Godfrey Ho: Lethal Panther

Hello and good day to you all. Yup the week is upon us and I decided to journey into Z-grade ninja/zombie/commando cut and paste director himself, Godfrey Ho. Why in the nine hells would I subject myself and you, the readers to this cringe making, live taking utter torment? Well after having to sit through Friday the 13^th remake, I was thinking perhaps my readers that make suggestions ARE EVIL and should be punished. Now for you gentle readers that don't want to rock the boat, make waves or create tiny tumors in my brain, I apologize for the week ahead.

Bullet blasting babe of brutality!!

Director Godfrey Ho (Clash of the Ninjas, Bionic Ninja, Ninja 8: Warriors of Fire, Ninja: Silent Assassin, Ninja Death Squad, Cobra vs. Ninja, Robo Vampire, Dressed to Fire, Born to Fight, Ninja Empire and Power Force) is best known for taking films that were not finished or could not get a release date and coming up with his own footage of a different story, doing some exposition to tie the two wildly different stories together with bad English dubbing. Today we look at a cinematic wonder about 3 CIA agents dealing with a counterfeiter when it all comes down to them having to take the law into their own hands. This is Lethal Panther a.k.a. Deadly China Dolls.

Hey, that's not Chow Yung Fat!

Our intro music sounds like I am attending a 1970's Olympic special. Half expected to see Cathy Lee Crosby to grace the screen. Leading this fight against crime is uzi totting former rebel turned hitman or hitwoman Eileen (Maria Jo of Zhong gui, Zai shi feng liu jie, Twisted Love, Searching for Love and Chu nu jiang)CIA Betty (Sibelle Hu of Your Smiling Face, My Lucky Stars, Top Squad, Crystal Hunt, Holy Virgin vs. The Evil Dead and Fatal Mission) and prostitute/assassin Amy (Yoko Miyamoto of Lethal Panther)

Betty slaps around a punk around and tell him to spill his guts about the nephew of crime boss extraordinaire, Albert (Lawrence Ng of The Underground Banker, A Chinese Torture Chamber Story, Deng Long, Zheng rong, Doctor Mack, Peace Hotel and New Tenant) But enough of plot and potential character development, time for a sex scene with full frontal! Yeah that is not a joke and we are only 5 minutes into this flick already. Only to get offed after getting off. Driving a Wakasashi into a guy's gut seemed a bit off but our girl gets cleaned up, rig dead guy's body with a bomb or maybe the squibs were too powdered and smokes all the dead guy's bodyguards.   Betty and CIA plan to deal with the counterfeiter Charles Wong with an undercover buy that gets so damn gun crazy it was a wonder if anything good came out of it. The shots fired forms will go on for a week easily.

I'm an extra!

Da boss' little girl is already for her big wedding day that ends in a bloodbath as Albert decides to have dear uncle Charles bumped off so he can take over and rule the underworld and each of the girls steps on the others' toes trying to get to the same objective.

Will they join forces and bring down Albert? Is Albert his actual name? Could this dubbing get worse?

There are elements of Le Femme Nikita and John Woo's The Killers but it is clumsy execution. That being said, a lot of the fight and gun scenes are actually shot well from different hand held, dolly and some tri-pod. That being said, I am pretty sure he lifted some Carpenter music from Halloween. No idea why but that is a m.o.he is known for. The choreography for the gun fights on the other hand feel like I am sitting through a Miami Vice episode. No one is covering each other, conserving rounds or even flanking properly so... typical action flick. I am no stranger to the Girls with Guns action genre that I believe Andy Sidaris managed quiet often but it is a bit over the top here. 

At least three sleazier than most sex scenes, decent Kung Fu and Wu Shu fights and more guns blazing than The Killers but the editing has made it confusing as hell. I got the 90 minute version but I doubt that 5 additional minutes cleared up all the plot holes.

Bad ass girl but grandma hair cut!?!