recognize him from another creepy role as a parasite victim in David Cronenberg's "Shivers". Fans of Taylor Lautner (from the "Twilight" series) will note that the actor (nine years old at the time) plays the youngest incarnation of the Rutten character, who matures at a very rapid pace. Fred "The Hammer" Williamson is kind of wasted as a bar owner who doubles as a weapons dealer.

The action scenes are decent enough. "Shadow Fury" won't knock anybody's socks off, but it holds the attention. There's also a fair amount of gore, a bunch of explosions, the sexily dressed Walker, and a reasonable amount of poignancy to make this an okay viewing.

Six out of 10.

I gave this movie a chance. At times I was entertained but at other moments all I could think was "What were they thinking?". I really liked Masakatsu Funaki. He reminds me of Sho Kosugi, my idol in the 80s. OK so Funaki is a lot more buff than Sho ever was. This is the first film I've seen him in. According to his profile he's a pro wrestler in Japan. I hope he makes more movies in the U.S..

The story made little sense. At times I was ready to fall asleep. The only thing that saved it for me was the kickass action, care of Funaki. I would be awesome to see him do some cool modern day ninja flicks. For a buff guy he can move pretty quick. Another kickass person in this flick is young Taylor Lautner. This little guy only has one scene but wow I was impressed,and I've been in martial arts for 25 years. Back to the sucky story. At one point the heroes have to fight these mutants,but they look and act like zombies. What's that all about? The Bottoms character is suppose to be dying and needs a liver. By the end of this movie I wanted him to just die already. Like I said. The action is the only thing that made it worth watching. If your not a martial arts fan, you may not like it.

While Japanese filmmakers seem to be losing their penchant for stiff atmospheres in movies, as this film suggests, there's still a lot of work to be done - at least for these particular Japanese filmmakers! Now, the stunt and fight scenes *are* spectacular, with ingenious use of wirework showing amazing stuff that even CGI can't do. However, the screenplay is unbelievably bad, even by comic book movie standards. We have characters who are just a step removed from real cartoon characters (check Morita's wild-haired and chortling scientist character!), sometimes spouting incredibly moronic dialogue. The story is a slow-moving, often illogical mess with some dumb plotting - like how Bottoms' character is told to track down one character, and the next scene has found him - with *no* explanation as to how he found him! Bottoms, by the way, is a real poor choice for an aging mercenary character, unconvincing even when simply shooting a gun. It doesn't help that his character is completely unlikable, even though he's the lead. Williamson is a welcome presence, though like Morita, he's only in the movie for five minutes! Had he been cast in the lead, playing his often-used Jesse Crowder character, without doubt it would have been easier to sit through.