Esteemed martial artist and cherished actor that Cynthia Rothrock was in her prime, and in some measure continues to be, some of the films she's been involved with are plainly excellent. Some others, unfortunately, are plainly terrible. While the very 80s original music to greet us even over the opening credits is a blast (the last time the music will deserve praise), this particular movie absolutely does not make a good impression from the outset; the first couple minutes, a prologue, struggle with questionable delivery in its narration, curt and inelegant editing, and meager direction. Once the story picks up in earnest thereafter the same problems continue, and raise a deeply skeptical eyebrow, with James Belmessieri and George Chung's writing now joining Leo Fong's direction and the editing in that way. Throw in some major flavors of racism, sexism, homophobia, and chest-beating, toxic machismo for good measure. The dialogue is just awful, and the plot is perplexingly simple, unsophisticated, and light; the actors are forced into small, dubious corners by the writing and direction (alas, poor Richard Norton, and Chung, and Rothrock, and Hidy Ochiai, and Chuck Jeffreys, and - well, everyone). Oh, and while Rothrock is promoted as the chief star of 'Fight to win' (also known as 'Eyes of the dragon,' or 'Dangerous passages'), she actually has a mere supporting part: she doesn't show up until we're already thirty minutes in, and the role definitely isn't written well.
It's not that this flick is 100% rubbish, but unfortunately, it's no less than 75% rubbish. The best descriptor might be "astonishingly weak." The production values betray how very indie and low-budget this was, with no especial art direction or costume design to speak of; the filming locations, for example, seem to reflect places that Fong could secure on the cheap, or with the generosity of friends or acquaintances. For as rotten as the dialogue tends to be, the scene writing is weirdly halfhearted, giving us only the most basic idea of a given moment - which is kind of incredible, considering how mild and unbothered the narrative itself already is; if I say it feels like Chung and Belmessieri's screenplay was nothing more than a bare-bones outline, I'm being generous. The intended humor is achingly dull and childish, and like some of the fight scenes that flounder, and the bizarrely soft direction and acting, make the feature feel at many times like the sort of kitschy, kid-friendly presentation of martial arts training that we might see in an educational segment on 'Mr. Rogers' neighborhood.' The least that can be said is that Rothrock, specifically, gets a fair chance to demonstrate her martial arts skills here (and some others, to a lesser extent), but nothing else in these eighty minutes comes off well. 'Fight to win' is a fighting movie, after a sort, but it's an astoundingly flimsy, unconvincing, awkward representation of the genre.
Maybe a third alternative name should have been "Baby's first action picture." Hugely emphasizing just how quizzically meek the production was, just before the one-hour mark we get a scene where the boom mic is very prominent at the top of the frame (and not for the last time), and I couldn't stop myself from laughing hysterically. As we enter the third act ideas are introduced into the plot that all but come out of nowhere. There really are some facets of 'Fight to win' that come off well, but these can be attributed almost exclusively to Rothrock's skills in the fighting disciplines (and, again, to some lesser extent, those of others). I don't like to repeat myself, but in this case it feels very necessary, for I must reiterate that pretty much everything else is either just altogether bad, and/or painfully infirm and tacky: characters, dialogue, scenes, story, action, humor, acting, direction, music, filming locations, wardrobe, hair, makeup, editing, cinematography, and so on. There is value here, but it's vanishingly tiny, and we can get that same value elsewhere; one is surely best served by just watching something else to begin with. If you're a huge fan of someone involved then there might be a reason to sit for this, but otherwise it's a film that can safely be disregarded as the scarcely-known, flummoxing, feeble curiosity that it is. Even for as tiresome as 'Fight to win' is I guess I'm glad I watched it; the thing is, I'll also be glad to never watch it again.
