SWORN TO JUSTICE [1996]

 "BACK HERE, BITCH!  GO TO HELL!"

  So sayeth Cynthia Rothrock right before you blows a bad guy sky high!  So yeah, I'm a big Cynthia Rothrock fan and Vinegar Syndrome has been doing her right recently.  The latest VSA release (with the beautiful slipcover art above) is another movie that isn't as good as Rothrock deserves but it's still a lot of fun.  And there's the added little bonus of a slightly supernatural edge to it.  Rothrock plays a psychologist named Janna who comes home to find her sister and nephew killed. 

She is attacked by a quartet (or quintet . . . I'm still not sure) of masked nogoodniks who attack her and, after Janna Dane lays down the kung fu on 'em, eventually gets clocked in the head pretty bad.  She wakes up having develops the power of psychometry; that is, the ability to psychically see visions when she touched objects.  Then one of my favourite movie thangs happens:  Janna goes on a rampage of vengeance. In this movie, Cynthia isn't saddled with a male co-lead so she gets a lot more screen time.  And she gets to kick male butt from here to kingdom come!  In the mix is the aforesaid cadre of killers led by a loose wingnut called Eugene (nicely played by a tetched Kenn Scott), a lawyer love interest Nicholas (NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER's Kurt McKinney)

and a cop named Briggs (veteran actor Tony Lo Bianco).  Also in the mix are some beloved genre favourites:  the legendary Brad Dourif as off-his-rocker killer Teddy, legendary actor Mako as blind newstand owner Mr. Young and an outrageously German accented Walter Koenig as headshrinker Dr. Breitenheim!  If you scoffed at Koenig's Russian accent, wait'll you get a load of THIS accent!!!!  The film is directed adequately by one-time director Paul Maslak (who wrote the screenplays for half-a-dozen similar martial arts movies as well as editing 'Inside Kung Fu' magazine) and, while no great shakes here, he still manages to keep things moving along without too much lag in the action.  Rothrock is given some great Bronsonesque/Eastwoodesque tough one liners too so she really kicks serious ass in this movie. There's nothing better than Cynthia Rothrock on screen and this movie is seriously uplifted by her star turn.  I think this movie is quite a bit better than it usually gets credit for.  And the sole reason for that is the starring presence of Cynthia Rothrock.  The release date of 1996 seems waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too late; this really feels like it's from the late-80's/early 90's at the latest.  The martial arts sequence choreography is quite good; probably owing to the fact that Rothrock insisted on Tak Yuen being brought from Hong Kong for the fight scenes.  Rothrock also associate produced the film and both she and director Maslak were particularly interested in Cynthia having a more sexy persona in addition to her martial arts prowess.  In fact, this is the first Cynthia Rothrock film which features her in not one but two sexytimes scenes. . . which was quite unexpected for me!  SWORN TO JUSTICE was a real nice surprise as I didn't expect much from it and was pleasantly surprised how entertaining it was.