Honor And Glory & Angel The Kickboxer (hk Cut of Honor and Glory)

KonCategoryIII

Honor and Glory (1993) PLOT : A team of sisters, one an FBI agent, the other a television news reporter, attempts to bring down an insane kickboxing bank executive before he can acquire a nuclear arms trigger. Wait, is this a bio-pic about disgraced former Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis? Director : Godfrey Ho Writer : Herb Borkland Cast : Cynthia Rothrock, Donna Jason, John Miller, Chuck Jeffreys, Robin Shou, Gerald Klein, Leo Rocca, Richard Yuen, Yip Yim Hing PLOT THICKENER : The rich, white man might be the most overused villain archetype in the history of action movies. I won’t bore anyone with a laundry list of past examples, but trust me that it’s as redundant and uncomfortably long as a gag on Family Guy . For 1993’s Honor and Glory , Godfrey Ho assembled a cast of principals with which he’d double-dip later in the year for his American masterpiece, Undefeatable . As you’ll recall from our coverage of that film, Cynthia Rothrock was teamed with an unreasonably sweaty John Miller, but Honor and Glory finds them on opposite sides of the law. For my money, the result of this villain casting has become the stick by which all other rich white man villain roles should be measured. Not everyone shares our enthusiasm for rich, white, male villains, though. Hotshot television reporter Joyce Pride (Jason) has staked her career on digging up sleaze and truth, and she’s just turned her sights on local bank executive Jason Slade (Miller). His shady business practices and alleged physical intimidation of investigators and regulators have made him a very controversial topic in the news media. He’s a martial arts practitioner and a raging dickhead, but Slade still feels the need to employ an army of bodyguards headed by Jake Armstrong (Jeffreys) a well-dressed kung fu and boxing expert. Jake is constantly attached at his boss’s hip to assure that pesky, scandal-seeking reporters and photographers are put in their place. You know, the place where people in the news media get beat up for asking questions and cameras are smashed on sight (China, and occasionally, the Michelle Bachmann campaign trail ). Jake has never really pondered the implications of Slade’s business activities but a recent flurry of media inquiries and assassination attempts has him rethinking the ethical value of his gig. What’s a maligned financial figure to do when regulators are knocking at the door, assassins are around every corner, and a driven reporter is sitting on video testimony detailing the fraud you committed to the tune of $1 billion? First, you clear your calendar and cancel your prayer breakfast with ex-President Ronald Reagan. Then blow off some steam by angrily practice kung fu weapon forms on your back patio. But you want to stay productive, so you acquire a stolen activator to a nuclear weapon from an Arab businessman in a deal arranged by a white street pimp named Silk (Klein). Makes sense , right? The latter point has drawn the attention of federal agencies, and Joyce’s FBI agent sister, Tracy (Rothrock) has come back from an assignment in Hong Kong to sniff out the stolen and extremely volatile goods. For most, black-market nuclear espionage would be enough on your plate but Tracy also uses her time at home to play peacemaker between her younger sister and their semi-retired workaholic covert agent father. Joyce resents her Pops for sending her to live with her mother while Tracy resided with her father following their parents’ separation. In itself, it’s not such a terrible thing unless you conclude that the living situation led her to pursue a career in a dying journalism industry, while Tracy probably got to learn about cool shit like waterboarding and handgun recoil management. The film juggles its loose ends all the way to the finish line ( no easy task ) and while you won’t be left scratching your head, you might be left palming your face. This is a Godfrey Ho movie, after all. Things come to a head in a warehouse of all places, and you might be equally surprised to find that the climax is comprised of three different climactic fights intercut together! Ho breaks out all the stops: cardboard boxes, confounding cargo nets, and Jason Slade in a tracksuit drinking a Heineken while also handling a pair of Chinese meditation balls. Understandably, Cynthia Rothrock gets top billing but this is more of an ensemble piece with emphases on the Joyce Pride and Jason Slade character arcs. As the chippy news reporter, Donna Jason does an admirable job and both her acting and fighting skills are more than competent. Also along for the ride as visiting Interpol agent Dragon Lee is Robin Shou but his scattered inclusion feels like he might have just been killing time before a red-eye flight. Ho juggles the characters as best he can, but it often takes away from the best elements of his movie: the action, and the villain. John Miller really only had two big film roles in an otherwise brief career, but he should be thanking his lucky stars