Lady Street Fighter

Long after his movie career had dried up, Jody McCrea appeared in thsi direct-to-video opus, directed by James Bryan. The plot is a little obscure, but it seems to involve Renee Harmon (who also appeared in several Al Adamson movies) running around Brutalist architecture in Los Angeles, sucking on celery stalks, shooting at and being shot at by members of an assassin's organization which, as one character explains to another who already knows, has tens of thousands of members.

It seems to have been shot around 1975 and is a fine example of utter ineptness, given that the uncredited director of photography didn't bother to match light levels in the same scene even approximately, and the uncredited writer of the score seems to have used Morricone's theme for THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY, but played it on a synthesizer. Except for one Black woman, none of the performers seem to be able to give a line reading that makes sense.

On the plus side, Miss Harmon does show that it isn't easy to run in heels and there are several topless women.

A few movies are poor enough to be entertaining in their awfulness. This one doesn't even achieve that. the credits show that Miss Harmon is the producer. I guess she thought she was ready for the spotlight and willing to spend someone's money to prove it. She was wrong.

The plot is about Lady Street Fighter maybe trying to figure out what happened to her sister? And some crooks trying to recover a cassette tape of their misdeeds in a stuffed animal she has. She also has a romance with an FBI agent among some fighting of what I think is kung-fu that somehow gets worse as it goes on. She gets tangled in webs of lies, 70s sleazy cats, assassins from Assassins Inc and sleazy dives. It's baffling, but it suits it, as does its conclusion.

Just about everything short of the music and restoration is bad. To start somewhere, I don't know if this is "acting" or not. A lot of the actors are just saying their lines, as if they're reading from a script that only they can see; devoid of emotion, heart and life itself, even in moments of mortal peril. I'm not one that notices bad acting from half-competent acting but this is just so bad, past the point of cheese that exploitation movies should have. Especially this one guy, I think he was the FBI agent, but his delivery is so awful. I was begging for him to stop talking. He stood out, among thick accents, sleazy 70s Bee Gees gangsters, hookers and drunken stoned togas.

I almost forgot to mention a comical stealthy, sneaky guy sneaking into Lady Street Fighter's room to steal the previously mentioned stuffed animal. He could hear the shower but didn't look into the bathroom at all where she saw him sneaking around. Sneakily.

This movie is so reminiscent of The Room; but it makes The Room look like a slick Hollywood production. Female hero has unplaceable accent. Pointless senseless romance. Pointless senseless plot. Not only gratuitous nudity, violence, and car chases; in fact, every single scene seems gratuitous.

Apparently this movie was lost for a long time until being recently rediscovered. After watching it, it's clear why apparently nobody was keeping a close eye on it. While it isn't the worst movie I have seen, it is all the same a really amateurish effort in every department you can think of. The story makes absolutely no sense, almost as if it was being made up as the shoot was going on. The production values are rock bottom. The acting is pretty pitiful as well. Still, I will admit that there are a few small pleasures to be found here. A few action sequences, as crude as they are directed, do contain a little zip. And there are some touches of unintentional humor that are genuinely hilarious, from some really dopey dialogue to music that rips off Ennio Morricone's music for the movie "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly". But most of the movie is a really confusing slog to sit through, so I don't think it's worth watching the whole package just to get a few tiny nuggets of entertaining material. Why Turner Classic Movies thought this crudely made obscurity was worth broadcasting on their network, I cannot say.

Lady Street Fighter (1981)

** (out of 4)

Linda Allen (Renee Harmon) travels to Los Angeles after her sister was tortured and murdered by some mobsters. Before long she is killing one right after another but getting to the top guy is going to be challenging.

LADY STREET FIGHTER comes from director James Bryan who is best remembered for his 1981 slasher DON'T GO IN THE WOODS. This film here was apparently shot in the 70s but didn't get a release until the following decade. This film has no connection to the Sonny Chiba movies as the title was clearly added on just to try and attract people who might be interested in martial arts movies.

As far as the film goes, it's actually not too bad as long as you don't go in expecting something that the film isn't. If you're looking for great action and a tight, suspenseful plot then you're in the wrong movie. This here has a very low-budget and it's clear that the production was running out of money and probably various times. The film's first part works because of what the director was able to do with such a low-budget. The action scenes aren't special but they're at least fun and they keep you glued to what's going on. Bryan throws in plenty of nude scenes that are here for no other reason than people watching this film would want to see them.

The biggest issue with the film is the middle portion where the action stops and we're given a bunch of dialogue scenes that are both boring and make very little sense. I'm not sure why the action just stops but it just kills the film. Thankfully the action picks back up towards the end but by then it's too late. The film features a really annoying music score, which adds some camp value. The performances are pretty much what you'd expect from a film like this.