Low Blow

Private dick Leo Fong is hired by millionaire Troy Donahue to rescue his runaway heiress daughter from Cameron Mitchell's pan-theistic "Universal Enlightenment" cult. Mitchell calls himself "Yarakunda", has a pentagram on his cheek, a red dot on his forehead, a cross around his neck, wears big Jim Jones sunglasses, dresses like a druid and hardly ever stands up during the entire film, so you know he means business, or possibly wasn't paid enough to actually act. Oh yes, and he's also blind, which means his Godly visions are more better than yours, so there. But Fong means business too! The sign on his office door reads: "Joe Wong, Private Investigator, Bounty Hunting, Conflict Management, Kung-Fu Fighting Lessons and World Headquarters of the Wei Kuen Do Association". (and yes, that's supposed to be funny) When he's not blasting away scumbags at his local deli ("Hey, forget the ham sandwich!"), taking down redneck purse snatchers, or deflating stereotypes about Chinese food and Asian drivers in Big American Cars, he's rounding up a motley team of specialists to aid him on the rescue mission by staging a tough man contest that attracts ninjas, kung-fu masters, Hispanic knife-fighters, black boxers, redneck purse snatchers and a female bodybuilder in red panties. Really. Frank Harris' direction here is a very slight improvement over his work on KILLPOINT, but it's Fong's screenplay that saves the day, using popular contempo action/buddy movie clichés to buttress his rather loopy main story. The puzzler here is real-life Ghanian princess Akosua Busia, who squanders the goodwill she engendered in Steven Spielberg's THE COLOR PURPLE by appearing here as Mitchell's conniving, sadistic daughter-slash-wife. Fortunately, her career would survive. One the plus side, Fong kicks Billy Blanks' ass, puts his foot THROUGH another man's head, and cuts the roof off a Mercedes-Benz hiding three goons who apparently can't find the door handles during the several minutes it takes Fong to run around the car cutting the roof supports. Hilarious stuff!

My review was written in April 1986 after a screening at UA Twin theater in Manhattan.

In "Low Blow", filmmakers Leo Fong and Frank Harris (who previously teamed on "Killpoint") reduce an action picture to its basic elements: fights, shootouts and simple delivery of expository dialog, with tedious results. This test of an audience's patience was filmed in Stockton, California, under the title "Savage Sunday".

Fong, who also produced and scripted for his Action Communications banner, toplines as private eye Joe Wong, an ex-cop who is hired by rich guy Templeton (Troy Donahue, looking like he's been to a nearsighted barber) to bring his daughter Karma (Akosua Busia).

Fong spends most of the film killing time by staging tough man contests and otherwise recruiting a team to go in and rescue the girl. Script fails to establish the evilness of the cult (other than their hypnotizing and seemingly drugging kids to keep them), but Fong & Co. Go in and kill the cult's guards anyway in ruthless fashion. Karma shoots Yurakunda (bad guy Cameron Mitchell), but her fate is just another loose end.

Sole point of interest in this clunker is the presence of Akosua Busia, actress whose next role after this in "The Color Purple" earned her an Oscar nomination. She is funny, vivacious and ultimately a bit touching in the stock, evil dragon lady role. This film won't appear on her resume, but it's a wild performance nonetheless. Busia's thesping contrasts with that of Fong and the rest of the players, who are strictly monotone. In fact, many of the smaller roles look like they're being filled with pals who work out with Fong at the local gym.

A pretty good cast here with ... Leo Fong , Cameron Mitchell , Stack Pierce , Akosua Busia , Troy Donaghue , Diane Stevenett and I think that Hope Holliday plays a small part as a Head Mistress of a school.

Four of these actors incl Leo Fong are from the other movie Kill Point ! Cameron Mitchell (High Chapparel 1960's TV Western) as Yarakunda is just plain weird. Akosua Busia (Colour Purple) as the sadistic Karma , is weird as well but SO gorgeous it isn't funny. Diane Stevenett as Joe Wong's secretary Diane is really cute and plays her part fairly well. Stack Pierce as Corky , as always is mean looking deadly and certainly comes up well , as well as can be expected. I'm sure though that his part in the movie has a different name , possibly "Duke". Anyway he throws some good punches. He is a first rate actor !

I suppose that you can't expect any Oscar award winning from Leo Fong , but never the less I have seen worse actors. Actually Leo Fong isn't too bad as an actor and even though he's never had the coaching I'd bet he's got more ability than Arnie and JCVD. He can be quite funny at times and has his moments and you realize that you get a liking for the guy.

I suppose that he's a little mechanical , but you can see the breaks where he lightens up every so often.

The movie is a bit better than mediocre and has some good action scenes. Leo Fong is quite a good martial artist and even though you don't see all of the acrobatics and technical trickery etc ... you get some realistic scenes. Fong as you can see is a pretty strong guy and for his age he does well. The best action part is in the building where Fong takes on a couple of guys an does them over. The part on the stair case is good !

All in all I quite enjoyed the movie and his part as Joe Wong. And what a rough scruffy PI he is. You sort of get the impression that as soon as he'd make the money from a case he'd spend it on whatever before the bills etc.

I own this on DVD now but I saw it a couple of years back and then I recalled seeing it sometime in the late 80's . I thought that the actor was MA Expert and board breaker Pu Gill Gwon , the author of "The New Forms of Tae Kwon Do" Anyway its not Pu Gill Kwoon or Pu Gill Gwon , Its Leo Fong an I'm glad that I have the movie as I'll watch it again.

The bootless trio from the annoyingly haired 'Killpoint' is back : director Frank Harris, and 'stars' Leo Fong and Cameron Mitchell. A triumvirate of terrible. Harris in particular, should be ashamed of himself.

'Low Blow' isn't as sick, racist or downright nasty as 'Killpoint' - and that's it. It's just as amateur, vacant, irritating and soul-destroying in every other regard. Fong, despite slightly improved hair, drudges through this all-out dog's breakfast like a stop-motion clog.

A ridiculous, dozy cult led by Mitchell in a hood and sunglasses; and - the film's only plus-point - dishy but demented disciple, Akosua Busia, have kidnapped some girl and are brainwashing her on a farm. It's up to somnambulant Fong and a few bumpy grunts to rescue her.

All Fong films' selling point is chiefly the fact he knew Bruce Lee, but so did a lot of other people. I met Sir Michael Hordern once, but I don't go around doing Lear at the Old Vic.

You may ask - justifiably - why even watch this turnip ?

Good question.

like others here, i bought this movie for $3. And yes, the acting is awful, it is low budget, the case has nothing to do with the movie, and the soundtrack appears to consist of one song. However, it is one of the funniest movies i have ever seen. Does the fact that it is not intentionally funny cancel that out? Does hilariously bad choreography equate to a bad movie? or story lines that don't make sense - such as yanakunda calling Karma "my daughter, my wife". This movie gets funnier every time i watch it. The script at times is ridiculous - and that makes it very quotable. its also a great movie to watch when you are drunk. So, in terms of film making, this movie is right down there with the worst, so i could easily give this a poor score like others before me have. But i watch movies to be entertained. and if this movie is so bad that its entertaining for every minute that it lasts, then it is a good movie. If it gets better every time i see it, then it is a great movie. and this movie has proved to be far more entertaining than most of the "best" movies ever made, so i give it a 10.

some scenes to watch for: all driving scenes, the pointless church scene (he drove to a church and crashed his car just to say 2 words to a guy), the car and chainsaw scene, the puppy scene (totally random and unexplained), i could go on forever