It’s no secret that most of Steven Seagal’s straight to video efforts stink. There have been a few that manage to rise above abysmal and can be watched without cursing everyone involved in making the film. Ruslan and The Keeper fall into this category; while they’re not likely to make any new Seagal fans, they at least offer some entertaining violence, and Seagal actually seemed to show up to the set for work most of the time.
Filmed partially in Shaw Bros Hong Kong studios, produced by Harry Alan Towers and based on characters created by Fu Manchu author Sax Rohmer, here's a vintage slice of ice-cool girl power spy action starring 60's uber-fox Shirley Eaton as chinese devil woman Su Maru—a homicidal villain with an obedient army of killer hellcats worthy of any 007 outing.
In 18th century Japan, Lord Sodom's bride to be is killed by voodoo so he accuses and kills two of his maids who curse him and his family before checking out. Lord Sodom's eyes then vanish and he goes mad and butchers his wedding guests.
A purposefully trashy throwback to the grindhouse exploitation flicks of the 70‘s, Bitch Slap manages to be surprisingly entertaining. I expected the film to be terrible, especially if compared the brilliant blaxploitation parody of Black Dynamite. It’s not quite in the same league as Black Dynamite, but it isn’t a straight parody; it’s more of a loving homage to the genre. More than anything, Bitch Slap is about breasts, asses, and violence.
Frank (Richard Norton, perhaps best known for Gymkata and The Octagon) is a former hockey player turned business man who just wants to sell his club and get the hell out of town. Unfortunately for him (but fortunately for us) everything that can go wrong does go wrong.
Kent Cheng (Run And Kill—93) stars as 'Hair Sticker', a fat man that works part time as a merkin applicator in a strip joint. Tired of being bullied and beaten down by harsh bosses and life, he, his friends Tony Leung (Dragon Inn—92) and Chang Shan get drunk and decide to organise a hasty kidnap which quickly goes wrong.
What happens when you mix basketball with Thai kickboxing, pipes, brass knuckles and knives? A whole lot of people get hurt; it’s so brutal that fatalities are not uncommon.
There are two ways to win the sport of Fireball—score a single basket, or be the only team with men left standing. Scoring a basket sounds easy but it becomes a lot harder when people are beating the hell out of you.
A purposefully trashy throwback to the grindhouse exploitation flicks of the 70‘s, Bitch Slap manages to be surprisingly entertaining. I expected the film to be terrible, especially if compared the brilliant blaxploitation parody of Black Dynamite. It’s not quite in the same league as Black Dynamite, but it isn’t a straight parody; it’s more of a loving homage to the genre. More than anything, Bitch Slap is about breasts, asses, and violence.
