Ironheart

This film is notable as being the final movie of Director Robert Clouse. Clouse had previously directed Enter the Dragon with Bruce Lee, and a slew of other low budget martial arts films in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Only a few of these, such as China O' Brien, and The Big Brawl were really that good, so I was keen to see if this would be hos swansong.

Unfortunately, it isn't. It's a poorly cobbled together junkfest with little redeeming features.

The main problem is that this film was supposedly a kickstart vehicle for lead star Britton K. Lee, but the issue is that Lee was also the producer, so he basically made the film for himself.

Now there's nothing wrong with that in itself, but the problem is that Lee is neither a good actor, nor is he charismatic in any way. In previous films, Robert Clouse had Bruce Lee and Cynthia Rothrock in front of the camera - two very strong personalises who came across well on screen. Britton K. Lee has none of thee qualities, and come across as an out of place protagonist, and more like a sidekick who got his own film.

All of this could be forgiven if the martial arts action was good, but it's not. In fact - it's dire. Loads of tight shots with too much slow motion, and some clumsy choreography make this look like a TV episode.

With films like China O' Brien, fight choreographer Nijel Binns created some really cool action scenes with wide angle shots so that you could see the full glory of the fights and the actors skills, but here it just feels awkward and messy.

The film's one saving grace is that it features the legendary talents of Bolo Yeung and Richard Norton (both veterans of Hong Kong cinema,) and it's great to see them again.

They unfortunately can't save what is a dull and meandering movie with bad fight scenes and a boring plot.

Bob Clouse will always have Enter The Dragon, and no one can take that away from him, but his final word in film is not worth bothering with unless you are a super fan of Bolo Yeung.

They got him in the poster, his name is on the poster so you may be forgiven for assuming that he is the star of the show. He is not, he is just another henchman, doing what he usually does, but not with much effort. Instead the star is a guy who beats up random dudes who attack joggers and parks and drives his car a lot! In fact, pretty sure that fight with the random scumbags attacking the jogger was 10x longer than his fight with the star of the film Bolo...

The movie has a girl being kidnapped, leaving a club with someone who was rich and taking the easy way out. Yes, that is how it is described to the hero when the person who was kidnapped explains to him that the girl quit dancing and tried to get a rich man, thus taking the easy way and deserving of what she gets! Harsh dance teacher. Well the hero is more concerned that these guys killed his former partner and so we got lots of action with our bad ass martial arts cop! Well, not really. Honestly, Samurai Cop was more action packed than this thing was and featured way more action as we mainly see our hero parking...

I understand why they featured Bolo on the poster with his name featured as he is the only person I recognized in this thing! The hero's English is not too good, but he is not horrible (what a compliment). Then there is the dance teacher who looks like Pam Dawber from Mork and Mindy. Not unattractive, but not all that great and she certainly would not have stood out and been kidnapped at the club when she goes undercover. Then there is pizza guy who dated the actually hot girl who got kidnapped at the beginning, I guess he could not make a pizza to her satisfaction!

This one is definitely not good, but amusing. Where else you gonna save a jogger and she runs from you screaming too? This is a movie, she is supposed to be thankful, though her reaction was probably more realistic. The cop's was not as he just left the men dead or dying behind. Then you get a anticlimactic finale where Bolo must of been like, "let's just get this over with, man..." You will witness more than your fair share of parking though!

(1992) Ironheart ACTION

Misleading poster cover in which Bolo Yeung is not the star of this straight to rental movie, but it really stars Korean martial artist Britton K. Lee, as officer John Keem moving to LA to investigate the death of his partner. Who eventually uncover a human trafficking ring lead by Australian martial artist, Richard Norton as Milverstead.

Directed by Robert Clouse who was infamous for "Enter The Dragon" and a much cheerful movie called "The Big Brawl" starring a rather young Jackie Chan. This movie is a stinker with a much lower budget he had to handle, but at least Clouse had Enter the Dragon and The Big Brawl in his resume.

While I agree that this was the most horrendous movie ever made, I am proud to say I own a copy simply because myself and a bunch of my friends were extras (mostly in the dance club scenes, but a few others as well. This movie had potential with Bolo and the director of Enter the Dragon signed on, but as someone who was on set most every day I can tell you that Robert Clouse was an old and confused individual, at least during the making of this movie. It was a wonder he could find his way to the set everyday. I would also like to think that this might have been a better movie if a lot of it had not been destroyed in a fire at Morning Calm studios. I can't say that it would have been for sure, but it would be nice to think so. I was actually surprised that it was ever released, and that someone like Bolo would attach his name to it without a fight. Oh well. Also look at the extras for pro wrestler Scott Levy, AKA Raven. He was a wrestler in Portland at the time...nice guy, very smart.

This movie had it all,great fighters,among them Bolo Yeung and Britton K. Lee and a descent budget,but it seems that the director did everything to ruin it.The movie starts of good,but after that it only gets worse.WHY didn't he have more fight scenes in this movie.Bolo Yeung was only in one real fight scene that I can remember,I hoped to see more of him,because he has one of the sickest styles ever.

Dont let the cover fool you,this is nothing what it could have been.