Los Angeles Streetfighter (1985)

If you like low budget and trashy martial arts film which make little sense, you are in for a good time.

Tony (Phillip Rhee) is a new boy at school (even though he looks about 30). He falls foul of the local thug Chan (James Lew), and also begins dating Chan's sister (Rosanna King) which doesn't go down very well. Tony befriends a rival gang leader Young (Jun Chong). Soon, Tony needs to help Young out when he gets into trouble witha drug dealer.

This is a rather shoddy film, so shoddy indeed that the film's title is spelt incorrectly in the opening credits! Much of the action takes place at night in the dark and it is hard to see what is going on. However, what is going on is mostly fighting! The fight scenes arn't that bad, though can be a bit monotonous after a while. Not great, but certainly fun.

Bruce Lee's Ways of Kung Fu (1979)

The title implies this is a Bruceploitation film though in reality this is standard Kung Fu fare which just uses Bruce Lee's name. The film takes place in the base of a Manchurian warlord (Ki-Ju Kim) and his eighteen female bodyguards. Many try to challenge the warlord but none get out alive, until Dragon Lee.

Dragon is seeking to avenge his father who was killed by the warlord, and does get badly beaten up but manages to escape and receives training from his new master (Choe Mu-Ling). His master is killed too by the evil warlord's forces but finally Dragon is ready to enter the base along with his friends Philip Cheung and Pearl Lin, defeat the eighteen female warriors and take on the warlord in a final showdown...

And it is all pretty terrible if we are to be honest. The film makes very little sense and sometimes feels like scenes from different films spliced together with various tangents and dubious comedy scenes. The fighting is not bad, frequently very over the top with the usual weird sound effects and lots of use of wires. Quite an experience for sure, from a cheese point of view it is highly entertaining.

Yongary, Monster from the Deep (1967)

The South Korean Godzilla, bought to life by a nuclear explosion. A mysterious earthquake travels across South Korea before Yongary finally emerges and starts doing the usual monster thing of destroying flimsy model buildings. 

It is quite some time until we get to Yongary though, the first part of the film can drag a bit and includes a couple of newly weds menaced by Icho (Kwan Ho Lee), an annoying child, who borrows secret technology from the lab which has a conspicuous lack of security. For some vague reason the wedding night is ruined by the groom being ordered into space. While he is up in orbit radio contact is lost and the earthquakes begin. Finally, Yongary emerges from the Earth. Yongary is largely immune to conventional firepower, though doesn't like a certain chemical...

The film is great fun once Yongary makes his appearance and we get the usual scenes of destruction, terrible looking tank and helicopter models, and people running in terror. The film doesn't make a great deal of sense (for example the scientist Illo (Oh Yeong-il) taking his girlfriend (Nam Jeong-im) along with him on a helicopter flying above the fire breathing monster as if its some kind of day trip!) however is a decent entry in the genre.

Golden Dragon, Silver Snake (1979)

A madcap kung fu comedy, a Jackie Chan style film of violence with slap stick. The plot is fairly familiar, Dragon Lee arrives in town to investigate the murder of his brother. He takes a job as a chef and observes a group of gangsters on motorbikes who demand protection money. These gangsters, led by a mysterious man who strokes a cat, are also trying to force a young woman and her uncle to sell them their farm. They are resisted by Silver Snake (Johnny Chan), who is also being trained in kung fu...

Obviously these gangsters are the bad guys Dragon Lee is looking for and he soon links up with Silver Snake and helps battle the gangsters, leading to an extremely long final showdown in a holiday resort.

The film is a shameless Bruceploitation film with Dragon copying many of Bruce's mannerisms and even a Game of Death style yellow outfit. However, there is also a lot of innovation and interspersing the fighting with comedy skits and stunts, some of them very bizarre. The film is unintentionally hilarious with the terrible dubbing, at times it seems like a parody but is highly entertaining.