The older I get, the more I realize that I’m doomed to watch these dumb young kids get all the good dumb action movie roles; it’s like babysitting a kid who knows how to punch and kick — a job I really don’t want or need. So maybe that’s why I absolutely loved The Paper Tigers so much.

Capturing three 40-something men who are stuck in the dire pit of utter mundanity and near hopelessness, they claw their way back above ground with the help of remembering their martial arts upbringing and the man that taught them. That’s an idea and execution I can fully get behind and support.

Danny (Alain Uy) is a failing insurance salesman who has long put his kung-fu training behind him. When his old ramshackle teacher is murdered by a pupil, he hooks back up with his long-lost friends — a disabled Hing (Ron Yuen) and MMA instructor Jim (Mykel Shannon Jenkins) — to track down the killer, who happens to be working as an assassin using a secret method that was never taught to the now-aged men.

And while the fight scenes are definitely enjoyable to watch, the film never backs away from the realities of getting old, from the slower stamina to the years of absolute regret that can build up. As the trio face these realized difficulties, they take on a trio of young upstarts, a rival school’s comedic underling and other martial arts tropes that drive the point home, especially in its railing against the mental blocks that stop most people dead in their tracks.

The Paper Tigers has such a good heart — not to mention moments of total action and relatable comedy that only people our age could possibly understand — it feels as though writer and director Quoc Bao Tran has been put through his own paces as well, with the cast charmingly fulfilling it with humor and pathos, something that’s typically missing from many martial arts flicks, especially these days. —Louis Fowler

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Bruceploitation veteran Charles Bonet (Fists of Bruce Lee, et al.) graduates to his own vehicle in the modern-day Death Promise as — now here’s a stretch — Charley. The young Puerto Rican is living his best life in the worst of Manhattan when the landlord of his shitbox apartment tries to force out all the tenants; when shutting off the electricity, gas and water doesn’t work, a dusty box of rats let loose in the halls is Plan B.

As Charley’s Pops (Bob O’Connell, The Sting II) learns, the blame is on the “landlord syndicate” dba Iguana Realty. With a multimillion deal at stake, Iguana needs to level the place. Pops pushes back, saying they’ll only be able to demolish “over my dead body” — a proclamation the syndicate takes that as an open invite. After consulting his local dojo master, Ciabatta Shibata (Thompson Kao Kang, The Black Dragon), on next steps, Charley vows to take out all responsible for Pops’ murder.

With the help of his bell-bottom jeans and his best pal, Speedy (Speedy Leacock, he of the monogrammed karate uniform and an Afro somehow parted down the middle), Charley makes a list and checks it twice — five times, actually, as his targets include:
• a Cameron Mitchell-esque, cigar-chomping archery buff (Tony De Caprio, Wanda Whips Wall Street)
• a judge by day and philatelist by night (David Kirk, Putney Swope)
• your garden-variety sleazeball, complete with disgustache (one-and-doner Thom Kendell)
• a smack dealer (one-and-doner Abe Hendy)
• and their Hal Holbrook-ian, cane-wielding figurehead, Alden (Vincent Van Lynn, Fuzz), who, until he’s felled by ninja stars seemingly cut from a cardboard box in the alley, takes orders from a Blofeld-ian mystery man — complete with kitty cat

The only movie directed by one Robert Warmflash, Death Promise is dirtier-than-dirt cheap. From its look, sound and vibe, you might think it were made by Fist of Fear, Touch of Death crew members on a potty break. And yet, the martial arts performed by Bonet, the Latin Panther, are impressive. His inevitable showdown against Bob Long (The Super Weapon) and others is especially satisfying because of the feral, crazed noises his foes emit, and because Warmflash isn’t one to move the camera much, that inexperience actually plays as a strength since we can clearly see each fighter’s moves.

In other physical news, many scenes include two- and even three-man walking hugs. Take it as the urban trash classic’s harbinger of charm. As the catchy, soul-infused theme song bellows, it’s gonna blow your mind — that’s a promise! —Rod Lott

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With a single-take fight sequence running 77 minutes, what are the odds Crazy Samurai: 400 vs. 1 isn’t largely a gimmick? The answer aligns with the second half of the title.

Given that those 77 minutes constitute 84.6% of the Japanese film, the setup is as thin as the blades the samurai wield: In a prearranged duel, swordsman Musashi Miyamoto (Versus’ Tak Sakaguchi) faces hundreds and hundreds of students and mercenaries of the Yoshioka clan. Once the swords start slinging, the camera keeps going as Musashi keeps fighting, pausing only for gulps of water. He wipes his nose. It rains. And that’s all, folks!

