Fight To Win [1987]

When Adam found out there's a Leo Fong directed movie staring Cynthia Rothrock, we knew we would have to add it to our list. Fight To Win is honestly a really curious film for a couple reasons. The fact that Rothrock is given such a prominent place in the advertising is weird from the perspective that she doesn't come into the film until something like 30 minutes into an hour and twenty minute movie was definitely the most disappointing part. Interestingly, there's also a cameo from Bill "Superfoot" Wallace, a legendary martial artist who only has one good foot and who once kicked Adam during a seminar (apparently he kicked everyone as part of the seminar and yes, it hurt).

The film starts with some background on a martial arts competition for three statues of Chinese deities. Twenty years later, this really cocky young martial artist is approached by an Australian guy in a parking lot who challenges him to a fighting competition and he accepts for some reason. Minutes later, his instructor has a heart attack and is unable to train him. For a while, our main character just sits by his bedside, not training at all, and he loses the competition. A rematch is planned and his instructor tells him he's going to send him a new instructor to help: Cynthia Rothrock. Cue all the sexist jokes until she kicks him in the face (and even then they don't really stop throughout the whole movie). She trains him. At one point they go out to dinner and we see his deplorable table manners and that he has absolutely no game. They have to fight random guys in parking lots just so there's a reason to see them fight. Finally it's time for the competition but they realize that the Australian (who's also Rothrock's ex) had no interest in playing fair. He just wanted to collect all the statues, so he pulls out guns on them. In the last twenty minutes of the movie, it becomes something of a break-in film with a lot of pretending-to-be-gay to distract, a deus ex machina guy on a motorcycle, and the instructor who had a heart attack showing up out of nowhere. The main character learns nothing, but they win.

This movie is very borderline. There were some great bad line reads, sloppy edits, a guy hired solely to impersonate Eddie Murphy, and more boom mic than you could ever dream of. However, the plot was pretty boring until it gets weird more than halfway through. Overall, we decided that if Leo Fong's direction or Cynthia Rothrock's presence or just bad martial arts movies in general are amusing to you, this is a good one to add. Otherwise, maybe don't bother.

Spoon Rating: 4.5