Search - Breathing Fire on DVD

Not Bad

08/20/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"BREATHING FIRE tells the story of two young martial arts masters, Vietnamese Charlie (Johnathan Ke Quan) and Tony (Eddie Saavedra) who live together as brothers, but actually are not. In truth, Tony's father, Michael Moore (Jerry Trimble) killed Charlie's mother back in 'Nam, and his brother David (Ed Neil) gave Michael a nice guilt trip and forced him to to raise Charlie, then an infant, as his own son. That has been kept from Charlie long into his teen years.In fact, Michael hides alot of things from his family. He and his chopsocky gang have robbed a bank of several million dollars. It was successful in part because the bank executive Peter Stern (Drake Diamond) is on their side. After locking up their stolen haul, the bad guys destroy the keys to their vault, but not before making impressions of them in a plastic pizza and dividing it equally to keep the honor amongst themselves.After Stern decides to turn himself and the gang into the cops, the gang shows up and kills him and his wife, but thier daughter Annie (Laura Hamilton) escapes with her father's slice of the pizza and heads to David, Charlie, and Tony, who agree to protect her.BREATHING FIRE, like so many other "kickboxing" martial arts movies, has a cast that is composed mostly of real-life martial arts champions. That's a wise choice to satisfy martial arts fans. Those in search of riveting, oscar-worthy performances, however, I would advise to steer clear. PKC Kickboxing Champ Jerry Trimble may have a well-molded physique and that overall look of pure evil, (He was also the bad guy in the kick-{ing}Jet Li 1989 Hong Kong movie, THE MASTER, which is now finally seeing a stateside release) but it doesn't much help him. Trimble is so lacking in any acting ability, his performance in BREATHING FIRE achieves somekind of benchmark : it may not be possible for another martial arts champion to give a worse performance.However, who does watch these movies for their crummy dialouge and tacky acting? Not me, but we do watch for the martial arts action, which BREATHING FIRE has plenty of. It's so loaded with hyperactive karate mayhem, it more than makes up for the lousy acting. BREATHING FIRE certainly lives up to it's title."

At least it has bolo

dominion_ruler | Carolina, USA | 07/14/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Breathing Fire is a super cheesy martial arts films, set in the tradition of the "No Retreat No Surrender" movies. There is the similar poor acting, cheesy characters, cheap music, cheesy sound effects, and actually lots of cool looking cheesy fights. Breathing Fire though still doesn't feel as enjoyable as No Retreat No Surrender, and ends up just being rather cheesy in a bad way. The fights are not as fun and the charcaters are not as enjoyable. The only two standouts that are memorable, are of course Bolo Yeung and Jonathan Ke Quan - simply for his famous role as Short Round in Temple of Doom and his role in The Goonies.

This movie is basically inconsistent. It has an original story that actually has a bit of a complex plot for these types of movies. It is about 2 brothers - Charlie and Tony - who live together with their father (Jerry Trimble) who is secretly in the business of robbing and stealing. We know this in the beginning of the film, but they do not learn about it till much later. In the meantime, one of the men that worked for their father, decides he wants out, and in return the rest of the gang kill him and his wife, leaving an orphaned daughter. She seeks out help from a man who is actually the father's brother, and he takes her to live with the 2 brothers and their father. While the story is a bit interesting, it is filled with goofy moments throughout, as well as horrible acting that is some of the worst I ever seen. Fights are good, but in the cheesy manner, as most look very fake, but still manage to entertain.

As for Bolo Yeung's performance, his first appearance in this film is classic - dressed like an old lady while he and the rest of the gang are ready to rob a bank. He has a few fights in this movie, but most are dissapointing and weaker than in most of his films. He doesn't really get enough chances to make his presence known, but he is still fun to watch when it is his turn.

Basically and over-all supercheese-fest that is not the classic fun-filled cheese like No Retreat No Surrender. Its still fun at times, and it does have Bolo Yeung and everyone's favorite boy from the Temple of Doom who is now an older teenager. Expect a movie with no realism whatsoever."