Hey guys, been a while eh? Sorry about that, busy and lazy and apathetic and stuff. So much so that I don't really even have an excuse for you. But I've got time now, so I hope to crank out a couple reviews for you guys. So, lets get going.
The title “Karate Cops” does not inspire confidence does it? At best, it sounds like some sad 80's action movie, or an instructional video by a white guy with a porno mustache attempting to teach karate to overweight, small town cops. It's one of those titles, like “Suburban Commando” or “Santa with muscles”, that makes you roll your eyes before the movie even starts. The box art certainly doesn't help.
Look at this limp lipped bastard balancing a third rate hooker on his knee, pointing a gun at nothing, while his three doppelgangers strike a pose above him. The back isn't much better, it has the doppelgangers again, but also has the guy posing in a very awkward position in what appears to be a leotard with checkered flags on it. So in total this strangely whiny looking asian guy appears eight times on the cover, as though seven images of his chinless mug wouldn't be enough. This guy's name is George Chung, the star, writer, editor, director and producer of today's film, a position which screams of cinematic masturbation; the visualization of some guys egotistic “bad ass cop” fantasy. Chung, who I can only assume wrote the blurb on the back of the box describes his Opus as “ 48 hours, “Hong Kong” style. Considering that the main supporting character is an Eddie Murphy impersonator, this may be true in the same way that my knockoff “Roolex” watch and “Nikee” shoes could be considered “Hong Kong” style.
The movie begins with some guy we don't know getting gunned down during what appears to be a drug deal. The man who I assume is our villain shouts “Fuck you, Sammy” before shooting the guy in the head, a gesture which has absolutely no weight because we have no idea who these guys are and why gunning down another unfortunate victim of the mullet should matter.
I consider it a mercy killing. Better not to let him suffer with that hair.
The movie, sensing my confusion and desire to know more about what's going on immediately cuts to a completely unrelated scene. Here white people sit at a table and complain that some guy named “Hawk” is an unreliable, irresponsible dickhead. Then, because this isn't interesting, we switch to a random asian guy beating on white guys in some sort of extremely lack luster show of martial arts mastery. This is where we're introduced to Mr.Chung, playing Hawk, the guy we just spent the last few minutes establishing as a self centered prick. He's talking to some white guy—who speaks in a monotone and is obviously reading his lines off big cue cards of screen. Through this dialog we learn that Hawk is being tested for his black belt in what appears to be the back garden of a holiday inn. Of course, we abruptly cut away from this scene too, lest we become attached to a character or something equally horrible.
The room comes with a continental breakfast and a dozen guys who will stand out back and fight awkwardly for your amusement.
Also, some black lady in leather, a guy in a trench coat, and a dozen lackeys rob a bank. And then we're back with Hawk who is explaining that he was trained in martial arts at a Texas YMCA and that he's trying to get his black belt because he promised his teacher that he would get one. So our hero, martial arts god George Chung, was trained by some guy in a public self defense class at the YMCA and is only getting his black belt because someone else asked him to. Truly an inspiring tale. The next minute or so is just Chung showing off his moves and that cue card reading guy asking him “Where did you get so much power?!” like he's a Dragon Ball Z villain. Hawk explains that he “GOT SO MUCH POWER” by sparring with a 6'6” rapist who would sodomize you if you lost. Yeah. Anyways,Hawk's pager alerts him that the bank is being robbed and he speeds off to the rescue, though, judging by the fact that he mysteriously has a cup of coffee when he gets there, he wasn't in enough of a hurry to justify skipping a run to dunken donuts. The robbers take the bank employees hostage and begin making demands, to which Hawk responds with sarcasm and mild amusement, even when they gut a hostage with a shotgun blast to the torso. Hawk, who quite literally says “Why'd you do that? Now you've gone and made me angry.”, smacks one guy in the head with a bullhorn and then proceeds to fire randomly into the crowd of robbers and hostages, along with his shotgun toting back up. After several seconds of sustained fire it appears that they managed to kill all the robbers, along with all of the hostages and maybe even a few passersby.
Great Success!
