Tiger Claws III

Great movie. Movie Strengths: Fighting arts. Fighting choreography. Directing. Under its "fictional" story front lies a unique and literal purview of the Kung Fu Underworld in the heart and soul of where it all happens: Chinatown. Movie Weaknesses: Dramatic Acting. Budget constraints.

If you can get past the fact that this movie didn't have the luxury of Chow Yun Fat's endless budget, you'll see that it DOES have what Chow doesn't... Pure fighting arts at it's best. The fighters are real. The fights are real and true to the art... revealing an ancient, yet rarely (if ever) seen denomination of high-precision Kung Fu....

The slick black, soggy streets of the Chinatown "slums" embody the ghost district's pungent heart and soul... reminiscent of that banshee-type taste and feel you get in Michael Mann's THIEF.

OK, so she`s not on screen every single second. The film had only been available in Germany and Russia before now. People have been known to learn German just so as to be able to enjoy TC III This release must be way easier to understand; that alone rates a ten right off. Does anyone have CR competition video?

I'll admit, I hardly watched this movie - therefore I'm not going to actually give it a numerical rating. But the parts I did see were pretty bad. Example scene with bad guys: "Everyone's running away from us. Oooh, there's a line of unattended cars! Let's walk menacingly while taking turns blowing them up in an evil manner!"

It also seemed to be kind of a rip-off of Superman II. Just look at the 3 bad guys and you've got the same demographics in each movie.

Where do I start? First, the three villains from Superman 2 come back to life to do this movie. But now they're asian! They still wear their black outfits and wreak havoc on the unsuspecting population, though.

Second, this is a Cynthia Rothrock film, so you expect some female fighting action, right? Wrong. As a matter of fact, Cynthia Rothrock is barely in the movie.

Third, this movie sucks in every conceivable way. I keep waiting for Cynthia Rothrock to do a decent movie. I'll be damned if I haven't been waiting for a long time. Now, they're putting her name on a movie simply as a publicity stunt. Next time her name appears on a movie, I'll wait for it to come out on cable.

Fourth, I want my $3.50 back.

Where do I start. I think this is probably the worse Tiger Claw movie of them all. Why? For several reasons.

1) Cynthia Rothrock is suppose to be the star, but Jalal Merhi ends up being the lead. Now go back to the cover of the box art. Who do you see? Cynthia Rothrock and the 3 freaky Superman 2 rejects, right? I don't see Jalal on the cover, so why is he the lead star? Cynthia appears at the beginning, in the middle (dream sequence) and at the end of the film. She only fights in the beginning and it's very lacklusted. Not to take anything away from Jalal, but he's no Jet Li or Jackie Chan.

2) It good to see Carter Wong & Loren Avedon, but they are just totally wasted in this movie. Both are extremely talented martial artists. See No Retreat, No Surrender 2 (Loren Avedon) and Carter Wong's earlier work like, Hapkido, Kids of Shaolin or even Big Trouble In Little China. All these movies are better then Tiger Claw 3.

3) Stupid plot. A student of a great master decides to resurrect 3 evil Masters from the undead to help him take over the underworld of New York. Extremely hokey!! Watch these Superman 2 type rejects deflect hundred of bullets from a bunch of underworld thugs was a big laugh. Special effects were even worse.

4) Even with the story this bad, you would hope the fighting would be at least up to par. Nope!! Just awful. The choreograph was terrible. Richard learns Black Tiger technique from Master Jin (Stryker's Sensai) to stop the 3 evil Master. O.k., so why doesn't he claw them and leave bloody scratch marks on anyone? It's just stupid.

I'm not sure how much Cynthia Rothrock got paid for this movie. It was quite obvious that she didn't want to do a 3rd movie, which is why she's barely on the screen. The producers knew it wouldn't sell well at retail unless she was on the cover or involved in some way, so that's why she's there. Bad move if you ask me. Many Rothrock fans will be totally disappointed and seeing her as a sellout for making this crap.

Stay away from this film. Glad I watch it on cable and didn't pay a cent to view it.