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!