Lady Dragon

I've seen some Cynthia Rothrock movies of questionable quality before, but this one was almost enough to put me off her. Almost everything that happens in Lady Dragon, and the way it happens, is ludicrously bad. No part of the plot even begins to be credible, never even rising to the level of cliché. To wit:

What we have is an ex-CIA agent, Kathy, played by Rothrock, who's on a personal vendetta to catch the guy who, for no discernible reason, had her husband killed on their wedding day. She begins by disguising herself as a hooker and going, unarmed and with no plan, into a nightclub to confront the guy - which only gets her raped, as the bad guys have guns.

They then drop her by the side of a jungle road (this is in Indonesia), where she is picked up by a kindly old grandfather and his 8-year-old grandson, who nurse her back to health over what is apparently months. The old man can kick handkerchiefs into the air. (And since he also has a ready-made and very handy martial arts training ground, you'd think that he would step into character at some point and get into some of the fighting, but you'd be wrong.)

In a lengthy sequence, Kathy then ingratiates herself with the bad guy's mistress by pretending to get hit by her car. This mistress, Susan, is smart, classy and preposterously altruistic, giving Kathy a job and clothes and letting her stay in her apartment! (All the while never revealing why the hell she's with the evil and idiotic bad guy.) When introduced to the bad guy, he doesn't remember Kathy at all. So she tears up the place, killing one of his henchmen, and then grinningly making a run for it, not seeming to mind that she didn't catch up with him. But meanwhile, Susan has gone to the village and taken the grandfather and grandson hostage, forcing Kathy into a climactic battle with the bad guy - his name is Ludwig, in case you're wondering. So Ludwig beats Kathy savagely in a quite sadistic fight, but eventually she wins. Of course. And the police drag the bad guy away (I'm pretty amazed that he wasn't killed, seeing as this movie seems to consider itself real edgy, bandying the f-word around a lot).

A decent martial arts actioner could have been made with this plot, perhaps, but in this case it certainly wasn't. The terrible dialog (in a couple of places bordering on the outrageous) served only to make almost every plot detail all the more unbelievable, and elements that seem to promise further developments were never delivered on. It was a monumentally bad script, resulting in an awful movie, the main virtue of which is to show how NOT to make an action movie.

This movie is fine, there really isn't much action, but a lot of conversations that would never happen in real life. Of course what happens is not something that would happen in real life, at least not the way it is depicted here. Miss Rothrock keeps getting her ass kicked, I don't think I have ever seen a martial artist get beaten so many times, it's a wonder that she didn't have a bunch of broken bones and permanent bruises. I used to love watching Miss Rothrock do her thing, but as I am re-visiting her filmography I find it a little disappointing. But the biggest complaint I have is that the Tubi version that I watched has a full 20 minutes taken out, especially the climatic fight scene at the end, so if you want to watch it don't watch on Tubi.

Cheap action that derives from Indonesia, but don't expect anything like THE RAID here; this is a strict programmer from the early 1990s that feels akin in quality to either the BLOODSPORT or KICKBOXER sequels. Cynthia Rothrock plays a high-kicking fighter left for dead by some bad guys, so she has to undergo the usual routine training before tracking them down to get revenge on them. There's a small role for '80s stalwart Robert Ginty as one of her contacts, but all eyes are on Richard Norton as another of his impeccably tough, swaggering villains; I just wish he had a bit more screen time. The action is acceptable but like the rest of the film, instantly forgettable.

One of the better Rothrock action films that feels a lot like a knock-off of Kickboxer. I may not be a fan of the original Kickboxer, but Rothrock brings a lot of great charm to this film as she sets out to avenge the murder of her spouse (a typical plot point in most of these '90s action films). This film gets a lot of mileage out of Rothrock and will seem better if you're a fan of her films, especially when she pretty much plays the same character in every film she's in. The fight sequences are always dependable and your overall enjoyment will be due to whether or not your are a fan of not just Rothrock but old school martial arts '90s films.

I am under the impression that in most of the films they have made together, Cynthia Rothrock and Richard Norton are partners; "Lady Dragon" twists that situation around - this time they are opponents. And they are both at the peak of their physical powers: Cynthia looks amazingly flexible, and her acting is better than usual as well, and Richard is just highly enjoyable as the villain (after setting a man on fire, he says to his henchmen: "Don't just stand there. Put him out before he ruins the lawn!"). The story is just a standard revenge tale - I think the main "inspiration" here was Jean-Claude Van Damme's "Kickboxer". There is also a kung-fu kid, a sensuous mistress for Norton, a wise old Oriental master (of course!), and a wild cars-vs.-motorcycle chase. "Lady Dragon" is no masterpiece, but for low-budget American / Indonesian martial-arts fare, it's above-average. (**1/2)