No one really seems to mind that Hawk just gunned down a dozen innocent civilians and he proceeds to return to the police station where he randomly shoves his gun into the face of Charles Wilson, a random black cop with a stunning resemblance to Eddie Murphy, who promptly asks him what the fuck he's doing. Hawk seems mildly confused as to why his attempted pistol whipping has annoyed Charles, but mostly blows it off because he has to go talk to the “junior cadets”. That's right, the guy who just gunned down a dozen unarmed, innocent women on the steps of a bank is now being trusted around children. The group of Junior Cadets are being supervised by two Asian women who immediately begin hitting on Hawk in a very awkward, porno like way (Actual line from the movie “Is that your gun? Can I touch it? It's soooo big”). To his credit, Hawk brushes the advances off by complaining about how much he hates showing the kids around and repeatedly screaming “shut up” at them before asking an eleven year old if he can bum a cigarette. Remember that Chung actually wrote this scene in which he harasses children and has young women admire the size of his pseudo-dick. Anyone else feel like they just walked in on someone jerking off?
Our hero everybody
One of the kids, showing strange amounts of aggression, shoves Hawk and asks him if he ever killed anyone. Hawk responds with a death threat so long and hilarious that I have to print it here.
Kid (Lionel): “Hey, hey, you ever killed someone?
Hawk: “Yeah, once. Some kid who talked to much and put his face in my face all the time. You know what I did? I took my gun and put it right on his head and then blew a hole in the back of his head, and then I hit him in the groin so hard his eyes turned blue, then I punched him in the stomach so hard that he tried to vomit, but he swallowed his own vomit because I held his neck so hard I put finger prints in his cheeks. His name was Lionel, I hate that name”
Once again, this is the guy we're supposed to identify and sympathize with. Charles, who is also showing kids around, threatens to shove a child's head up his own ass and smother him with his excrement, though it seems positively tame considering that Hawk just gave a paragraph long death threat to a seven year old. Don't worry though, we never see the kids again after this one, 30 second scene so I can only assume that they all ran in very justified terror just after the camera cut away.
So now we come to the obligatory “hero getting chewed out by the gruff chief of police” scene, but with a bit of a twist because Hawk's chief seems to inhabit three bodies at the same time, or these three guys share some sort of hive mind.
The Hivemind calls to us!
I swear they had this part for one guy but just randomly spread the lines across three people for absolutely no reason. They tell him, amongst casual racism, that he has been assigned a partner : Charles Wilson. Who saw that coming eh? Also, one of the first things Hawk says to Charles is “How about I buy you a watermelon, I know you guys like watermelon.” Oh boy. Charles, like any reasonable person, punches him in the gut and calls him an asshole. Hawk responds with a sucker punch from behind after which the two drive off, complaining of how weak the other's punch is while a saxophone is played somewhere off screen.
The two are off to investigate that murder from the beginning of the film and begin at the Coroner office, where the Coroner is found sleeping on one of the metal trays with a white sheet over him. I'm sure there was a joke there, but it's covered by the interlocking layers of stupid and nonsense. When shown the Sammy's body, Hawk recognizes him and explains that the two grew up together. What he means by this, where they grew up together, what their connection is and why they had lost touch are not explained because this would become dangerously close to characterization, which obviously isn't what this movie is about. This movie is about threatening children and working out Chung's sexual frustration. That and listening to saxophone while we watch a car drive around.
Hawk and Charles drop by Sammy's widow, who provides them with nothing, and Hawk demands to return to the morgue because he has a hunch and “Hunches are how the west was won.”, whatever that means. At the morgue Hawk actually gives us some background on Sammy, that he was a weirdo who liked to hide things in secret pockets and write screenplays. Predictably, they find an address book in a secret pocket in Sammy's coat and go after one of the names in the book. By go after, I mean they cut to a scene where they instantly have him and Hawk just says “yep, this is the guy”. It's incredibly abrupt and jarring in a way that is hard to put into words. It would be like if, during Die Hard, John Maclain said “I need a gun” and then the camera immediately cut to him just finding a fully loaded rifle sitting on a desk somewhere.
I do love the “Corner in the director's living room” interrogation chamber here.
They proceed to interrogate him (during this it's revealed that, for some reason, the guy wears two gold watches at the same time, one on each wrist) by repeatedly pistol whipping him in the face, eventually learning the name of another person to investigate. At first, they attempt to talk their way into the man's apartment, but when the man, who's name is Tony, has the gull to ask if Hawk has a search warrant, Hawk kicks him in the head and barges in. Again, the man has the nerve to bring up his basic rights under the law, to which Hawk and Charles respond by shooting up the place, smashing his valuables and generally acting like psychotic mafioso.
Thats a very nice everything you've got there, it would be a shame if anything were to happen to it.
