Alley Cat

The lead's exceptional karate skills are the reason to see this. That and her shapely, well-worked out body--obviously martial arts training has served her well in more than just strength-building. And she's not the only one. All the meat here is choice, and even the guys, even the bad ones, are good-looking. Otherwise it's a cheapo grrl-power revenge flick. YouTube lists it as "Fighting Karate Lady Alley Cat Film". Says it all.

Despite a very low budget, which shows in the bad acting, dialog and poor photography (some scenes are too dark), this has the energy of the best exploitation pics and is surprisingly entertaining. The lead character (Mani) is a tough karate fighter and repeatedly kicks in the faces of several gang members throughout the movie. She doesn't hesitate to speak her mind, even in court where it gets her into trouble, and is an early example of the tough heroine in films, still rare today. There's also an abundance of female skin revealed, including inside a women's prison; this picture has all the right ingredients for this type of picture. This is pretty much a version of "Death Wish"(74) with a female instead of Charles Bronson. Justice is shown to be blind, as far as the law & the court system, and this 'cat-fighter' has to make her own rules. There's also a fight scene between two cops which, while it has you chuckling at the lame dialog, is still exciting. Most of the gang members, grimy & scummy, are also funny, in that stupid fashion.

One of those el cheapo action adventures of the early 1980s that used to fill video rental stores solely to be taken out by adolescent boys in the hope of a cheap thrill.

Woeful down market attempt to cash in on the Death Wish phenomenon by substituting a moderately attractive woman for the visually challenging Bronson. Acting is terrible, sets are cheap, the baddies are, well, bad. Identification with any of the characters is unlikely.

Only redeeming feature is modest amount of gratuitous female nudity, a smattering of which is full frontal. Other than that, you can leave it...

I appreciated that there was a little ambition as far as straightforward revenge 80's exploitation goes; it posits itself as a kick-ass woman vigilante movie (Frank Miller I bet woulf approve, and if it had been set in NYC Is half expect Daredevil to show up), but then it becomes a woman-in-prison movie for 15 minutes. It may not be much, yet what's fascinating is that the lead Karin can't escape being assaulted anywhere. In this world, it's not just men that can be villainous rapists but women too... That is if they're already behind bars. It still seems significant in some way, whether the filmmakers understood it or not, that there's another level of commentary with just those scenes. Bottom line, there is no shelter in this Hollywood.

I also liked this lead, albeit the amount of nudity makes it so that I might question if anyone ever tries to pull this out as some hidden-cum-underrated feminist treasure. It's a movie made for men AND women, it's not exclusionary really, and she certainly has a gigantic load of her own agency. On the other hand, frankly, if I were to show this to, say, my father in law (a B movie diehard for decades), he'd probably find a couple other reasons to dig this. That said, she does the role well and did the work necessary for it (I imagine she was a sruntwpman either before or after this too).

Anyway, good exploity times! PS: I advise my many female friends on social media who I've seen over time complain about men who pull the kind of crap the men do visavi hitting on others... Learn all the martial arts.

Cheapshot little actioner is a swell ride for fans of films about chicks who kick ass. A winsome girlie has a confrontation with a couple of small-time car thieves...she beats the crap out of them, bruising their little egos. They enlist the aid of their scar-faced gang leader in a nasty vengeance plot, but this little lady has more mean-streets machismo than they bargained for! Before long, she's on a karate-chopping revenge rampage of her own. This flick is admittedly pretty small beans, but there's enough sleazy action and jiggly feminine exposures to keep most trash film lovers pleasantly amused.

Production quality...pretty low. Performances...kinda stale. Just overlook the obvious flaws here, and you may find yourself having some mindless fun with ALLEY CAT.

5/10