My review was written in May 1986 after a Cannes Film Festival Market screening.
"Fire in the Night" (a pointless title) is an amateurish feature that unconvincingly tries to pull a gender switch on "The Karate Kid". Commercial prospects are poor.
Musclebound Graciela Casillas toplines as Terry Collins, a young college girl in a small California town dominated by the rich Swanson family. When not terrorizing people randomly, young Mike Swanson (Patrick St. Esprit) keeps hitting on virginal Terry to bed him and wed him. This culminates in a near-rape, when Terry is saved by a newly arrived old army (former) buddy Jason Williams (topbilled John Martin). Mike also is putting pressure (through his dad) on Terry's father, threatening to foreclose on the mortgage on his business.
Terry hits on the absurd idea of challenging Mike to a martial arts contest. Even less credible is the presence in town of a Filipino cement contractor and folk dance teacher Manolo (Muni Zano), who reluctantly agreed to teach Terry the secrets of Filipino martial arts in the six weeks before the coed contest. He also hiers her to work at cementing driveways to toughen her up (unfortunately, actress Casillas is an obvious weightlifter with shoulders like Lyle Alzado and thighs to match, destroying the plot premise of her vulnerability).
Of course Terry wins in a very poorly photographed fight finale, and Manolo even makes her a partner in his business.
Preposterous film is acted poorly to boot, with Casillas having trouble reading dialog. Looking like Wings Hauser, St. Espris is a hammy villain. It's hard to believe the filmmakers could keep a straight face cranking out this one.
