Undefeatable (1993)
Starring Cynthia Rothrock, Don Niam & John Miller
Directed by Godfrey Ho
Written by Steve Harper, Robert Vassar & Tai Yim

 

With his intense baby blues, a near shoulder length mullet with body and bounce, Stingray (Don Niam) is one of the most intense characters you'll ever see on a direct to DVD karate movie from 1993 starting Cynthia Rothrock. It's not easy being super badass either, especially when his own wife, Anna (Emille Davazac) is afraid of him. How can you blame her though, when a normal man comes home from work, a nice hot dinner waiting to be eaten is pretty friggin awesome, if you're a pussy that is. When you're Stingray, you expect a nice hot piece of ass when you get home from a hard days work busting heads, then dinner would "come" next. Unfortunately, Stingray's wife doesn't understand this theory and decides that leaving her husband is a better idea than getting raped everyday at five. How selfish.

Stingray has major mama trauma issues and his wife leaving him just adds fuel to his unstable fire. It's a fact, you don't leave Stingray, Stingray leaves you...Dead! Now completely out of his gourd, Stingray sets out to find Anna, but seems to mistake any woman who shares Anna's red hair color and sassy flower dress fashion sense, for being his wife. Apparently, there were many red heads rockin' floral dresses back in the mid nineties, because Stingray finds plenty of them, plenty of them to rape, torture, and then murder with his special Martial Arts technique. Funny enough, most of the women that Stingray runs into fitting the Anna profile, seem to be - or be with, someone who is a trained Martial Artist. The chances are low, but in the mid nineties, anything can happen. Fanny Pack popularity is my proof of that.

One of the unfortunate Anna look-alikes that happens to cross Stingray's path, also happens to have a sister named Kristi, who happens to be played by Cynthia "fucking" Rothrock, who happens to be the toughest person to ever be in a movie called Fast Getaway. Kristi is not too thrilled that her sister was murdered and she goes on a quest to find and kill the man behind her death. In case you forgot, that man would happen to be Stingray, but let's get into Kristi's back-story a little first. Kristi is a straight thug and when she isn't waiting tables and serving lunch, she's making cash busting heads and serving knuckle sandwiches. Kristi is the lone white chick in an all Asian gang called the, I don't know.Dragon Claws or some shit - either way, this is one of the toughest gangs around with all three members being a 90's version of the vicious 30's street gang known as the Three Stooges.

How does a good-looking white chick get into an all-Asian gang? Because she got's the skills to pay the bills when it comes to whopping dat ass and much like a female version of Lionheart, Kristi makes a living by fighting in an underground fight club. Through this criminal act, Kristi meets Detective Nick DiMarco (John Miller), who hauls her to jail for her illegal underground fighting activities. Nick is a good cop and a good guy; he is also a pretty sick Martial Artist himself, which is just so crazy considering how many people are so apt at ancient fighting styles in this film. He sees something in Kristi, he sees that she's a good kid (who is probably actually 35), that she's just a little lost and needs some guidance down the right path.

To confirm Nick's spot on thoughts of Kristi, he learns that the living she earns by fighting is not necessarily all for herself, instead, it is money to pay for her sister to go to medical school. Kristi really cares about and wants to see her good-natured sister do well in life and is willing to risk her health by fighting to do so. In case you forgot, Stingray stung Kristi's sister and Nick happens to be the man on the case, so they end up coming together as a team, a double team, to find and destroy the menace known as Stingray! Who will end this film as the one that is Undefeatable? That's up to the one with the most desire to be the best, or the one that can conjure up the most sweat perhaps.

Most people know of Undefeatable from the infamous "Worst fight scene ever" clip, but it's so much more than that. It's a Godfrey Ho film, who for some strange reason used his "secret" name of Godfrey Hall on this Hong Kong produced American action film. Godfrey Ho is near infamous for making trillions of Ninja movies in the 80's. These were the kind of Ninja movies where the Ninjas were proven to be Ninjas because they would have the word Ninja embroidered on their headbands. Undefeatable is not a Ninja film, but it is a Martial Arts film, one that many consider to be pretty much trash.

I could not disagree more. Sure, the film is awful, the dialogue is ridiculous, the acting poor, and all the sets consist of warehouses and factories, complete with steel drums and empty cardboard boxes. With that said, it's fucking entertaining as all hell and in soooo many ways too. Stingray drives an '84 Plymouth Voyager, just like the one my mom had, but my mom never wore a sleeveless jean jacket like Stingray, unfortunately. To go with his jacket of jean, he even spray paints red stripes down his hair, because, I actually don't know why he does this, but he does and it's awesome.

While there may be a handful of awkward and odd moments strewn throughout, the fights are more than competent and at times somewhat impressively done. I'm being serious. However, I can say that a great deal of that credit goes to the cast of well-trained Martial Artists displaying a multitude of fighting styles and techniques. Bad and cheesy Undefeatable may be, but some of these actors are very impressive and even the sight of John Miller's huge, hairy tits cannot distract me from this fact. In all seriousness, Cynthia Rothrock is no joke and is probably one of the highest-ranking female Martial Artists to grace the screen, so it's always a joy to watch her do what she does best. I must say, I have never been so jealous of the ground, than when Rothrock does the splits.

Undefeatable is a mess, but a fun mess, not the kind of mess your grandma makes after too much applesauce. When the male leads in a film rip off their shirts just because their boobs are extremely oiled and firm, or a character is proven to be tough by wearing chains across his Champion sweatshirt, you should just let all your inhibitions go. It's just one of those movies that is a waste of time to hate for being bad, there is just no reason for doing so and it gets you nowhere. If you can embrace the insanity of what you are witnessing on screen, then you too may become, Undefeatable. See ya!