Alley Cat

Karin Mani stars in "Alley Cat", and is absolutely the only reason to see this somewhat rare exploitation female revenge flick. She stalks and attacks several scum types who mugged her grandparents. Everyone else, including Mani's love interest cop, the generic hoods, and incompetent judge, are easily forgettable. In the beginning there is some surprising sexual humor that helps, but technically the film is too dark in many places, and the acting by all is far from even marginal. Enjoy a pair of totally gratuitous shower scenes, and that's about it for "Alley Cat". In the end, all that really counts is Karin Mani and her sexy overbite. - MERK

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

A young woman with karate skills takes on a group of killers when trouble comes too close to home. Released in 1984 but the movie looks as if it'd been sitting on the shelf for awhile. Nonetheless, it's a fun film and some scenes actually (and somewhat accidentally) exhibit great atmosphere. You won't believe the karate skills demonstrated in this movie. Karin Man does well for what she's given & looks great doing it.

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.

Doing a little research on this movie, I uncovered evidence that this was a troubled production, with both multiple directors and a temporary shutdown in the middle of shooting. The behind the scenes turmoil ended up on screen. The story is kind of a mess. There are characters that disappear for long periods of time (or disappear with no explanation.) There are scenes that seem to provide no real purpose except maybe to make sure the movie gets to an acceptable running time (though it's only 82 minutes long.) But even if there hadn't been problems behind the scenes, there would still be some big problems with the movie. Karin Mani looks nice, but she simply cannot act very well, and her martial art sequences are not the least bit exciting or well choreographed. In the end, what we have here is a movie that had great trash potential but will not satisfy even the most forgiving B movie fan.