Low Blow

The bootless trio from the annoyingly haired 'Killpoint' is back : director Frank Harris, and 'stars' Leo Fong and Cameron Mitchell. A triumvirate of terrible. Harris in particular, should be ashamed of himself.

'Low Blow' isn't as sick, racist or downright nasty as 'Killpoint' - and that's it. It's just as amateur, vacant, irritating and soul-destroying in every other regard. Fong, despite slightly improved hair, drudges through this all-out dog's breakfast like a stop-motion clog.

A ridiculous, dozy cult led by Mitchell in a hood and sunglasses; and - the film's only plus-point - dishy but demented disciple, Akosua Busia, have kidnapped some girl and are brainwashing her on a farm. It's up to somnambulant Fong and a few bumpy grunts to rescue her.

All Fong films' selling point is chiefly the fact he knew Bruce Lee, but so did a lot of other people. I met Sir Michael Hordern once, but I don't go around doing Lear at the Old Vic.

You may ask - justifiably - why even watch this turnip ?

Good question.

This movie reeks of 1980s, straight-to-video action: zero budget special effects, "filler" action sequences and some utterly loony acting. It may sound bizarre, but those are also the very reasons why I enjoy this film so much.

In comparison the action movies of today, Low Blow seems positively wholesome. There is not much blood, no sex and the emphasis is more on fist fighting than high-tech weaponry. However, the film is never boring. The action is fairly constant and there are occasional touches of humour along the way.

Leo Fong plays private detective, Joe Wong. Joe is hired to find a missing rich girl, Karen. Karen not only has a very unattractive hairstyle but is also completely moronic, as evidenced by her falling in with one of the most ridiculous cults ever depicted on film - complete with a black sheet wearing blind guru and a crazy woman played by real life Ghanian princess Akosua Busia. Leo Fong's dead-pan delivery and no frills martial arts style suit his character perfectly. A special mention must be given to Akosua who turns in the most ludicrous performance of her career.

After having his butt kicked trying to infiltrate the compound, Joe realises that he needs assistance taking out the wackos and naturally enough, decides to hold a tough man contest to find some extra muscle. The scenes of the contest are some of my favourite in the movie. The fights are brief but varied and amusing. I particularly liked the wrestlers and the bizarre iron lady with the blond mullet. The film then comes to its rather predictable climax with some fun action and a good dose of humour.

A pretty good cast here with ... Leo Fong , Cameron Mitchell , Stack Pierce , Akosua Busia , Troy Donaghue , Diane Stevenett and I think that Hope Holliday plays a small part as a Head Mistress of a school.

Four of these actors incl Leo Fong are from the other movie Kill Point ! Cameron Mitchell (High Chapparel 1960's TV Western) as Yarakunda is just plain weird. Akosua Busia (Colour Purple) as the sadistic Karma , is weird as well but SO gorgeous it isn't funny. Diane Stevenett as Joe Wong's secretary Diane is really cute and plays her part fairly well. Stack Pierce as Corky , as always is mean looking deadly and certainly comes up well , as well as can be expected. I'm sure though that his part in the movie has a different name , possibly "Duke". Anyway he throws some good punches. He is a first rate actor !

I suppose that you can't expect any Oscar award winning from Leo Fong , but never the less I have seen worse actors. Actually Leo Fong isn't too bad as an actor and even though he's never had the coaching I'd bet he's got more ability than Arnie and JCVD. He can be quite funny at times and has his moments and you realize that you get a liking for the guy.

I suppose that he's a little mechanical , but you can see the breaks where he lightens up every so often.

The movie is a bit better than mediocre and has some good action scenes. Leo Fong is quite a good martial artist and even though you don't see all of the acrobatics and technical trickery etc ... you get some realistic scenes. Fong as you can see is a pretty strong guy and for his age he does well. The best action part is in the building where Fong takes on a couple of guys an does them over. The part on the stair case is good !

All in all I quite enjoyed the movie and his part as Joe Wong. And what a rough scruffy PI he is. You sort of get the impression that as soon as he'd make the money from a case he'd spend it on whatever before the bills etc.

I own this on DVD now but I saw it a couple of years back and then I recalled seeing it sometime in the late 80's . I thought that the actor was MA Expert and board breaker Pu Gill Gwon , the author of "The New Forms of Tae Kwon Do" Anyway its not Pu Gill Kwoon or Pu Gill Gwon , Its Leo Fong an I'm glad that I have the movie as I'll watch it again.

Even for a cheap action film this was bad. Bad acting, bad writing, unrealistic action scenes. There was no plot, no story, and ridiculous dialogue. The action scenes looked laughably bad. This is a film to avoid.

Private dick Leo Fong is hired by millionaire Troy Donahue to rescue his runaway heiress daughter from Cameron Mitchell's pan-theistic "Universal Enlightenment" cult. Mitchell calls himself "Yarakunda", has a pentagram on his cheek, a red dot on his forehead, a cross around his neck, wears big Jim Jones sunglasses, dresses like a druid and hardly ever stands up during the entire film, so you know he means business, or possibly wasn't paid enough to actually act. Oh yes, and he's also blind, which means his Godly visions are more better than yours, so there. But Fong means business too! The sign on his office door reads: "Joe Wong, Private Investigator, Bounty Hunting, Conflict Management, Kung-Fu Fighting Lessons and World Headquarters of the Wei Kuen Do Association". (and yes, that's supposed to be funny) When he's not blasting away scumbags at his local deli ("Hey, forget the ham sandwich!"), taking down redneck purse snatchers, or deflating stereotypes about Chinese food and Asian drivers in Big American Cars, he's rounding up a motley team of specialists to aid him on the rescue mission by staging a tough man contest that attracts ninjas, kung-fu masters, Hispanic knife-fighters, black boxers, redneck purse snatchers and a female bodybuilder in red panties. Really. Frank Harris' direction here is a very slight improvement over his work on KILLPOINT, but it's Fong's screenplay that saves the day, using popular contempo action/buddy movie clichés to buttress his rather loopy main story. The puzzler here is real-life Ghanian princess Akosua Busia, who squanders the goodwill she engendered in Steven Spielberg's THE COLOR PURPLE by appearing here as Mitchell's conniving, sadistic daughter-slash-wife. Fortunately, her career would survive. One the plus side, Fong kicks Billy Blanks' ass, puts his foot THROUGH another man's head, and cuts the roof off a Mercedes-Benz hiding three goons who apparently can't find the door handles during the several minutes it takes Fong to run around the car cutting the roof supports. Hilarious stuff!