It’s only natural your question to be, “Can they really sustain that for more than an hour?” The answer is yes and no, in that yes, they do, but no, it doesn’t hold your attention. In fact, the flick grows extremely trying within its first few minutes of battle. Things might be different if Death Trance director Yûji Shimomura had swayed to an extreme, whether to go for complete realism or leap over the top, Shogun Assassin-style.

Instead, he stays on neutral ground, where every spray of digital blood looks pixelated and the men surrounding Musashi do that thing heavies in kung-fu movies tend to do, which is exhibit wait-your-turn hesitancy as they rock back and forth, hoping to trick your peripheral vision into telling your brain more action is happening than actually is. Watching is like attending a Civil War re-enactment: Maybe it’s fun to participate?

It’s not clear whether we’re supposed to root for or against Musashi, given that he kills a child — a fraction of a second after cleanly bisecting a butterfly — in the prologue. The epilogue is the only section of Crazy Samurai: 400 vs. 1 that lives up to the hype; those balls-out final five minutes crackle with more motion, energy and engagement than everything before it. Then again, I might not be so spry after sitting on the shelf for nearly a decade, either. —Rod Lott

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After the cultural phenom Enter the Dragon brought Hong Kong cinema into the English mainstream by adding a dose of 007 DNA. However, it was Australia that best ran with Golden Harvest’s formula, producing the Ozploitation classic The Man from Hong Kong. To underline the Bond-ness of it all, they give it a catchy theme song in Jigsaw’s “Sky High” and even cast one-and-done 007 George Lazenby as the villain.

Hong Kong Special Branch Inspector Fang Sing Leng (Jimmy Wang Yu, Master of the Flying Guillotine) travels Down Under to extradite a scar-faced drug dealer (Sammo Hung, Eastern Condors). Crossbow-savvy crime lord Jack Wilton (Lazenby, Death Dimension) makes Fang’s assignment most difficult, if not downright impossible.

Another influence of Ian Fleming’s most famous creation? Putting Fang horizontal with beautiful women he’s just met. Chief among them is a journalist (Ros Spiers, Stone) who literally swoops into their first meeting on a hang glider; “Your kite is confiscated,” he says, ever the smooth-talker. His next conquest is a college student (Rebecca Gilling, Spiers’ fellow Stoner); “You’re my first Chinese,” she says, ever the statistician. (Let’s try to ignore how she then pulls her eyes back to slits, shall we?) In his sex scenes with both, Fang exhibits an interesting lovers’ technique: dragging his tongue across their face. Whatever works!

The first feature for Turkey Shoot director Brian Trenchard-Smith, The Man from Hong Kong contains some incredible action sequences. Aside from the hand-to-hand-to-foot combat on display, audiences get a couple of high-speed chases, a man on fire, a leap from a tall building and, yep, more hang gliding. One could draw a direct line from this ball-kicking bone-crusher to the groundbreaking work of Jackie Chan in the ’80s with Police Story, Armour of God and the like, so much so that a line of Wilton’s can be thrown back at the film: “Thank you for coming. You’ve been very entertaining.” —Rod Lott

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With Bruce Lee dead and buried, the world needs a new action star and they find one in Lee-alike Bruce Li! He’s just an everyday dude who becomes just as good as Lee — possibly better — with just a few days of training. And he’s going to need it to, because an area advertising agency has put a hit out on him, which seems a bit drastic.

Once a horny cab driver with a passing resemblance to Lee, Li is hired by an unscrupulous producer to become the new face of international kung fu; clad in a Game of Death workout suit, he uses his Yuen Woo Ping-choreographed martial arts to lay waste to a team of sparring partners, including one sent to kill him. He also uses it to make love to a French actress. Ooh-la-la!

The Cosmo Company, by the way, wants to assassinate Li because he won’t fall in line with their advertising wants and needs, forcing them to send world-class skiers, room-service attendants and a guy who resembles a fit Rudy Ray Moore to crack his dragon-looking ass in half, often spectacularly failing.

Li is pitted in one fight after another in the 96-minute runtime, often soundtracked by songs such as “Nobody Does It Better” from The Spy Who Loved Me. With a Rocky-lite finale and a quickie ending, Dynamo might as well have been the Bruceploitation masterpiece of the era, showcasing the nimble Li as a worthy successor with an actual personality to match. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.