Undefeatable--Review and Reaction

Undefeatable is a creation of the infamous Hong Kong director Godfrey Ho, though he goes under the pseudonym of Godfrey Hall in this one. Undefeatable is fairly unique in that it is a brand new movie instead of one constructed of older footage edited together in a different way to attempt to form a new narrative, a trademark of Godfrey Ho. However, that does not make Undefeatable, you know, a good movie.

Stingray (Don Niam) is a professional fighter and an abusive husband. When his wife takes her psychiatrist's advice and leaves him, Stingray essentially goes berserk and starts killing just about every woman that has a resemblance to his wife. Things get personal when one of the victims is Kristi Jones' (Cynthia Rothrock) sister. It is up to Kristi Jones and Sgt. Nick DiMarco (John Miller) to put an end to Stingray's rampage.

Undefeatable has just about every symptom of an old low-budget Hong Kong martial arts film, which includes, but is not limited to, a feeble story where every event serves as a weak excuse for people to start fighting, clumsy direction, weak special effects, and universally inept acting. Kristi is a part of a street gang that engages in organized fights in order to help pay for her sister's college education. Apparently everyone has learned martial arts and no one has heard of financial assistance in this movie.

The movie seems to allude to an Oedipal complex on the part of Stingray, but even then, that, like many other things, seems to have nothing to do with anything else in the movie. All you do know is that he married his wife because of her resemblance to his mother, who may or may not have left him as a child for a boyfriend; you see them argue over leaving young Stingray in a flashback, but you never know how it actually turned out. It does give an excuse for Don Niam to start his hilariously over the top acting when he calls the random women he murders his wife's name or "mommy" and for him to dramatically spray his mullet before going on his murder spree. I have to confirm an observation a user on the Internet Movie Database made in that Niam's mullet does seem to increase in size as the movie progresses.

Stingray's murders involve torturing and raping his victims in some odd ritual before breaking their necks and tearing their eyes out. Why does he do that? Yet another thing the movie never bothers explaining. I think it was the only plot device Ho could figure out in order for the police to determine that the murders were carried out by the same person.

The acting was really bad all-around. John Miller's character seemed to have exactly one emotion throughout; at least Don Niam made his character interesting to watch. Even the guy who was Nick DiMarco's partner cannot evein die convincingly; he gets shot in the throat, to which he says "Nick" in a melodramatic voice. The problem was that despite getting shot in the neck, his vocal chords are pretty clearly intact. By the way, the movie makes it pretty clear it doesn't honestly give a damn about its own characters such as this one; you never find out if he survived his wound or not. B-movie actress Cynthia Rothrock was the best actress in the film, and I think that really says something.

So this is a martial arts film, so I'm sure you're wondering how the fight scenes are. Well, they're about as good as everything else in the film. You'll get used to seeing people get socked in the face and shrug it off like it was nothing. Also, I found it hilariously obvious when actors clearly do not make contact with the other actors when they allegedly hit one another.

The climactic fight scene between DiMarco and Stingray is one that deserves a paragraph all to itself. It begins with a brief knife fight, after which DiMarco and Stingray remove their shirts for no apparent reason; Godfrey Ho probably foresaw New Moon. Then DiMarco and Stingray awkwardly grab each other and continue fighting, and that culminates in Stingray getting lifted by a crane hook that got lodged into his eye. I'm sure Ho intended this to be some sort of irony, but I think you'll be too lost in the moment saying, "Woah. This Jerry Seinfeld lookalike got lifted by the eye!" in utter bewilderment. Oh by the way, this last scene took place in a hospital. Yeah, that hospital has warehouses with cranes with hooks on them for whatever reason.

In the end, I have to give the movie a score of a 1 instead of a 0 because it is a functional movie, which classics like Fantasy Mission Force are not. However, I think a movie where the dialogue includes lines like "You have the right to remain silent, so do me a favor and shut up." says something. If that doesn't, then you should know that after the climactic eye-lifting Cynthia Rothrock says, "We'll keep an EYE out for you, Stingray." to which John Miller follows up with, "Yeah, SEE ya around!"

Score: 1/4.