After Hawk spouts some minor death threats and makes faces I think are supposed to be intimidating but look more like a post stroke Jackie Chan, the duo get some information from the guy and proceed to just stop working to do some light jogging. No, seriously, they just go jogging. That whole finding the criminal in the first 48 hours, working round the clock thing? Yeah, they don't care. Anyways, while they're jogging they notice some guy is tailing them. Well, tailing is a pretty generous way to describe what he's doing; in reality he's jogging after them on a completely abandoned street, stopping occasionally to kind of half duck behind a car or tree before obviously and slowly running across the road to his next “hiding” spot.
Hawk and Wilson run around a corner and ambush the guy, immediately and repeatedly kicking him in the face. Now, I'm not a cop or anything, but couldn't they have asked him something before attacking? Something like “who are you?” or “why are you following us?”. As it turns out, this would-be stalker is just a reporter doing a story on...cops (seriously, thats all he says “a story on cops”) and wants some pictures of these two guys despite the fact that they're not in uniform. Hawk and Wilson agree because, as Hawk says, “Chicks read the paper” and pose for some shots. What is the significance of this scene you may ask? None, it has absolutely nothing to do with whats going on in the rest of the film and swiftly vanishes with meaning or consequence. Why, you might then ask, did you describe it to us? “Because I hate you and desire that you should suffer in confused, dull, and clichéd agony along side me.” would be my reply.
The next scene begins with this image.
I got nothing
All it is is four asian business men all talking in...asian...while the hulking white guy with a katana just paces around anxiously. Seriously, the face hes making and the way he holds that sword makes it seem like he's seconds away from randomly hacking one of the guys to death. Or he's constipated. It's kind of hard to tell. Anyways, the Asian guys just conduct business in moonspeak as though the sword wielding giant is just an unusually animate water cooler and then the scene just ends. Gee movie, that might have been a bit more meaningful if you actually translated what all those characters were saying. They might as well have played an audio recording of two cats fighting in a dryer full of squeak toys for all the sense it made to me.
Apparently that scene was an introduction to Mr. Sakura, or, as Hawk says it, “Saa-cUR-HAaa”, the biggest drug lord in all of Vegas. They try to go see him at...some place that looks like the inside of a YMCA...and find out he's not there, though they do take the opportunity to get into another pointless fight with a bunch of random mooks. After the fight they tell the head mook to summon his boss to some sushi place so they can have a meeting and then proceed to walk outside and make “Ywaaaa” and “Heywaaaa” kung-fu noises for no reason. Also, Wilson reveals that his father taught him tie-kwon-do and Hawk reiterates how he trained with rapists. Cut to Sakura in a limo who, after receiving a call from his henchmen, tells his driver to “Go to restaurant.”, but neglects to tell him what restaurant. Apparently the driver just read the script though, since they find the place without a hitch. Hawk professes that he doesn't eat sushi and, in fact, prefers to just sit around and “Pack shit with the guys”.
Yeah.
Hawk and Wilson have a talk with Mr. Sakura, during which Hawk begins spraying asian centered racism despite the fact that he's the most asian looking one there. Basically, Sakura says he doesn't know anything, Hawk says he doesn't believe him, and Sakura replies with “what are you going to do about it?”. This prompts Hawk to start in on another paragraph long death threat while the background music tries its best to make bubbly 80's keyboard music sound threatening. The scene ends with Hawk and Wilson kind of just wandering away after Sakura refused to talk.
Better tell us what we want to know, otherwise I'll be forced to walk away and let you eat your dinner!
What follows is some back story explaining why Hawk decided to leave Texas (where he fought giant rapists) and come to Las Vegas. Long story short, he's laying low after going all vigilante an murdering a drug dealer he had a beef with. So pretty much batman, except without money, morals, fighting skills, charm, reason, motivation, wisdom, or kinky spandex. Wilson, who up until now has been characterized as a by the books kind of guy, who would more then likely be appalled by this sort of thing, just smiles and nods. Oh and Wilson's father got shot in the face, but neither he nor I seem to care.
On the way out of where ever the hell this is—I assume it's a restaurant, though it doesn't seem to be the same one as before—the duo is caught up in a robbery. Hawk, sensing danger, immediately begins acting as though he's having some sort of autistic fit
He's a little too good at that.
