Tiger Claws III

I'll admit, I hardly watched this movie - therefore I'm not going to actually give it a numerical rating. But the parts I did see were pretty bad. Example scene with bad guys: "Everyone's running away from us. Oooh, there's a line of unattended cars! Let's walk menacingly while taking turns blowing them up in an evil manner!"

It also seemed to be kind of a rip-off of Superman II. Just look at the 3 bad guys and you've got the same demographics in each movie.

OK, so she`s not on screen every single second. The film had only been available in Germany and Russia before now. People have been known to learn German just so as to be able to enjoy TC III This release must be way easier to understand; that alone rates a ten right off. Does anyone have CR competition video?

After a less than mediocre 1991 "Tiger Claws" and an even worse 1996 sequel "Tiger Claws II", then I should just have steered clear of the 2000 "Tiger Claws III: The Final Conflict" movie. But still, it being a movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I ended up sitting down to watch what writer and director J. Stephen Maunder had to throw at me as a viewer.

And let me just be the first to say that what J. Stephen Maunder had to offer wasn't much to write home about. And just as I had expected, then "Tiger Claws III: The Final Conflict" was even worse than the preceding two movies.

The movie didn't have Bolo Yeung in it, whom was essentially the core reason for why I watched the first two movies. And I can't claim to be a fan of neither Cynthia Rothrock or Jalal Merhi, whom starred in this third movie. Well, Cynthia Rothrock wasn't really in the movie all that much, so fan of hers are striking out on this 2000 movie.

The storyline in "Tiger Claws III: The Final Conflict" was just not interesting and it was a sluggish movie to sit through. And it was downright abysmal to see the direction in which J. Stephen Maunder took the movie. I wasn't sure if I was watching an Asian parody of the old Christopher Reeve movie "Superman II" or if J. Stephen Maunder was so inspired by that movie that he was doing an homage. I mean those three magically resurrected Asian villains were just so far out there that it was difficult to take the movie serious. All hail General Zod, I suppose?

What does carry the movie and makes it barely watchable is the action and fight scenes, though the gun fights are rather cheesy. But hey, being 22 years old already, the movie hasn't really aged all that well.

My rating of "Tiger Claws III: The Final Conflict" lands on a generous two out of ten stars. This movie was bad.

Where do I start. I think this is probably the worse Tiger Claw movie of them all. Why? For several reasons.

1) Cynthia Rothrock is suppose to be the star, but Jalal Merhi ends up being the lead. Now go back to the cover of the box art. Who do you see? Cynthia Rothrock and the 3 freaky Superman 2 rejects, right? I don't see Jalal on the cover, so why is he the lead star? Cynthia appears at the beginning, in the middle (dream sequence) and at the end of the film. She only fights in the beginning and it's very lacklusted. Not to take anything away from Jalal, but he's no Jet Li or Jackie Chan.

2) It good to see Carter Wong & Loren Avedon, but they are just totally wasted in this movie. Both are extremely talented martial artists. See No Retreat, No Surrender 2 (Loren Avedon) and Carter Wong's earlier work like, Hapkido, Kids of Shaolin or even Big Trouble In Little China. All these movies are better then Tiger Claw 3.

3) Stupid plot. A student of a great master decides to resurrect 3 evil Masters from the undead to help him take over the underworld of New York. Extremely hokey!! Watch these Superman 2 type rejects deflect hundred of bullets from a bunch of underworld thugs was a big laugh. Special effects were even worse.

4) Even with the story this bad, you would hope the fighting would be at least up to par. Nope!! Just awful. The choreograph was terrible. Richard learns Black Tiger technique from Master Jin (Stryker's Sensai) to stop the 3 evil Master. O.k., so why doesn't he claw them and leave bloody scratch marks on anyone? It's just stupid.

I'm not sure how much Cynthia Rothrock got paid for this movie. It was quite obvious that she didn't want to do a 3rd movie, which is why she's barely on the screen. The producers knew it wouldn't sell well at retail unless she was on the cover or involved in some way, so that's why she's there. Bad move if you ask me. Many Rothrock fans will be totally disappointed and seeing her as a sellout for making this crap.

