Guardian Angel (1994)

Cynthia Rothrock was inducted into the imdb Hall of Fame recently, and I've been trying to get as many of her films up as possible. That's proven to be doubly challenging. First, I have so many other films that need to get up as well, it's hard to fit her in; and second, a lot of her films just aren't on DVD, which makes it harder to get at them when I can't get them through Netflix.

Guardian Angel is about Rothrock as a cop whose fiance is killed on the job by a woman set-up by the counterfeiter she works for. Depressed, Rothrock turns in her badge and moves into an RV. She's hired as a bodyguard by a man that needs her protection from the same woman that murdered her fiance. It's the chance at revenge she's wanted, but is it worth it?

This wasn't all that bad. Solid action and martial arts. Not as action packed as some of her other work, and the woman playing the bad guy (bad gal, I guess) wasn't very convincing as someone that could challenge Rothrock. Brian Thompson was better in Rage and Honor as her bad guy. This is what it is: good bad action, but there's nothing very spectacular about it.

This is the fifth Rothrock film I've done, but only the third that she's been the star in. The other two were the Rage and Honors, and this pales in comparison to those. When she and her partner go to a party undercover, their style was like a woman from a Color Me Badd Video, which was a unique touch for one of her films that I had to appreciate. What we really want to see is her great martial arts skills though, and she does display those often enough for this to be a solid performance.

Marshall Teague plays her fiance. You may remember him as the guy in Road House who tells Swayze he used to fuck guys like him in prison, to which Swayze wastes no time in ripping his throat out. In this film he's barely there, so I'm wondering if he had too many TV detective shows booked. He was in everything: Columbo, MacGyver, PS I Love You. And he's still in everything. Okay, maybe not. I don't know why I said that.

Art Camacho sneaks in here with a bit part. I know I keep saying I'll have to go through and tag every film he's had some association with. Right now it's just the ones he's directed. I have a feeling when all is said and done he may be tagged more times than our hero Dolph Lundgren. If that's the case, I may have to avoid tagging him until I get more Lundgren up there so Dolph's still the main man. It'll be like pitchers in the Japanese league walking Kevin Bass so he wouldn't break Sadaharu Oh's home run record.

One final thought, the description from Netflix is for a totally different movie. I don't know what it is, but it's a better movie than this one, at least it sounds like it. This happens often, and if you're using Netflix to watch the kinds of movies I do, just be aware of it. The movie you're expecting may not be the movie you get.

There are plenty of Rothrock films to watch before this one, and really it's just a poor job on my part to not get my hands on things like China O'Brien and Lady Dragon, and instead inundate you with this good but not great kind of fare. I'll see what I can do to get her more iconic work up here.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109950/

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