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Thursday, May 29, 2014

Powerforce

aka Shen tan guang tou mei
Watched May 15, 2014

1982
Starring: Bruce Baron, Mandy Moore, James Barnett, Frances Fong

A year ago, a royal family was killed in a plane crash. Now the remaining member, Princess Rawleen (Mandy Moore) is about to ascend to the throne. The Princess goes to visit some good friends in China on the way back home to be crowned. She spends the night there while supposedly under the projection of her security team. While taking a bath, she is kidnapped by some ninjas.

Her security teams hires Jack Sargeant (Bruce Baron) to rescue the princess. But he can't do it alone, he first needs to meet up with Dragonforce, an elite team of fighters. Just to find Dragonforce he has to follow an insane series of steps, including fighting two guys in a dancing dragon puppet, a lady with a flute, and a guy on some floating logs. Once he has proven himself he is brought to the leader of Dragonforce Tan Lung ( Bruce Li) who shows Jack why he is leader with some excellent stick fight skills.

With the team assembled they begin the search for the kidnapped princess. In a castle they have a run in with some ninjas and Jack is hit with a poisoned throwing star. They taking him to a floating hospital, which is just a boat, and he is treated with a cobra that sucks out the poison. 

Meanwhile we see the Princess, she was kidnapped by General Marushka (James Barnett) who wants to use her as the puppet so he can be the real ruler of her country. In the ritual to gain control over the princesses mind, she sits naked while they shave her head. They paint ancient symbols all over her naked body, then they use acupuncture needles to gain control over her. 

After some goofy scenes involving members of the Dragonforce trying to get closer to General Marushka's men they find the princess and save her. There is lots of crazy action scenes including some orange clad sunshine ninjas. The dubbing is confusing since it does seem like the words line up with the movements of their mouths but doesn't quite fit. Once I looked up the movie on IMBD I realized it was made for a cantonese speaking audience to the audio track was recorded separately. Jack's has a super fit fighting body but his teeth are really gross, so it's rough when he opens his mouth. The music is really over the top, when things are supposed to be light they throw in a really goofy track. There is a scene where Dragonforce fights another group of training ninjas and a guy gets thrown though a ring of knives and doesn't make it out the other side. If you like action this movie delivers.

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