Seriously, that's Hawk's first reaction to a situation like this? To act like he's having a stroke? Though, considering the script and the acting in general, this may not be a ruse; this may just be what happens when the cocktail of drugs that keeps Hawk semi-normal fails and he reverts to his true gibbering idiot form. Wilson, to his credit, immediately understands what Hawk is doing and follows along for a few seconds before spraying one of the crooks in the eye with window cleaner while Hawk retard tackles the other. The worst part about this is that it, once again, has no significance to the rest of the film; it's just another meaningless action sequence, there for no other reason except to remind us that Hawk and Wilson like kicking things.
Hawk heads off to his girlfriend's house, who complains about the fact that Hawk often disappears for weeks on end without saying a thing. She says this while also complementing how good he is at sex. Thanks for that, George. Anyways, she kicks him out because he's an unreliable asshole and he wanders to a...gay bar?
Subtle
Oh god. He asks these two...fine gentlemen...where he can get a drink and “Pack some shit with the guys”. Oh god, oh god. Despite the fact that the two guys hit on him in the most stereotypically gay ways, he just doesn't get it and wanders into the bar where he proceeds to sit with his legs spread as far as possible and suck on his beer.
I feel as though George may be working out some repressed urges here.
He attracts two guys who interpret his continued use of the phrase “Pack shit with the boys” in exactly the way it sounds and begin hitting on him. Where are we going with this, movie? How far are we going to take this “Hilarious” misadventure? Oh, he just walks out and nothing happens. ANOTHER ENTIRELY POINTLESS PLOT CUL-DE-SAC! Jesus Christ, this movie seems to be about 10% what George considers plot, and 90% extraneous bullshit.
After that collection of bad acting and offensive stereotypes we cut to Wilson as he returns home, where his wife apparently waits around in lingerie all day, holding two glasses of champagne. They have some lines, but they can be summed up as “We are totally married and stuff, lets go have some of that good sex”. And then the scene ends because we have to go back and see Hawk drunk dial all the women he knows. Seriously, we just watch him call three women and leave the same message of “Hi, Hawk here, Sorry about not calling in two weeks, bye.” After running out of women, he calls Wilson, mid-coitus, and tells him to meet up at the Sammy's wife's house. Why he does this isn't said, but I like to assume he just wants to cuddle with someone.
The next couple of scenes are just a confused mess. First, Sammy's wife is kidnapped by Sakura's head mook. Then lesbians.
Not that I'm complaining.
These two just laugh out loud for about 30 seconds without any discernible reason before Tony walks in and ruins everything. The scene goes on for way too long, most of it filled by Tony's awkward sexual advances and the obviously scripted responses of the two girls. In the end, Tony tells a few mooks to go kidnap someone (I have no idea who because he mumbles). The next scene is of Sakura, his head mook and that formerly shirtless nutcase with the sword walking around in a hotel room, speaking in foreign again. They eventually begin interrogating Sammy's wife (Sakura actually yells about how Sammy “HAVE NO HONOR!” and how “WE ARE MAN OF HONOR” before having his mooks punch her in the face.) and finding out that Tony is somehow involved in this cluster fuck.
In the mean time Hawk and Wilson have shown up at Sammy's wife's house and found the place empty. Wilson calls the Chief and finds out that Tony and Sakura have powerful connections and are, for various contrived reasons, untouchable. Hawk, of course, is whipped into an autistic rage and vows to get the bad guys regardless of what the chief says. Then we see the big white guy slapping around some girl, I'm not sure who though, since all the women in this movie are nondescript blondes with no real personality. Then there's a dick joke and we switch to Sakura leering out to the shadows somewhere.
Darth Ping Pong, perhaps?
Turns out he was just hiding in the interrogation room and proceeds to threaten the lady with a katana, though the scene ends before anything happens. In what must be the 10th cut in as many seconds, we see Hawk and Wilson kind of just lazing around Sammy's Wife's house, drinking and making coffee. Conveniently, their absentminded wanderings lead them to a locker key, which is immediately stolen from them by a random guy with an M16, apparently in the employ of Tony. Then...uh...this is getting a bit hard to follow. Random giant white guy goes to Tony and tells him Sakura is pissed, M16 guy gives Tony the key and then Tony tells him to “Get the boys”. I'm not sure who the boys are, since I've only ever seen maybe three guys with Tony, but they're coming, I guess. Hawk and Wilson wake up from the rifle butt sleep aid they took and Wilson vocalizes his intentions to “Pop a cap in someone's ass”. Also, for a Triad boss, Sakura sure does seem to employ a lot of big white guys.
