Lion Fist is about Joe (Mathis Landwehr), a schlub who did four years in prison for his drug-addicted wife after she was caught holding felony weight. If that wasn't schlubby enough, he finds out she's pregnant with his child, so he gives her all his money while he's serving his time, and when he gets out, she tells him she needs $50,000 for an operation because the son she won't let him see needs brain surgery. One night on his way home Joe finds some baddies picking on an old man named Wu (Yanlong Li), and it turns out he's not only a Kung Fu master, but his daughter, Mei (Julin Taubner), is hot and has a thing for Joe. They offer to train him for a tournament where he can win the money he needs. But wait, his ex's new boyfriend Butch (Brice Akuesson) is dealing drugs out of a local gym? Joe and Mei can't let that slide, can they? Will our hero find love, win the money, and stop the baddies from dealing drugs?
Where do we go with this one? The last 30-40 minutes is fantastic, the kind of throwback to the 90s tournament movie you want. Even when it's ridiculous, like when police detectives Gary Daniels and Kurt McKinney have the drug dealers at gunpoint, and then say "let's do this old school," which means they drop their guns and take out the baddies using their martial arts. I'm not sure why that was "old school," or why any police officers would do it, but it got us a too sweet fight with Daniels and McKinney, so I'll take it. The problem is, the first 45-50 minutes doesn't make a lot of sense, and the lack of sense only has a few fights here and there to mitigate it. Other than pursuing a relationship with Mei, who made it clear from their first meeting that she was into him, and I guess training in Kung Fu with her father, because who wouldn't want to train to be a Kung Fu master, nothing else that Joe does makes sense. Why is he trying to bring down the drug dealers? Why does he take it on faith that his ex who has been bilking him for drug money is telling the truth about this operation? None of this makes the last part of the film not worth it though, I thought it was a lot of fun, and with this being a free streamer on Tubi, I think it's worth checking out, I just don't want you to start it and be like "what the hell was Matt talking about?" Give it a chance, and you'll be rewarded.
This is now 63 films for Gary Daniels, which is exactly 15 behind Dolph for first all-time among actors, and 15 ahead of Cynthia Rothrock, who's third all-time for actors. He has a small part here as one of the detectives Joe and Mei go to with their drug ring suspicions, and later with proof as the two of them are running their own sting operation. I was worried that it would be an even smaller part when I heard he was in this, but he gets more screentime when they raid the gym where the drug deals are happening, and we even see a fight when he and Kurt McKinney decide to "do it old school," which, again, made no sense, but if it gets us a fight scene I'll take it. The question is, where do we go from here? He doesn't have a lot coming, and as far as things left to review, he has one more Christian movie, The Encounter: Paradise Lost, and another film he did in Thailand around that time, A Stranger in Paradise, which has been harder to find than it should be. Hopefully he'll get more things like this, made for us "old school" action fans who are just happy to see him for a bit--and maybe mix it up for a fight scene or two--because it was fun to see him here.
The lead was played by Mathis Landwehr, who we saw in Last Kumite, and also appeared in Ultimate Justice. His martial arts skills are fantastic, and that alone will get him to the church on time in these action films, but I think he really wanted to deliver this schlubby guy gains confidence and becomes a Kung Fu master kind of thing, which I could appreciate. He's a little bit younger than Scott Adkins, but he grew up watching all of these like Adkins, and gets it all the way we all get it, which is a huge plus for all of us as fans. It's something we need, because as much as Adkins is game, he can only make so many movies, so we need more people out there who can give us more content, and I think we can add Landwehr to names like Marko Zaror and Alain Moussi who can lead their share of action films along with Adkins. He does have some stuff in his back catalog that I can review as well, so we'll probably start seeing him more on the site, but for now, this is a fun performance that action fans will appreciate.
Rounding out the rest of the names, we'll start with a couple you may not recognize. Our leading lady was played by Julin Täubner, whose only other credit was Mulan. You wouldn't know it from how great a job she does here. She also had a great fight scene, which rounded out her character, and made me think she and Landwehr would do great in a buddy cop movie, maybe like an Interpol thing set in Berlin. Then her father was played by Yanlong Li, and he also has a scant CV, yet did a great job as the Kung Fu master training Landwehr. One of his credits though was as craft services for A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop, which was Zhang Yimou's remake of Blood Simple and a movie I really enjoyed. Then on fight choreography we had one of the best in the business right now, Mike Möller, which of course elevates this whole thing. Great talent in the fights, but his choreography helps it all shine. Two names action fans would be excited to see were Keith Cooke and Kurt McKinney, both with smaller supporting parts, but bigger than cameos with some fights mixed in, so I think action fans seeing their names on the tin would be satisfied. Finally, Bolo Yeung's son David played the guy leading the drug cartel. He's broken out in the past couple years with a bunch of roles, including one in The Last Kumite, so it'll be interesting to see what happens as he does more stuff, because he was pretty good in this.
Finally, it's time to address the elephant, err lion in the room. That's right, lion's don't have fists. It was the second thing I thought when I saw the title for this, the first being the Kajagoogoo song "The Lion's Mouth," which was a song I discovered when my friend got a Kajagoogoo's greatest hits CD, and we were both wondering "what hits did they have beyond 'Too Shy'?" (To be fair, Limahl's "Neverending Story" was also added, I think the actual album title was "Kajagoogoo and Limahl's greatest hits.") Either way, the film does address this lion in the room on two occasions, where Landwehr tells Yanlong Li what we said above, that lion's don't have fists. The thing is, anyone who has cats knows that in the wild, cats having fists, and by extension opposable thumbs, probably wouldn't mean much; but in our homes, that would be a nightmare. Cats already are adept at getting into all kinds of shit, now imagine if they had thumbs on top of that? They'd be opening doors, unscrewing tops to dry food, opening beef jerky packages. I saw a video one time of people who had a raccoon as a pet, and how the raccoon would just tear their place a part, and they don't even have opposable thumbs, they just have hands that are more dexterous than a cat's. Cats with opposable thumbs would go from the great animal companions that they are to cute, furry, horrible roommates, so it's probably for the best that there are no lion fists, or any other feline fists for that matter.
And with that, let's wrap this up. You can stream this free on Tubi here in the States. The story's a bit off the wall, and it takes some time to get going, but has a fantastic finish, and I think for "old school" action fans, this will do the trick.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38953026/
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