Alley Cat

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.

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

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...

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.

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.