Las garras del tigre

Cynthia Rothrock and Jalal Merhi are New York city undercover cops. There are mysterious killing of martial artist in the city. Jalal correctly identifies the style as Tiger Claws who only three martial artists in the country are capable of using. Rothrock, and Jalal gets on the trail of the culprit who turns out to be none other than bad guy played by Bolo Yuen.

This is one of the best American made Cynthia Rothrock movie. It was good move on the producer's part to hire Bolo Yuen as the bad guy. He brought menacing personality that's usually lacking in movies of this type.

Cynthia Rothrock is not known for her range of acting, and it's hard to make an interesting story around her character. In this movie Jalal and Bolo creates enough contrast to be of passable quality.

Out of all the American made Cynthia Rothrock movies, this one is my favorite. It doesn't have much in the way of contents, but the action is pretty good. Choice of locations shot were better than usual, but I wished the producers put in more class into the movie as it were in Rothrock's Hong Kong made movies.

The police does not know what to do. They have to deal with a serial killer who aims at martial arts masters. One after another is killed in the same brutal way. This may be a chance for detective Linda Masterson (Cynthia Rothrock) to work on her first murder case. She gets the job and to her side an other martial arts specialist, Sgt. Tarek Richards(Jalal Merhi). Now they need to find a tiger style master, because the killer obviously uses tiger style kung fu. Not a simple task, since tiger is a very ancient and rare style. ...Tiger Claws.

You can tell that Cynthia Rothrock and Jalal merhi aren't actors first, but martial artists first who turned to acting. Their acting can be amateurish, especially Jalal Merhi, who looks like he's reading from an autocue, however there's some charm in the natural and simple performances. Plus it suits this type of film, which is a hybrid of martial arts and the serial killer genre. It's a fairly good idea, and the spotlight on various martial arts and the tournaments is quite interesting. I would've preferred a who-dunnit angle, but with the legendary Bolo Yueng featuring here that's out of the question - you know he's a heavy, and halfway through he's revealed as the killer.

The 90s proved to be a pretty schweet decade for bodaciously Block Rockin' actioners and the ill tempered, razor sharp 'Tiger Claws' remains beloved by DTV Kung Fu cognoscenti and B-movie maniacs alike. This high octane example of backstreets butt-kicking is a winning martial arts hybrid of gritty serial killer shocker and full-tilt, Berretta-blasting, skin flaying, bone-crunchingly brutal martial arts mania! Double trouble, Cynthia Rothrock and Jalal Merhi certainly prove their mettle tracking down their elusive, outsized quarry, as any lesser ranked pugilists wouldn't have a snowball's chance against the mercilessly steel-fingered onslaught of killer Chong's (Bolo Yeung)vicious Kung Fu massacre!

Deep in the seamy midnight city of New York, there's a sinister new breed of maniac bloodily stalking the streets, a living, breathing nightmare, a peerless master of death, a singularly twisted, tiger-clawed executioner, hell bent on the bodily destruction of any martial artist this demented death dealer sets his cold, unwaveringly cruel eyes upon! This seemingly unstoppable campaign of inhuman spite and meat-shredding malevolence compels the Street tough cops, Linda Masterson (Rothrock) and Tarek Richards (Merhi) to resourcefully combine their majestic martial artistry in order to match the maniacal bellicosity of this bestial behemoth, Tiger Claw killer Chong! Kelly Makin's rip-roaring 'Tiger Claws' remains a bona fide VHS-era cult classic, a relentless, bloody-knuckled bonanza of killer Kung Fu Clawesomeness!

Some complain about acting. They don't know the features of martial art Acting. It's a different thing. Not just b-side kung-fu-karate beat em up. This one is unique for it's sub genre. What we have here is a thriller. The main maniac-killer has very big sport ambitions, but he satisfies himself with anonymus fights till death, leaving only his signature scars on the bodies of his opponents..Bolo plays his role very well. He is a quiet painter in the dojo and he is an ego-maniac killer. Cynthia is sweet and cute in throwing her mighty kicks as allways:) Jalal is less known action star, but he suits the cast perfectly. He looks believable in the role of undercover police man. His pure mean simlycity is the right cure for the twisted Claw-mastermind..

When I sat down in 2022 to watch the 1991 action movie "Tiger Claws", I can't really claim that I was expecting a whole lot from writer J. Stephen Maunder. Yet, as I hadn't already seen "Tiger Claws", of course I opted to do so.

And just as I figured, then "Tiger Claws" was a very generic early 1990s action movie, with way too much showcasing of martial arts moves by solo performers, so a lot of the movie was actually just solo montages. The storyline was every bit as archetypical and generic as you would think a martial arts movie from the early 1990s to be, so no surprises there.

Now, I never have been a fan of Cynthia Rothrock, so she was not really a reason for why I sat down to watch "Tiger Claws". But I saw that the movie had Bolo Yeung on the cast list, and that was actually the main reason for why I watch this movie from director Kelly Makin.

There is a good amount of action and fighting throughout the course of this movie, so that was definitely something that kept the movie afloat, because the storyline itself wasn't really doing that.

Something I just can't comprehend were the amount of bullets shot from those police revolvers. It should be six shots, then reload, but no, not here, not in this movie. And also the fact that people would die from having their cheeks scratched was just beyond my level of comprehension.

"Tiger Claws" is a very mediocre early 1990s action movie, cheesy and campy enough for a single viewing. But you are not in for a grand movie experience.

My rating of the 1991 movie "Tiger Claws" lands on a very bland and less than mediocre four out of ten stars.