Ironheart

This film is notable as being the final movie of Director Robert Clouse. Clouse had previously directed Enter the Dragon with Bruce Lee, and a slew of other low budget martial arts films in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Only a few of these, such as China O' Brien, and The Big Brawl were really that good, so I was keen to see if this would be hos swansong.

Unfortunately, it isn't. It's a poorly cobbled together junkfest with little redeeming features.

The main problem is that this film was supposedly a kickstart vehicle for lead star Britton K. Lee, but the issue is that Lee was also the producer, so he basically made the film for himself.

Now there's nothing wrong with that in itself, but the problem is that Lee is neither a good actor, nor is he charismatic in any way. In previous films, Robert Clouse had Bruce Lee and Cynthia Rothrock in front of the camera - two very strong personalises who came across well on screen. Britton K. Lee has none of thee qualities, and come across as an out of place protagonist, and more like a sidekick who got his own film.

All of this could be forgiven if the martial arts action was good, but it's not. In fact - it's dire. Loads of tight shots with too much slow motion, and some clumsy choreography make this look like a TV episode.

With films like China O' Brien, fight choreographer Nijel Binns created some really cool action scenes with wide angle shots so that you could see the full glory of the fights and the actors skills, but here it just feels awkward and messy.

The film's one saving grace is that it features the legendary talents of Bolo Yeung and Richard Norton (both veterans of Hong Kong cinema,) and it's great to see them again.

They unfortunately can't save what is a dull and meandering movie with bad fight scenes and a boring plot.

Bob Clouse will always have Enter The Dragon, and no one can take that away from him, but his final word in film is not worth bothering with unless you are a super fan of Bolo Yeung.

This movie had it all,great fighters,among them Bolo Yeung and Britton K. Lee and a descent budget,but it seems that the director did everything to ruin it.The movie starts of good,but after that it only gets worse.WHY didn't he have more fight scenes in this movie.Bolo Yeung was only in one real fight scene that I can remember,I hoped to see more of him,because he has one of the sickest styles ever.

Dont let the cover fool you,this is nothing what it could have been.

They got him in the poster, his name is on the poster so you may be forgiven for assuming that he is the star of the show. He is not, he is just another henchman, doing what he usually does, but not with much effort. Instead the star is a guy who beats up random dudes who attack joggers and parks and drives his car a lot! In fact, pretty sure that fight with the random scumbags attacking the jogger was 10x longer than his fight with the star of the film Bolo...

The movie has a girl being kidnapped, leaving a club with someone who was rich and taking the easy way out. Yes, that is how it is described to the hero when the person who was kidnapped explains to him that the girl quit dancing and tried to get a rich man, thus taking the easy way and deserving of what she gets! Harsh dance teacher. Well the hero is more concerned that these guys killed his former partner and so we got lots of action with our bad ass martial arts cop! Well, not really. Honestly, Samurai Cop was more action packed than this thing was and featured way more action as we mainly see our hero parking...

I understand why they featured Bolo on the poster with his name featured as he is the only person I recognized in this thing! The hero's English is not too good, but he is not horrible (what a compliment). Then there is the dance teacher who looks like Pam Dawber from Mork and Mindy. Not unattractive, but not all that great and she certainly would not have stood out and been kidnapped at the club when she goes undercover. Then there is pizza guy who dated the actually hot girl who got kidnapped at the beginning, I guess he could not make a pizza to her satisfaction!

This one is definitely not good, but amusing. Where else you gonna save a jogger and she runs from you screaming too? This is a movie, she is supposed to be thankful, though her reaction was probably more realistic. The cop's was not as he just left the men dead or dying behind. Then you get a anticlimactic finale where Bolo must of been like, "let's just get this over with, man..." You will witness more than your fair share of parking though!

The hero John Keem is going after some drug dealers who kidnaps girls for some reason. On his journey he uses karate and kung fu moves and I don't believe he got hit a single time during the movie. This is Crap.

Well, I have to admit that I was having a hard time seeing why fans of Bolo Yeung consider this a cult classic, because Bolo Yeung wasn't really in the movie for all that long. Yeah, he had very limited time on the screen, yet he was showcased on the movie's cover and was the only name on the cover as well. Guess it was because he was the only semi-famous performer in this 1992 movie.

The storyline in "Ironheart", as written by Lawrence Riggins, was a pretty archetypical early 1990s action martial arts screenplay, you know, where some law enforcement officer who knows martial arts takes matters into his own hands and goes postal on the bad guys. Talk about vigilante justice, huh?

It can't really be said that "Ironheart" was harboring a great many famous actors or actresses. I was familiar with Richard Norton (playing Milverstead) and of course Bolo Yeung (playing Ice), the latter whom had very limited time on the screen. The acting performances in "Ironheart" was as expected, I mean, this is an early 1990s action martial arts movie, so you're not exactly in for a Shakespearian performance of any sorts.

The martial arts sequences in the movie were fair enough, though you knew the outcome of the movie from the very beginning of each fight, and Britton K. Lee (playing John Keem) definitely had some martial arts skills, but there was just a lack of natural fluidity missing to it, as it felt somewhat scripted and rigid in its choreography.

Director Robert Clouse's 1992 movie "Ironheart" is not a movie that impressed me, and it is not a movie that I will be returning to watch a second time. Now, late in 2022, was actually the very first time I heard about it.

My rating of "Ironheart" lands on a four out of ten stars.