solri

By any normal cinema standards, this is an absolutely appalling movie. The acting is wooden, the fights are artificial, the plot is absurd and the violence sickening. Om the other hand, for those who love schocky 1080s martial arts movies, this is a gem.

Undefeatable stars the amazing Cynthia Rothrock as a punk who uses illegal prize fights to make money to put her sister through college. She runs foul of a psychopathic prizefighter in a much bigger league who is murdering women who remind him of his estranged wife and/or mother - it's very Freudian. There is also a hamsome cop, who is also a Kung Fu master who likes to take his short off. He's always arresting Cynthia but keeps letting her go because he's got the hots for her - sorry, because she's a decent kid who needs a break - and they end up pursuing Kung Fu psycho together.. There are street fights, ring fights and of course warehouse fights, eyeballs in fishtanks and some iexcricitating puns. In other words, it's an "80s classic.

Some films are bad because they are badly acted or badly produced, or the script is weak. Amandla is none of these (much); it is a bad film because it is designed to convince the viewer that life is horrible, most people are horrible, and those who aren't, come to horrible ends. Seriously, there isn't a glimmer of hope throughout this pageant of brutality that makes Game of Thrones look like a Disney production. But at least the brutality of Game of Thrones takes place on an epic scale.

"Amandla" ("power") was a rallying cry of the anti-apartheid movement, so I was expecting something stirring, or at least politically aware, but it's hard to tell what message the film is trying to give. Don't move to Soweto? Don't take up burglary as a way to put your brother through police academy? Politically, it says little other than the New South Africa isn't everything it was cracked up to be. Yes, South Africa has serious problems with violent crime, but we all knew that, and the early '90s, when the film is set, were a peak. More importantly, there is no suggestion of how we should act on this or even interpret it; it's just there as a trigger for our tragic protagonist, a kind of "girlfriend in the fridge" trope with a more than usually nasty tqwist.

Speaking of girlfriends, the female characters only appear as sacrificial or self-sacrificial victims. As for the white characters, they are just the "good Boer/bad Boer" stereotypes. If anything, there's an implication (presumably unintended) that we'd have been better off if only the good Boers were running things.

"Amandla" is a completely misleading title. The overall message of this film seems to be: your dreams will be crushed and everyone you love will die, and it will be your fault as much as anyone's.

If you are a fan of cheesy '80s kung fu films, you will love Lady Bloodfight, as it is basically Bloodsport with a largely female cast - in fact the original title was going to be Lady Bloodsport but was changed presumably for legal reasons. It also references some other martial arts tropes, like the age-old (and largely fictitious) rivalry between Shaolin and Wudang. The only points where I thought the silliness got out of hand were: 1. The wepaons round (halberd vs. Nunchakus??!!) 2. The fact that a secret kung fu society in Hong Kong decides to give their highest tournament a Japanese name (kumite), but of course that's a reference to the original Bloodsport movie. Basically, it's a goofy, feel-good movie about young women discovering the true meaning of friendship, loyalty and forgiveness by kicking the crap out of each other.