Shadow Fury

In the near future, a vengeful scientist, Dr. Oh (Noriyuki "Pat" Morita) sics a ninja clone (Masakatsu Funaki) on his former associates. Panicking, they obtain the services of a sullen killer for hire (Sam Bottoms) to go after the ninja. But our supposed antagonist is actually struggling against the compulsion to kill since it is something he's been conditioned to do, and not something he truly wants to do. The ninja falls in love with a sweet-natured hooker (C.G. Walker), ultimately teaming up with the hitman to exact some old-fashioned justice.

For a routine B movie with a rather familiar storyline, "Shadow Fury" entertains adequately. Certainly, if you're a fan of mixed martial artist Funaki, you may be amused; his performance is stiff, but it does seem to suit the role. He gets the most to do with his character, which adds some weight since he is living that old science-fiction trope of an automaton discovering or strengthening their humanity. For MMA fans, it will be nice to see Funaki square off against his peer Bas Rutten, although the latter only comes in near the end. Morita, a.k.a. "Mr. Miyagi", does look like he's having some fun playing a cliched role, even sporting cliched mad-scientist hair.

A lot of the writing and acting is pretty cheesy. Still, it's fun to watch Allan Kolman do his thing as the villainous Dr. Hillier. You may recognize him from another creepy role as a parasite victim in David Cronenberg's "Shivers". Fans of Taylor Lautner (from the "Twilight" series) will note that the actor (nine years old at the time) plays the youngest incarnation of the Rutten character, who matures at a very rapid pace. Fred "The Hammer" Williamson is kind of wasted as a bar owner who doubles as a weapons dealer.

The action scenes are decent enough. "Shadow Fury" won't knock anybody's socks off, but it holds the attention. There's also a fair amount of gore, a bunch of explosions, the sexily dressed Walker, and a reasonable amount of poignancy to make this an okay viewing.

Six out of 10.

I bought this film for the sole fact that Bas and Funaki from Pancrase were in it. I had no idea what its story was like except that it involved ninjas and Bas was the bad guy. I thought it was an OK film but it could have been better. The fight scenes with Funaki were pretty cool and the final fight between him and Bas was really cool, but the story, acting, and characters were kind of mixed up. Pat Morita should have been in it longer too. The actors looked like they were really trying to act good but ended up less than stellar. The hired killer, Madson, was actually funnier in serious spots than his comedy lines. Anyway it was an OK film because Bas and Funaki were in it, but if they weren't I probably would not have even looked at it.

Why did I rent this, you ask? I was hoping for a new martial arts hero. Boy, was I wrong! There are not enough words in the great American thesaurus for me to describe how dreadful this was. Acting was worse than a pornographic film and the action was lame. I suffered through the 90 minute, straight-to-video release and almost threw the disc out my window! Guess I'll be sticking to Chan & Li for the time being.

While Japanese filmmakers seem to be losing their penchant for stiff atmospheres in movies, as this film suggests, there's still a lot of work to be done - at least for these particular Japanese filmmakers! Now, the stunt and fight scenes *are* spectacular, with ingenious use of wirework showing amazing stuff that even CGI can't do. However, the screenplay is unbelievably bad, even by comic book movie standards. We have characters who are just a step removed from real cartoon characters (check Morita's wild-haired and chortling scientist character!), sometimes spouting incredibly moronic dialogue. The story is a slow-moving, often illogical mess with some dumb plotting - like how Bottoms' character is told to track down one character, and the next scene has found him - with *no* explanation as to how he found him! Bottoms, by the way, is a real poor choice for an aging mercenary character, unconvincing even when simply shooting a gun. It doesn't help that his character is completely unlikable, even though he's the lead. Williamson is a welcome presence, though like Morita, he's only in the movie for five minutes! Had he been cast in the lead, playing his often-used Jesse Crowder character, without doubt it would have been easier to sit through.

The film concerns a near future when the World Health Organization prohibits globally on all human cloning . However a discovery creates genetically engineered . Nova Corporation hires to Madsen (Sam Bottoms), a tough bounty hunter with bad liver . He sets off in pursuit Takeru (Funaki) , a perfect ninja clone with extraordinary strength and agility . He has been created by a scientist named Dr Oh(Pat Morita) , Madsen must destroy Oh's lab about replication of enhanced human beings and any clones and the killer Ninja . But the laboratory explodes and Tareku on the loose . Madsen is helped by the lovely Dr. Foster (Alexandra Kemp) and taking on another Doctor who is developing the Alpha phase project containing 256 live specimen failed prototypes with physical deformation and mental incapacitation . The Doctor creates a new perfect killing machine , as disposal required , a teen named Kismet, a miraculous advance in slickness and intelligence . Meanwhile , a gunrunner (Fred Williamson) hands over Madsen weapons and Ninja arms such as Shuriken and Katana .

The picture is a low budget actioner with suspense , spectacular fights , and crude violence . The movie displays nice choreographic struggles with punches and kicks and sensational bounds and leaps by the killer Ninja . Wooden acting by Sam Bottoms, an actor whose career began splendidly (Apocalypse now , Bronco Billy) but failed , continuing with television movies ; plus , Alexandra Kemp , a German actress playing several B films (Sumuru , Dracula 3000 , Space travesty) , furthermore Noriyuki Pat (Pat Morita of Karate Kid, recently deceased) , Fred Williamson , a Blaxploitation King and a child played Taylor Lautner . The motion picture was regularly directed by Yokoyama , an usual stunts coordinator and habitual director of Power Rangers episodes . Rating : Mediocre but some moments result to be entertaining.