Shadow Fury (2002)

That was an excellent one.

As Good As It Gets

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

The film concerns a near future when the World Health Organization prohibits globally on all human cloning . However a discovery creates genetically engineered . Nova Corporation hires to Madsen (Sam Bottoms), a tough bounty hunter with bad liver . He sets off in pursuit Takeru (Funaki) , a perfect ninja clone with extraordinary strength and agility . He has been created by a scientist named Dr Oh(Pat Morita) , Madsen must destroy Oh's lab about replication of enhanced human beings and any clones and the killer Ninja . But the laboratory explodes and Tareku on the loose . Madsen is helped by the lovely Dr. Foster (Alexandra Kemp) and taking on another Doctor who is developing the Alpha phase project containing 256 live specimen failed prototypes with physical deformation and mental incapacitation . The Doctor creates a new perfect killing machine , as disposal required , a teen named Kismet, a miraculous advance in slickness and intelligence . Meanwhile , a gunrunner (Fred Williamson) hands over Madsen weapons and Ninja arms such as Shuriken and Katana . The picture is a low budget actioner with suspense , spectacular fights , and crude violence . The movie displays nice choreographic struggles with punches and kicks and sensational bounds and leaps by the killer Ninja . Wooden acting by Sam Bottoms, an actor whose career began splendidly (Apocalypse now , Bronco Billy) but failed , continuing with television movies ; plus , Alexandra Kemp , a German actress playing several B films (Sumuru , Dracula 3000 , Space travesty) , furthermore Noriyuki Pat (Pat Morita of Karate Kid, recently deceased) , Fred Williamson , a Blaxploitation King and a child played Taylor Lautner . The motion picture was regularly directed by Yokoyama , an usual stunts coordinator and habitual director of Power Rangers episodes . Rating : Mediocre but some moments result to be entertaining.

I bought this film for the sole fact that Bas and Funaki from Pancrase were in it. I had no idea what its story was like except that it involved ninjas and Bas was the bad guy. I thought it was an OK film but it could have been better. The fight scenes with Funaki were pretty cool and the final fight between him and Bas was really cool, but the story, acting, and characters were kind of mixed up. Pat Morita should have been in it longer too. The actors looked like they were really trying to act good but ended up less than stellar. The hired killer, Madson, was actually funnier in serious spots than his comedy lines. Anyway it was an OK film because Bas and Funaki were in it, but if they weren't I probably would not have even looked at it.

While Japanese filmmakers seem to be losing their penchant for stiff atmospheres in movies, as this film suggests, there's still a lot of work to be done - at least for these particular Japanese filmmakers! Now, the stunt and fight scenes *are* spectacular, with ingenious use of wirework showing amazing stuff that even CGI can't do. However, the screenplay is unbelievably bad, even by comic book movie standards. We have characters who are just a step removed from real cartoon characters (check Morita's wild-haired and chortling scientist character!), sometimes spouting incredibly moronic dialogue. The story is a slow-moving, often illogical mess with some dumb plotting - like how Bottoms' character is told to track down one character, and the next scene has found him - with *no* explanation as to how he found him! Bottoms, by the way, is a real poor choice for an aging mercenary character, unconvincing even when simply shooting a gun. It doesn't help that his character is completely unlikable, even though he's the lead. Williamson is a welcome presence, though like Morita, he's only in the movie for five minutes! Had he been cast in the lead, playing his often-used Jesse Crowder character, without doubt it would have been easier to sit through.

In the beginning of the story, it reminds me about the movie Karate Kid, because of Pat Morita. He died so soon in the movie. There are lots of scene that are not so convincing. In times that Madsen, the bounty hunter, was already down and helpless, Takero, who has the opportunity to kill the man who killed his creator, just walked away. Anyway, Takero's reluctant to kill Madsen is one of the factor that lead them to battle Kismet. 7/10