No Surrender Cinema: Tiger Claws
Martial arts masters are being picked off one by one by a serial killer with a serious scratching fetish, and only a kickass combination of karate cops can stop him! In this edition of No Surrender Cinema, we hit the streets of Toronto (even though they want us to believe it’s New York) with the leading lady of low budget action, the ultimate martial arts movie antagonist, and one of the most infamous faces in the entire genre. Let’s see how they fare when they’re put to the test in Tiger Claws!
Let’s get the infamy out of the way first, as that distinction belongs to Mr. Jalal Merhi. When it comes to karate films from the 90’s, Merhi had a hand in some of the most memorable, either as an actor or behind the camera. Despite his regularity in the genre, Merhi, to me, is a guy that was best served in the “Marvel Team-Up” type of cast, like when he and Billy Blanks took down a drug lord in Talons of the Eagle, or when he played a villain opposite Blanks and Bolo Yeung in TC 2000. He’s a guy that, despite his presence, isn’t really accepted on the level of a Jeff Wincott or a Richard Norton. While Merhi is absolutely a skilled martial artist, his fights tend to lack the flare that gets viewers heavily invested, and his acting is so wooden that Jason Stillwell should be practicing his blocking technique on him. With that said, you have to have some appreciation for a guy who sold his jewelry business to get into filmmaking, and even once sacrificed his own car to be blown up when the script called for it and the movie (oddly enough, THIS movie) was low on funds.
Merhi’s big breakthough into the American movie market was Tiger Claws, even though he filmed a movie entitled Black Pearls (later renamed Fearless Tiger and released after the success of Tiger Claws on the video market). Merhi is joined by two icons of the genre, with Cynthia Rothrock portraying his partner, and Bolo Yeung continuing his streak of being a badass villain. Say what you will about Mr. Merhi, but those two make one hell of a supporting cast. Merhi plays Tarek Richards, a loose cannon cop who doesn’t play well with others. Rothrock’s Linda Masteron is also a cop, tired of working vice and fending off perverts. No sooner is it established that they’re both unhappy in their current positions that the two are paired together by their superior to try and crack the case of the “Death Dealer”, a serial killer who has been cutting through the martial artist population in NYC. These victims include Bill Pickells (a real life Canadian martial artist and friend of Jalal Merhi who plays an egomaniacal parody of himself here), and Tarek’s friend John, a tournament champion who barely has any time to celebrate before he’s struck down by the killer. All of the deaths are similar, with each victim being viciously beaten, suffering from internal injuries, as well as a final blow that leaves what appears to be claw marks across their face.
A couple of things about the killings. I like the idea of a martial arts style so intense that someone is using it to kill people, but the “death blow” looks like something some iodine and Neosporin could fix right up. Oh, and the growling noise. There’s an actual tiger’s growl dubbed in during each kill scene. Did they think that would throw us off? I certainly didn’t expect to see Tarek and Linda going undercover at the local zoo to see if there was an animal with a vendetta. And while I could understand the effect during the scenes in which we don’t see the killer, it’s still there once we know who he is (and we the audience know who he is before our heroes do). In fact, after we see Chong (Yeung) kill Tarek’s friend, we later see him as a meek painter working inside the secret Tiger dojo that Tarek has infiltrated to try and weed out any potential suspects. It’s all a little bass ackwards, because shouldn’t we have established the suspension of disbelief that it couldn’t possibly be the guy who tried to kill both Bruce Lee and Jean Claude Van Damme in some of his previous roles?
The film does well to establish the Tiger style as a form that not everyone can handle. Tarek talks about how he became so obsessed with mastering the art that it affected his personal life. Sifu Chow, the Tiger master that Tarek and Linda initially seek out to get a lead on the case, initially refuses to train Tarek until he learns an old friend was the one who introduced him to Tiger style in the first place. Knowing that there aren’t any Tiger dojos popping up in strip malls anytime soon gives our heroes a pretty narrow field to work within, but while they’re still trying to decipher things, Chong keeps up his killing ways, even offing the Sifu who took him in. This leads to a couple of cops who have it in for Tarek thinking that he might be the killer, until Chong shows up for a final fight with both of our heroes.
Despite its flaws, Tiger Claws still has a soft spot in my heart. It’s no Mission of Justice or China O’Brien to me, but it’s a film that was in heavy rotation during my karate crazed youth, and a film that I rewound and rewatched countless times on VHS. Bolo’s badassery is always welcome, but we never find out why he’s killing people or what makes him tick. During the finale, he mentions to Tarek that they are both the same, so I suppose the earlier plot point of Tarek talking about how Tiger style ruined the life he had would lead us to believe that it also caused Chong to snap. Rothrock gets to show her skill, and her squaring off with Chong at the climax is easily the highlight of the film for me. Still, the spotlight was firmly focused on Merhi here, and he was the weakest part of the film, which is not good when you’re the leading man and hero of the story.
It might sound like I’m coming down hard on Tiger Claws, but this movie was an essential part of my younger years. Time may have caused me to take off my rose tinted glasses, but Rothrock vs. Yeung is a dream match in this corner of the world, and there are several other fun fights. It’s a pretty basic entry into the martial arts movie market, especially since its sequels go OFF THE FUCKING RAILS. You think I’m kidding? There’s twists and time travel and magic portals and supernatural fighters. And it’s not something like the Bloodsport series where new entries are standalone stories and that stuff could be explained away. No, these same cops, as well as our kung fu killer, get caught up in some SyFy Movie of the Week level shit not once, but twice. It’s also a bit odd that out of the Tiger Claws trilogy, the original is the only one never to be put out officially on DVD. VHS copies are still easy to come by, and a full version of the movie is available to watch on YouTube. Give it a shot for Cynthia and Bolo, but don’t expect anything more than a film that filled a spot among many others at the time, but doesn’t do anything to make itself stand out from the flood of similar action entries.
Now I want to see Bolo spinkick a Sharknado.
