Martial law: codice marziale

Now, I have been been a fan of Cynthia Rothrock, and I have always avoided her movies during my youth. But within the recent years, I have started to watch her movies, if I have had a chance to sit down and do so. Not that I am actively seeking out her movies, nor am I a fan of hers in any way, but since I haven't seen her movies before, I do so whenever I get a chance.

And thus I happened to come across the 1990 crime action movie "Martial Law" here in 2022. Sure, I knew about the movie by its title, but I had actually never seen it before now in 2022. Were I impressed? No, not really. Sure, "Martial Law" was a watchable enough movie, but it was a rather generic martial arts movie, so writer Richard Brandes and director Steve Cohen weren't exactly delivering gold here.

The acting in the movie was adequate, with the likes of Chad McQueen, Cynthia Rothrock, David Carradine and others on the cast list. While I still am not a converted fan of Cynthia Rothrock, I will say that she does know how to fight.

"Martial Law" had adequate martial arts and fighting sequences to it, which made the movie all the more bearable to watch, truth be told.

Having seen "Martial Law" now, for the first time, I am not particularly much a fan of the movie, and I doubt that I will ever return to watch it a second time.

My rating of "Martial Law" lands on a bland five out of ten stars.

Cheap DVD + Cynthia Rothrock + David Carradine + Chad McQueen as a butt-kicking cop whose nickname is Martial Law = Instant winner.

Chad McQueen stars as Sean Thompson, a cop whose martial-arts skills are so good that even his brother Michael calls him Martial Law more often then Sean. Sean teams up with another cop, Billie Blake (Cynthia Rothrock) to beat bad-guys up and stop a gang of car-smugglers and drug-runners under the command of Dalton Rhodes (David Carradine). Sean and Billie are going to need all of their skills to take on Dalton, as he has a nasty habit of killing nearly everyone he meets.

Plot? What plot? Just remember the term 'Dim Mak', and you'll know how Rhodes goes about killing people. There are some points where McQueen and Rothrock seem to forget that they are in an action B-movie, as McQueen's character laments that he abandoned his brother to go to Hong Hong, and has nothing to show for it apart from martial-arts championship trophies. Awesome.

'Martial Law' has some nice fight scenes, although none stand out as being anything special. It is entertaining, and all that really matters is we get to see Cynthia Rothrock and Chad McQueen in plenty of butt-kicking action.

As far as action B-movies go, 'Martial Law' is nothing special, but is fun to watch - 6/10

Cynthia Rothrock kicked off her movie career in Hong Kong, but was eventually lured back to the U.S. to star in numerous martial arts films, very few of which come close to the quality of her Eastern output. Martial Law, one of her earlier American efforts, is a forgettable action flick with Ms. Rothrock relegated to supporting character, vice cop Billie Blake, love interest of Sean Thompson (Chad McQueen), who goes undercover to bring down the bad guys responsible for the death of his wayward younger brother Michael (Andy McCutcheon).

With such a clichéd plot and with Cindy playing second fiddle to McQueen, the film doesn't offer much for fans of the lovely lethal lady to get excited about. There are sporadic fight scenes that fail to impress thanks to uninspired direction from Steve Cohen and weak choreography, and the casting of David Carradine as crime-lord Dalton Rhodes leads to a rather disappointing final showdown, the actor (54 at time of shooting) unable to pull off any impressive moves. The most memorable performance is by Philip Tan as Rhodes' Cockney right-hand man Wu Han - he's a blast. Also look out for the great Bennie 'The Jet' Urquidez as a nameless henchman.

Here's a martial art film I say is a real keeper. "Martial Law" is fine, fast, and running and it's full of great action. Chad McQueen(Steve's son) plays a cop who teams with Cynthia Rothrock who also can kick some serious butt. I like it when she does that over the head kick that's really stealthy. David Carradine plays the sinister crime boss, Dalton Rhodes. It was amazing when he does that lethal palm strike to the heart of that huge guy. When done right, it can kill. Unfortunately, Sean's brother Micheal(Andy McCutcheon) fell the powerful impact of it when he was working for Rhodes. I liked the scene where Sean(McQueen) and Billie(Rothrock) took on the thugs, and Billie does the split and did some repeated groin punches on one the thugs. That's enough to make Johnny Cage jealous! I also like the confrontation fight between Sean and Dalton. It was great to see Dalton get a taste of his own blow. That blow is only good for defense, not for fun among friends. This movie is a lot of fun, and it's a keeper in my book! 3 out of 5 stars!

At this point it was clear that Hong Kong movie studios have surpassed the quality of American B movie production studios. This is a movie that features Cynthia Rothrock, but if you compare the quality of the production of this movie to the ones she's starred in in Hong Kong, there's no comparison. There're very little redeeming quality to this movie.

Like other bad B movies, the movie is almost entirely constructed out of low importance teaser. The real action doesn't start until the very last minute.

The story of this movie is so derivative, and the way it's shot is mediocre to bad. There are many scenes with hard shadows that makes them difficult to see what the subject is.

Even with these negatives, if you're a Cynthia Rothrock fan, you'd probably be entertained.

This is a real B movie, and a bad one. Best stay away from it.