L.A. Street Fighters
(aka LA Streetfighter, Los Angeles Streetfighter, Ninja Turf, Chinatown)
1985; directed by Park Woo-Sang (credited as Richard Park)

Like an exotic dancer trying to coax the last ten dollars out of a drunken patron's wallet, L.A. Street Fighters, via its' surprisingly robust cast, tries to tease the viewer into think they're going to get some sort of payoff for the time and money invested. But, as anyone that has spent time in adult establishments will tell you, no matter how much you hope the proceedings will have a happy ending, at the end of the night, you're just going to end up feeling sad and a bit used.

The movie centers on two schoolmates, Young (Jun Chong) and Tony (Phillip Rhee), who in order to pay for college, start running a security-for-hire business. Actually, it's not clear where the guys are attending school, since the building they're in obviously looks like a high school, but all of the actors involved would look too old even in a grad school program. Anyway, Young and Tony are good at their job, which eventually lands them a high-paying job for someone that turns out to be a drug dealer. Seizing an opportunity, Young takes the dealer's stash, and a group of tough hitmen (which includes martial arts champion Bill "Superfoot" Wallace) are soon on their trail.

During the whole running time, L.A. Street Fighters feels like it could have been an enjoyable slice of 1980's straight-to-video cheese. But the fact that this production apparently had $19.73 to work with ends up crippling it. You think that's hyperbole? Well, it looks like they couldn't even afford a lighting rig, which might have not been a huge issue, except for the fact that most of the scenes are filmed at night. It got to the point where I was questioning the brightness setting on my TV, since for a good amount of the movie, you literally cannot see what the hell's going on.

That's a shame, since L.A. Street Fighters has quite a packed cast, at least if you're a fan of 1980's cable and/or VHS action movie releases. Besides the aforementioned cast members, canny viewers will be able to spot other B-movie icons like James Lew and Loren Avendon. When you can actually see the fights, they're actually good stuff, with some solid and bloody action. However, unless you're a total cinematic masochist, it's really not worth it at all to sit through the absurdly bad exposition scenes to check out a few minutes of decent action. Sure, you can probably obtain a copy of L.A. Street Fighters for about 99 cents, but even that small amount can't counteract just how terrible the majority of this release is.

RATING: 3