Kung Fu Games

When I sat down to watch the 2024 action movie "Kung Fu Games", from director Ryan C Jaeger, here in 2025, I have to admit that I wasn't exactly harboring the biggest of expectations. Yeah, the movie just sort of permeated low budget all over. But with it being a movie that I had neither heard about nor watched, of course I opted to give the movie a fair chance and the benefit of the doubt.

The script and storyline was flaccid. I was not particularly entertained by what writers H. Daniel Gross and Ryan C Jaeger managed to concoct.

I was not familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie. But the acting performances were adequate enough for what it was. ANd I actually do enjoy watching new and unfamiliar talents on the screen.

I've seen my fair share of questionable ninja costumes over the years. Yeah, I watched a lot of ninja movies back in the 1980s. And this 2024 movie has golden ninjas in it. Golden.

The action and fighting sequences were fair, but nothing extraordinary.

It was a struggle to sit through the ordeal that is "Kung Fu Games", and I was ready to toss the towel in the ring several times throughout the course of the 98 minutes that the movie ran for. But I endured it to the end, hoping the movie would become better. It just never did.

My rating of director Ryan C Jaeger's 2024 movie "Kung Fu Games" lands on a three out of ten stars.

The acting and fighting is like watching bad wrestling mike work and match. Terrible just terrible. I couldn't watch this for more that 10 mins and now I have to go and bleach my eyeballs. It's like it was made by a high school media department. Unless it's supposed to be. Parody which it's clearly not. It's a serious movie with the worst most predictable plot in the world.

The acting and fighting is like watching bad wrestling mike work and match. Terrible just terrible. I couldn't watch this for more that 10 mins and now I have to go and bleach my eyeballs. It's like it was made by a high school media department. Unless it's supposed to be. Parody which it's clearly not. It's a serious movie with the worst most predictable plot in the world.

I don't know where to begin. This movie is as dumb as it looks. I honestly do not understand why it was made. What was the market it was intended for? Who was the intended audience? These are questions that need to be answered.

Every once in a while I come back to the idea that Hollywood has the best business potential for money laundering schemes and this film reminds me of why that is. A Corp is set up to make the film, the dirty money slid under the table to the distributor, the distributor buys the film with the dirty money and sends it back to the dirty investors. Now the money is clean. That's the only explanation I can think of why this film exists. Literally nothing else makes sense.

So this was the last of the 4 movies released in a short span of time by this company name Tiger Style Media. I am assuming all 4 movies were filmed at the same time (or close to each other) so they could be released as a bundle kinda.

The last one was Lady Scorpions starring Martial Arts Legend Cynthia Rothrock but also Caitlin Dechelle wich is also starring in this one. I praised Miss Dechelle on her last movie for both fights/action and acting despite the shortcomings on the movie.

In this movie, altough she wasn't bad by any mean, she could not showcase anything. She had limited acting scenes and the fights were kinda underwhelming. And that goes for all the cast.

But i am getting ahead of myself. Lets start by the beginning.

So the cast is thrown into this "place" for lack of a better word wich is reminiscent of various movies where you see a bunch of peoples not knowing each others being thrown into a situation. Ok. They have to escape some kind of "capsule" and are thrown into an hostile environement where the first fight is waiting for them.

Overall the movie start as generic as it can be. It does give you more informations on all the protagonist as it move along, but its never enough to make you care for them by any means.

Remember the movie Predators by Robert Rodriguez? The third movie in the Predator franchise? They were a bunch of strangers thrown into an hostile environement and had to work together against the Predators... Despite that movie not being as good as the original, it still had its merit, and i got into the cast because i got to know them and care for them. In this one, i never really cared for anyone much.

Im not gonna go into details on everyone roles but more or less they all competent fighters who have to go from room to room to beat some bad guys and survive while being filmed and some voice tell them what to do. Yes this as been done to death. One of the movie that came to my mind while watching it was Tai Chi Master with Keanu Reeves.

There is nothing original in the story, its the same reharsh you seen before and just a pretext to some martial arts. The bad guy is extremely forgivable.

So you follow your cast of "heroes" and they fights, but yet you never really care that much for anyone as none of them appear that interesting. Mike the SAS veteran is probably the most compelling character, trying to rally everyone as a unit, but still i kinda didn't cared..

But what about the fights? Thats what matter right? Well they ain't anything special. They ain't terrible, but they never really look like they pack a punch. They just happen and look like some generic fight choreographies. This is no Isaac Florentine movie ...

Ultimately it kinda was a throw away movie that i just didn't cared... Even tough the stakes were high technically (they fough for their lives), there was no compelling bad guy, no compelling backstory to our heroes, no reason for me to wish they make it, and it sadden me to say it.

I have a feeling the peoples behind these 4 movies are passionate for Martial Arts and wanted to make something fun for fans like me, but it didn't really connected, despite a good effort from the cast.

I think the first thing to blame were the poor scripts, especially this one, but also a lack of vision in direction to make the fights hard hitting and compelling.

Looking back i think i was a bit too lenient on the other movies because of my love for martial arts or the cast (Cynthia Rothrock and Caity Lotz), and altough im not gonna change my ratings, ill give that one a 5 out of 10. Because its as average as it can be. And if you read this out of Letterboxd it will get the yellow heart but only because it didn't bored me, even if its very generic. But i can't give it a 6 out of 10 cause i feel it was the weaker script of the 4 movies.

Now maybe i am bold saying this, but i think i could make a better script in a few months. Im no director, no fights choreographer, no martial artist (exept on very amateur level), but i could write a compelling script with interesting characters. Maybe it wouldn't be the most original script ever, but peoples would care for these characters, and ultimately, its the biggest fault i saw in this movie, i just didn't care for them.

That said, i always welcome more Martial Arts movie, and as harsh as this review could seem (i had to be honest), i didn't hate this movie by any means. I hope this company make more, but please get better writers and don't hesitate to contact me, ill be happy to help you and for FREE !

I really do not understand the overly negative, borderline hateful reviews here - after seeing them I went into this movie with low expectations, expecting a potentially painful experience (I'm not even a Kung Fu fan!), and I mean it when I say I GENUINELY, had a really great time from start to finish! It was truly a fun time! It left me feeling like they had somehow seen a different movie than me.

Sure, the plot is not exactly unexplored territory, but isn't this film supposed to be an homage to its namesake/genre? It seems to me it did that well - fun fight scenes, a little heart and levity mixed in, a plot and setting that was an interesting and enjoyable vehicle for cool fighting and interesting characters. It did its job!

Don't let these reviews scares you. I never write reviews and the vitriol in these contrasted with what I watched really compelled me to take the time to do this one. You should ignore these and give the movie a go -- I laughed, I cheered and overall had a great time which is all I really ask of a movie!