Stay away from this film. Glad I watch it on cable and didn't pay a cent to view it.

1991's 'Tiger claws' was, much to my delight, a whole lot of fun, balancing ham-handedness with earnest, careful construction to serve up satisfying entertainment. 1996's 'Tiger claws II' was regrettably no fun at all, for at the same time that it tried to adopt a more serious tone it also languished under a meandering pace, deemphasized action, and declined the deliberate gaucheness that worked to make its predecessor such a blast. One might hope that filmmaker J. Stephen Maunder, who wrote the first title and progressed to also directing the sequel, learned from their mistakes to make 'Tiger claws III: The final conflict' at least more balanced, but that's just not the case. Sadly, this struggles just as much as its immediate antecedent to produce any value - and in fact, there's even less here.

Bolo Yeung is missed after he graced the first two films with his presence, though at least in his stead we now have Carter Wong. Wong's attachment is almost one of name only, however, for while consistently present, he is nonetheless given a supporting role that mostly only puts him on a pedestal as though to say, "look who's here!" Cynthia Rothrock, meanwhile, is billed second only to Jalal Merhi - yet while she was sadly only second fiddle in 1991, and saw character Linda Masterston rather reduced to a bit part in 1996, she's barely involved at all in 2000. But maybe that makes her the smartest person here; I can only assume it was a contractual obligation or favor to her fellows that drew her in, and she seems to have ducked out as quickly as she could. At least Merhi is more prominent here than he was in 'Tiger claws II'; take that as you will.

The music of composer Varouje was one of the definite strengths of the first film, and gratifyingly sincere at that as the synth-driven score lent to a measure of atmosphere. Returning for 'II,' Varouje gave his music a more industrial edge - but also didn't seem to spend much time actually writing, as much of what we heard in the first sequel was distinctly repetitive and overused. Bringing their talents to 'III,' Varouje rather seems to be phoning it in. We get overt "traditional Chinese" music cues, tinges of glitch and IDM circa 2000, a little bit of guitar, slivers of spaced-out synthesizer, and... Oh I'm sorry, I'm bored now. Moving on.

Doubling as both writer and director this time around, Maunder mostly seems to have given up as they helm this production, for there's scarcely one iota of authenticity or earnestness about 'Tiger claws III.' Most aspects herein could best be described as perfunctory - serving their purpose, I suppose, but mostly unconvincingly and halfheartedly. Camerawork, editing, direction (building shots and scenes, guiding the cast), acting, humor (mostly boorish one-liners, almost no cleverness), action scenes, special effects, dialogue, characters, scene writing, plot development, and the overall narrative all fail to capture the imagination, and I rather wonder what the point of any of it was. Rounding details like hair, makeup, and costume design are unremarkable, and filming locations and set design and decoration were apparently given the lowest priority of the budget. The most well put-together scenes may well be those in which Tarek trains at the cabin, but one would be forgiven for thinking that Maunder was pointedly trying to draw upon viewer recollections of 'Rocky IV' in the process. The writing depends on a lot of action-thriller tropes to provide filler. Martial arts are played down even more here than in the 1996 feature, and cursory as all elements are - including the acting - nothing is more completely, astoundingly bland and uninspiring than those scenes that needlessly focus on protagonist Tarek's coworkers.

There are scraps of serviceable ideas here. I suppose one could reasonably argue that 'The final conflict' has no real intention but low-grade entertainment as it finishes the saga begun 9 years prior, and those involved worked to bring it to fruition with what they had. I try to find the worth in everything I watch, no matter how deficient a given title may be. Here, unfortunately, the shortcomings so heavily outweigh and dampen any advantages that there's very little enjoyment to be had. I admit I had low expectations in the first place, but I really did try to give this picture a chance. Fair enough, there are certainly worse films one could stumble upon to watch. The fact remains - when all is said and done, even if you're a die-hard fan of someone in the cast, there's just no compelling reason to check out 'Tiger claws III.'

Oh well.