Karate, the Hand of Death

With junk like this, it's easy to see why the chop-sockey movement didn't start sooner! The lead actor obviously has no martial arts skills whatsoever-- not that I expected a white guy to know much about karate back in the early 1960s. This crude, cheap, B/W features a scene of a few Japanese martial artists in their gi's, working out. One of these guys should have been the hero; then maybe there would be a decent fight or two.

I was really disapointed when I tried sitting through this garbage. I was optimistic at first and was quite intrigued to see what an old American martial arts movie might be like. But despite the title, the filmmakers go out of their way to avoid showing martial arts scenes (i.e. a guy faces a couple opponents, but instead of fighting, he faints; and thus, another cop-out!), and when they do, it's usually just the usual ineffective hand-chopping common in American 1960s movies. All that's lacking was "hi-ya!".