Tag Archives: Godfrey Ho

Catman in Lethal Track (Review)

Posted on by
2

Catman in Lethal Track


1990

Starring
Jonathan Isgar as Catman
Johnanna Brownstein as ???
Kenneth Goodman as ???
Danny Lau as ???
Tas Lehoczky as ???
Blue Moroney as ???
Directed by Godfrey Ho

From the fiery depths of Hell comes this abomination that curses the cinematic lands. The horror that men dare not speak its name can only be conceptualized as Catman! Astonishingly, this is the more coherent of the two Catman films, which are part of the rogue’s gallery of monstrosities heaped upon the good people of the Earth by one Godfrey Ho and on Joseph Lai, two ringleaders in terror extravagance. When they aren’t producing hundred of films with “ninja” in the title in some way, they are creating many extra films of the “martial arts” genre, in that they purchase films from overseas and intersplice a few minutes of original footage and a complete overdub, thus coming up with a comprehensive plot. In theory. In practice, it’s a confusing mess, and Catman in Lethal Track is no exception. Most of the film watching time is spent trying to figure out just what in the heck is going on at the moment. The rest is waiting for Catman’s sorry behind to arrive to save the day. Godfrey Ho monstrosities that have reached TarsTarkas.NET before include Robo Vampire and Undefeatable, and we can be assured he will hit our shores again like a Luftwaffe bombardment, striking out of nowhere to make us go running for the bomb shelter.

Catman is quite simply the lamest hero to ever grace the silver screen. Not that I think these films ever were exhibited on a silver screen anywhere, or even a copper screen, or a rust screen. Catman is lamer than Rat Pfink and Boo-boo, lamer than Batman and Robin Batman and Robin, lamer than Pumaman, and even lamer than a first grader’s Halloween costume. Catman’s cat-powers include super-strength, the power to change TV channels, the power to control electronics, the power to use his bullet-proof bracelets without getting his wrists broken, and the power to teleport out of chains while causing a grenade to explode a few feet in front of him. Basically, everything your average house cat can do. Catman’s symbol is borrowed from the Eveready batteries 9 Lives’s symbol in style. Catman’s costume was patched together in a few minutes with whatever the director had left over after making 900 ninja costumes for his other films. There wasn’t enough material for a mask, so Catman wears special Catman Glasses (or Cat Glasses) that hide his identity about as effective as Clark Kent’s glasses. Come to think of it, the people in this universe are much smarter in one respect; they know who Catman is without his mask on. Probably because Catman runs around fighting crime without his mask on, like an idiot. Good thing he lives in Thailand, where his family probably is no where near. They’re never brought up, nor is any other character development for Catman. We learn more about his lame partner Gus than we do about Catman, real name Sam. No relation to the comic character who was probably lame as well (but not as lame) based on his comic covers alone. We might as well jump right in, so bear with us when things seem confusing, as Catman is a victim of the “Copfuse-a-cat” company, rendering both films nonsensical…
Continue reading →

Undefeatable (Review)

Posted on by
7

Undefeatable

aka Cui hua kuang mo

1994
Starring
Cynthia Rothrock as Kristi Jones
Don Niam as Stingray
John Miller as Nick DiMarco
Donna Jason as Jennifer Simmons
Sunny David as Karen
Emille Davazac as Anna
Hang Yip Yim as Hank
Linn Thai as Eagle Lee
Shelton Lee as Diablo
Scott Shelton as Bear
Directed by Godfrey Ho (as Godfrey Hall)

You burden me with your questions
You’d have me tell no lies
You’re always asking what it’s all about
Now listen to my replies
You say to me I don’t talk enough
But when I do I’m a fool

Baby, you’re so Undefeatable! The horror of Godfrey Ho is once again unleashed upon an unsuspecting world! Mr. Ho proves that not only can you not keep a good director down, you can’t keep the bad ones down, either! Godfrey Ho’s messes of movies involve filming lots of nonsensical scenes, splicing them into half a dozen uncompleted or cheap Asian films, and dubbing them in a futile attempt to make the stories integrated. Godfrey Ho made the occasional larger budget film, where he only filmed one film at a time and was unable to use stock movies. Undefeatable is one of those movies, but even though it was made for a larger company, he still made two films with most of the same case, though the Honor and Glory wasn’t intended to be interspliced (as far as I know.) This was near the end of the career of Godfrey Ho, as he since moved on to teaching a whole generation of Hong Kong film students how to make terrible films. And people wonder why Hong Kong cinema is in a decline… Godfrey Ho’s previous films include such winners as Ninja Commandments, Zombie vs. Ninja, Ninja Terminator, Ninja Operation: Licensed to Terminate, Catman in Lethal Track, and Thunder Ninja Kids: The Hunt for the Devil Boxer. With such a wonderful pedigree, this film can be nothing but gold!

Starring in Undefeatable is the unbeatable Cynthia Rothrock, in the role that didn’t make her famous. In fact, she was pretty much already famous, so this is the role that made her less famous! Most of the other cast went on to obscurity, though a high percentage also have roles in Honor and Glory. It looks suspiciously like Mr. Ho was up to his old tricks again, but got taken down in the final release stage. The villain of the piece is Stingray, played by Don Niam, in one of his few roles. He hams this one up perfectly, with crazy rape-eyes bugged out all the time, and a genuine creepy tone that can set the most relaxed person on Earth into unnerved fits. He goes over the top and it’s fairly entertaining. Luckily for us, as much of the rest of the picture isn’t. There is a procession of fights as Rothrock earns money for her sister’s schooling and later is trying to avenge her death, some of which are okay, and a few have gimmicky opponents. The main problem is everything between the fights and Stingray’s craziness. It’s whale barf of the slimiest order. Heck, there are people who would gladly eat that whale vomit instead of watch parts of this film. And I don’t blame them.

The final fight has made the rounds on the internet, giving this film a sort of cult buzz it never had before. It does serve as one of Rothrock’s crazier films, which is different from her trend of being in bad, boring movies with few action sequences, which seemed to plague the last ten years of her career. Thankfully, the choreography is in good use, even if it’s not the high-quality stuff we are looking forward too. The whole film is a mess, but like all messes, there is some good things hidden beneath the piles of crap. Let’s get to digging, as these piles are Mt. Everest size. Maybe even Mt. Vesuvius, as it’s gonna blow!

Continue reading →