Leis Marciais

Chad McQueen is perhaps one of Hollywood's most underappreciated actors. While his performance in Martial Law is not his best, it is one of the most tender, in that he plays a street-hardened cop torn by the death of his brother. McQueen brings together a fine blend of toe-jamming action and heart-wrenching drama. His sexy co-star Cynthia Rothrock, also comes from the "west coast" drama scene. An accomplished actress through out college and beyond, she lends her acting talents to this fine film. If you've never seen her in the off-Broadway production of "Hair" you haven't lived yet. This movie is a powerful blend of action and drama.

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.

Although her role is actually secondary to Chad McQueen's (who is an OK action lead), Cynthia Rothrock is at her near-best in "Martial Law", both looks-wise and fighting-wise. She even goes 1-on-1 against Benny "The Jet" Urquidez at one point, though her highlight is probably when she delivers 6 or 7 rapid kicks in a row to a guy's head! But the script & direction are perfunctory, the "family drama" stuff is so lame and tiresome that it should have been left out altogether, and David Carradine is a weak, boring villain. If you find yourself watching this movie, my advice is to fast-forward through ALL of the dialogue scenes and focus only on the fight scenes - you won't be missing a thing, and you will be getting the maximum value for your money. (**)

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.

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