Bezenby
There's racial tension on the streets and what can build those bridges? Lengthy talks? Kickboxing? How about accidentally stabbing an innocent bystander? That seems to work, but it takes a long time to get there.Don "Draygo's guilt" Wilson is Johnny (Cash), an ex-kickboxer from the streets who is now a doctor patching up kickboxers at his local hospital. Seems like tension arising amongst the Chinese kickboxers and a bunch of white kickboxers who can't seem to tell the different between Japanese, Chinese or Vietnamese folk. One of the white guys is played by Gary Daniels, who does his patented 'doing the splits' thing, only this time he does it at a forty-five degree angle! The other two white guys of note are Chuck and Brad. Now Chuck is going out with Brad's sister but after a change meeting at a Chinese restaurant Brad's sister now has the hots for Johnny, and vice versa, and this is where the film spends a lot of time being a romance instead of a kick arse nineties martial arse movie. Do I need to point out that these guys are racialists and aren't happy that Brad's sister is hanging around with a Japanese Chinese Vietnamese guy? More tensions arise when Tommy, Johnny's cousin, is all set up to fight Brad and Johnny says the best way to get Brad to back off is to make the fight as dangerous as possible by using gloves with glass on them. How do you think that turned out for Tommy? Couldn't you have just called the police there Johnny? This all heads towards a showdown at the end but I signed up to see Don "The Don" Wilson knock folk out with his feet. Too much romance, not enough fighting – the sequel is much better by the way.Mad props however for this being the only film I've seen where a Chinese guy pees on Gary Daniel's head – I bet Jackie Chan wishes he thought of putting that in City Hunter!
jeffolee
Holy crap! I've found the finest film ever made. It's called Ring of Fire, and the story centers around two rival kick-boxing clubs (one white, one Chinese) in California. The main character is a Chinese doctor (a Chinese doctor? That's weird!) who has given up fighting in the ring. (Actual quote: "I don't fight anymore. You beat them up, I patch them up.") After his shift at the hospital one night, he goes to help out at his aunt's Chinese restaurant (oh, I love this so much!) where he falls for a pretty Blonde who mistakens him for a waiter who can't speak English ("Excuse me, can I get chopsticks? You know, chopsticks?"). After she finishes her meal, she opens a fortune cookie that tells her that "Like a mountain lily, love lives in rocky terrain". She smiles and keeps it. The blonde happens to be engaged to one of the white kick-boxers, so drama ensues. Meanwhile, the rival kick-boxers start taking their fights to the street, gaining the attention of a local detective, who likes to say stuff like, "You better watch yourself, or I'll be on you like white on rice! No pun intended".This move is nothing short of phenomenal. There's more than enough Chinglish to satisfy anyone who has an appreciation for mispronounced L's and R's, lots of chop-socky action, horrendous 80's hairdos and clothes, and multiple scenes of a girl getting naked in the bathroom, the hot tub, the locker room, and some other places. I'm not sure how she fits into the movie (I think she's the Blonde's friend), but she's got a great rack and really big hair. In one scene, the main character, Johnny, even dresses up like the Phantom of the Opera to get into a masquerade ball so he can woo the blonde, who sees him from across the room (cue 80's synthesizer music!) and approaches him to share a romantic slow dance filmed through a Vaseline-smeared camera lens.In another one of my favorite scenes, the Blonde, Julie, goes back to the Chinese restaurant to find Johnny. Johnny's aunt asks her a series of questions to determine if she's a good girl. It goes something like this. "How old are you?" "22" "Oh, that is a good age for having children! What did you eat for breakfast?" "Bacon and Eggs." "Did you cook yourself? No McMuffin?" "I can cook. No McMuffin." At this point, the aunt decides that she's a quality girl, seeing how she can cook and is of child-bearing age. "Do you have a pain?" "Pain?" "A pain in your heart? Maybe you should go to the hospital!" "So you're saying I should go to the hospital...hmm..." (I swear, I am not making this up!) She then goes to the hospital and gets examined for having chest pains. Johnny comes in and asks her to remove her sweater so he can listen to her heart with his stethoscope. Oh yes! This is actually caught of celluloid!Oh! let's not forget the love scene. They sensually undress each other, and Julie tweaks Johnny's nipples in a close-up. I almost fell out of my chair. Oh, and the entire love scene is inter-cut with the rival gangs meeting up for a showdown, wrapping their hands and dipping them in broken glass, Bloodsport style. This leads to a fight in the middle of a (you guessed it!) ring of fire!It gets better! One of the Chinese guys dies in the fight, so Julie puts on a black dress to go to the funeral, where she discovers in horror that you're supposed to wear white, not black, to a Chinese funeral. Then, Julie's brother and ex-fiancé come to crash the funeral, wearing blue and pink tank-tops and white jeans, looking like the guys who painted my house. That display, coupled with her black dress faux pas convinces Julie that she can't be with Johnny and doesn't belong.Luckily, the fortune cookie's message saves the day (as it often does in real life), and Julie's grandma uses it to convince both Johnny and Julie that they belong together. This all culminates in Johnny's professing his love to Julie during her jazzercise aerobics class (Leotards and leg warmers galore!). Julie's brother shows up and hits her, and this finally convinces Johnny to fight him in the ring. They fight, and through some weird series of events, Julie's ex-fiancé ends up accidentally slicing her in the stomach with a sword (yes, a sword! Like, a samurai sword!). Johnny carries Julie out of the ring very slowly and dramatically, even though he should probably be running since she's most likely losing a lot of blood. Julie is putting pressure on her wound when she looks up at Johnny and smiles. That's when the movie abruptly ends.Oh god, what a movie! AWESOME! I checked the credits just to make sure I didn't actually direct this movie and forgot about it somehow. My goodness. I don't think anything can top this .
Ecks
WOW, this movie was garbage, by looking at the cover and reading the back of the box, it looked sorta cool... but no, no it was not. I would not recomend this movie to anyone... I may as well have rented Titanic, although that seemed a bit more interesting than this, the only good part to this movie was the 30 second old skool Thai fight scene with the ring of fire and tar/glass hands wraps... that is all!!! Garbage... oh yeah, did i mention that this movie was garbage?!
