Kill Fighter

Coweb is probably short for Combat Web. The idea of the film is that a female bodyguard has her boss kidnapped by a gang who run an underground fighting web-site. In order to rescue her boss, the bodyguard must fight her way through the gang's martial artists - all while her fights are being secretly taped, streamed over the web and bet on.

The film aspires to be the kung fu version of The Truman Show, even name-checking that film and it is a neat idea, but horribly executed. The only reason to see this film is its star, Jiang Lu Xia. Coweb's reality web story probably owes something to Jiang who was discovered doing stunts and karate on online videos before becoming a part of Jackie Chan's reality TV series The Disciple.

Jiang has her limits. If she has a sense of humour, it is impossible to detect - at least in this film. She only has three gears to her acting and fighting, neutral, annoyed and REALLY angry.

Despite these limits, wind her up and she is a whirling ball of action fury, impossible to ignore. She manages to combine Jackie Chan's athleticism and ability to squeeze over and through obstacles with Bruce Lee's unstoppable fury. Of course, both Jackie and Btuce had other gears. Jiang just has the one and this may limit her career, but in full fury she is something to see.

Jiang is about five foot nothing, but it seems like she has six feet worth of legs. She has an astonishing ability to turn her legs into a multi-jointed weapon like a living three-sectioned staff allowing her to hit opponents with full force from the most impossible angles. She also has some interesting submission moves to add to her acrobatics and kicking.

But her most impressive quality is her sheer confidence, best demonstrated in a sequence where she has to cross a bridge and a horde of enemy bad guys pour onto the bridge to stop her. For the audience, there is a moment of doubt and then in a flash you realize that Jiang isn't outnumbered thirty to one, the bad guys are outnumbered one to thirty.

It's not like any movie martial artist loses that fight, but few would do what Jiang does ("You just put your head down and charge like a bull," one of her other opponents marvels later.) and fewer still would be as believable while doing it. Jiang Lu Xia is something to see, her film Coweb, not so much.

"Ninja Masters"? This title was so off that it was painful to bear witness to. There were no ninjas in this movie whatsoever. This title was so misleading and poorly chosen that it was bad on so many levels. A movie title like "The Game" would have been much more in tune with the movie.

The story in "Ninja Masters" is about Nie Yi Yi (played by Luxia Jiang) who goes to Hong Kong with her childhood sweetheart Chung Tin (played by Sam Lee), where she is to work as a bodyguard. But when the ones she is meant to protect are abducted, Nie Yi Yi finds herself in a cruel game of arranged fights for money.

Storywise, then "Ninja Masters" was rubbish. The storyline was so simple that you could keep up with it even with your eyes closed. It was predictable to every step and aspect, and the story is something that has been seen before in many other movies. Not impressive, not great.

However, what managed to keep this movie afloat was the fight scenes. Luxia Jiang is definitely one to keep an eye out for, because she really impressed with her athletics and martial arts in this movie. Sure, the fight scenes tended to drag on too long and take up too much time, and let's face it, no one can sustain such beatings as they did in the movie and still be standing. But still, it was action-packed and full of good moves.

Personally, I think Sam Lee was rather poorly cast for this movie, because his usual pseudo-comedy styled acting was really misplaced in this movie, and it just brought a level of immaturity to the movie that it could have done well without. I am not saying that Sam Lee is a bad actor, as he is fun to watch in Hong Kong comedies, but not in a martial arts movie like this.

And why do movie companies in 2009 still opt to release movies with an English dubbed feature? Seriously, try checking out the dubbed version. It is without a doubt the worst dubbing job I have witnessed. Not only was it done without any heart, soul or interest in the movie at all, but it also sounded like it was done by two or three people sitting around at home with a cassette recorder. It was just awful. Movies are meant to be watched and experienced in the language they are filmed, produced and released. Dubbing is so 1980's!

"Ninja Masters" was far from impressive. And the extended fight scenes couldn't salvage this train wreck of a movie. If you enjoy Asian martial arts movies, then there are far better ones available. The only reason I could think of for anyone to watch this, it would be for the showcasing of Luxia Jiang's skills.

The 4 out of 10 stars rating I am giving "Ninja Masters" is solely because of Luxia Jiang's martial arts performance, and because this is a Hong Kong movie.

This film is pathetic.

The actors are clearly skilled martial artists but not skilled actors.

The plot is stupid, it makes no sense and then the 'twist' at the end to try and make it makes sense is so forced and idiotic that it makes you wonder why they bothered.

The martial arts scenes are endless and dull, they have nothing original to offer and are unconvincing in the extreme, I actually switched the film off after the appearance of the 'hip-hop' fighters, I only returned to watch it again because I figured it couldn't get worse than that and it doesn't but unfortunately it doesn't get better either.

There is no plot, the direction is bad, the acting is non-existent and the fights are long, unrealistic and boring. This is like the films they made in the seventies in the US when martial arts were new and trendy, it's amazing that someone would make it now.

Although a fairly OK martial arts movie I believe there may have been a marketing flaw with this movie. The poster to the movie shows a "Ninja". Set in the background are old / classic style structures. With the tag line of "They are the perfect weapon" When watching the movie however it is set in the modern day. There is no "They" only one main protagonist fighter. No ninjas to speak off.

The movie as I say is OK on its own merits as a Hong Kong style martial arts movie but due to some error along the line the wrong poster was attached to it.

The action seems solid enough to hold your attention with a pretty good female lead. Which in movies like these, are always trying to show / prove that they can be as strong as their male counterparts. In doing so the female characters becomes arrogant the same way, but more a fault of the writing.

No titillation here if that is what you are looking for as seen in many of the other action style movies with female leads, dressed in skimpy revealing clothing. Cheap tricks designed to distract you.

I believe this movie was made mainly as a response to 2008's Chocolate. Still worth checking out in any case. A few of the fight scenes especially the one vs one fights do last a little longer than I would like, to show the skills of the cast maybe? As it is not based on the fantasy setup. No wire-work or anything like that, so actions and stunts done under their own steam.

If you are looking for a movie with Ninjas: This movie has not even remotely to do with anything Ninja. The cover and the title are purely a marketing lie, there are non Ninjas in it.

Story: Lame, but if you like martial arts movies you, like me, probably don't always expect a witty story.

Martials arts action: Like another reviewer wrote, the editing is bad. But it's not the kind of super-fast editing that covers up completely lame fight choreography, it just feels amateurish. Here and there the choreography lacks a bit of diversity but it is definitely above average. There is some wire work but for my taste it wasn't overdone. And Luxia Jiang got some fine moves.

Bottom line: If you love martial arts movies and don't need outstanding acting and a good story, go for it if you can rent it for a buck or if all the good movies are already rented out.