Sword guy just can't keep his shirt on. Maybe He's related to the “Speed Demon” guys.
Tony just wanders in moments later and the two sides begin to talk. Or, at least I think they do, we cut away to another scene before they can really say anything. The scene we cut to is some sort of fight scene, I think, but it's so god awful dark that I'm not really sure. Watching this scene is a lot like being a bat, but trying to use stock “woosh” and punch noises rather then clicks for echolocation.
Darkness 2: The Darkening
Hawk and Wilson beat up some guy who answers every one of their demands for information with various permutations of “Fuck you”. Eventually he does reveal that “The girl” is at Sakura's place. Meanwhile, Sakura and Tony are talking. Apperently Sammy worked for both of them, or conned both of them, or something and Tony killed him. Also, Tony and Sakura used to be partners or something, they don't really get into it, though I like to believe they were “Partners” if you catch my drift. This is only reinforced when Tony spouts the line “in my heart, I knew you'd never cheat me”. Heh.
Then Tony says the dumbest line in the whole movie, which is saying a lot; “Killing is not my style”. He says this SECONDS after admitting he killed Sammy in cold blood. In fact he didn't just kill Sammy, he maimed him with a few shots to the gut before finishing him off and then he says “killing is not my style”? Killing is totally your style. In fact, beyond bad fashion sense and unintentional gay innuendo, killing is your only noteworthy characteristic. This line is like casting Stallone as a pacifist, it just doesn't work.
Predictably, Hawk and Wilson raid the place and get “the girl” back, pointing their guns at everyone but not actually shooting—probably because they wouldn't let them shoot blanks in whatever Ramanda inn they were filming in. They make a daring escape, by which I mean we watch them run down flights of stairs for about 45 seconds, but are ambushed by Tony in the lobby. Tony, unfortunately, doesn't seem to know how an ambush works and just points the gun at Hawk and Wilson before surrendering when, surprise, Hawk points his gun back at him. Though we do get a dramatic “HAAAAAAAAAWWKKKKK!”
Hawk and Wilson, showing amazing delicacy, immediately begin screaming at “the Girl”, demanding she tell them what the key is for and what is going on. She caves and tells them that she hid all he money Sammy was getting from his various betrays and double crosses in a locker. They go to get the money, Tony and Sakura follow them and shoot the girl in the...soul, I guess? Seriously, no blood or wound or anything. She dies, Hawk throws another retarded temper tantrum (despite the fact that it was him who brought her into the dangerous area) and the hivemind chief fires both Wilson and Hawk. We're roughly five minutes from the end of this movie and it's at this point that it seems that George wrote himself into a corner. So, random mooks in a car attack them for no reason and...
18 Maybe this is what they meant by “Hong Kong” style?
Hawk, hawk, what are you doing? Seriously, what the hell are you doing? Slithering, upside down, gangster snake style? That's gotta be the most awkward firing position I've ever seen. So yeah, there's a car chase and Tony gets killed and Sakura gets shot in the...leg, maybe? Doesn't really matter though, since both Wilson and Hawk still get fired. Oh, but they steal sammy's money. Oops, they just lost it all betting on roulette. Hilarious. Wait a minute, I remember something from the beginning credits. In the credits they show Hawk using a scoped revolver to shoot someone out of a helicopter. Let me just rewind here...yeah, there it is. That never fucking happened. Wait, neither did the scene after it. Or the one after that. Oh my god, the action montage in the credits is a complete fucking lie. Worse yet, some of the better action scenes in this movie are entirely in the credits. You realize what this means don't you? It means they hired a FUCKING HELICOPTER and shoved a dummy out of it AND DIDN'T EVEN USE THE FOOTAGE. Maybe this was actually a great movie and they just cut everything that wasn't abjectly terrible. Gahhhh.
So yeah, that's “Karate Cops”; a confused collection of bad fighting, racism, homophobia, self aggrandizement and terrible acting. On paper the idea seems alright, if text book, but the finished product seems like some sort of half assed facsimile of a bad b-movie. It doesn't even have the draw of shit like ankle bitters or speed demons, it's just bad and boring and confused and it hurts my skull. I'm just glad I can get away from all this shitty kung-fu and uncomfortable situations. What am I reviewing next anyways?
Oh god.
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Topic: Piecewise's Heavily illustrated bad movie reviews: Karate Cops Review (finally) (Read 35135 times)