10 Things You Didn’t Know About Tiger Claws
Vinegar Syndrome could have easily rested on their laurels for a while following their amazing New York Ninja restoration/release, but instead they dropped the news on Black Friday 2021 that they had two more releases aimed at action fanatics… TC 2000 and the Tiger Claws trilogy!
As a huge fan of the 1990s DTV Action Era, these were a must buy for me and by 12:15am on Black Friday, I had received my order confirmation for both special edition Blu-ray releases.
Recently I cracked open the Tiger Claws set that features 1991’s Tiger Claws, 1996’s Tiger Claws II and 2000’s Tiger Claws III and started at the beginning, but I didn’t just start with the original, I watched with Jalal Merhi commentary track on. Merhi was not only the star of the movie, he was the executive producer/driving force behind the movie. I also checked out the “Sharpening the Claws” featurette in the Special Features that included interviews with Jalal Merhi and his co-lead in the movie, Cynthia Rothrock.
After partaking in all the extras, I knew more about Tiger Claws than I ever did before and now I will share some of the knowledge I acquired as I present, 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Tiger Claws…
1. Jalal Merhi first pitched the idea for Tiger Claws at Cannes, where he met with executives from Shapiro Glickenhaus Entertainment (SGE for those in the know). At the time the idea of the movie was not completely fleshed out, but having Bolo Yeung and Cynthia Rothrock attached was enough to get the ball rolling.
2. The movie was set in New York City, but was primarily shot in Toronto. The only filming done in New York City was by the second unit team as they grabbed establishing shots to help with the illusion that the movie was actually taking place in New York City. Cynthia Rothrock was excited to get to work in Canada for the first time, but that excitement cooled off a a bit when she found out that they were shooting in January in a VERY COLD Toronto, Canada.
3. The opening scene in the movie with Cynthia Rothrock’s character Detective Linda Masterson working undercover as a prostitute on the streets of New York, was actually the first scene that was shot for the movie.
4. Tiger Claws is about the cops hunting down a killer name Chong who is targeting martial artists. Chong’s first victim is Bill Pickells, played expertly by Bill Pickels. We are first introduced to Bill on his television show, Bill Pickells’ Karate Show. On the show Bill performs a few stunts including walking on broken glass and slicing a watermelon resting on the abdomen of his female assistant with a katana while he is blindfolded. Bill opted against using sugar glass and instead wanted actual broken glass and the female assistant in the scene was Bill’s girlfriend at the time, who may or may not have been a stripper by trade.
5. The director of the Bill Pickells’ Karate Show was played by the actual director of Tiger Claws, Kelly Makin.
6. David Stevenson plays Sifu Harris, another victim of Chong’s killing spree. Stevenson actually worked with Jalal Merhi before he got in the movie business, doing deliveries for Merhi’s jewelry business.
7. The 1969 Porsche 911 that Jalal Merhi’s Tarek Richards drives in the movie, was Merhi’s actual car.
8. The decision to not directly show Chong (played by Bolo Yeung of Enter the Dragon and Bloodsport fame) early on in the film was inspired by the movie Jaws. Not showing Bolo right away was a decision inspired by Jaws.
9. The Chinatown montage scene where Tarek Richards and Linda Masterson are questioning people on the street, hoping to get a lead of some sort, features actual people that Jalal and Cynthia would go up to and ask a random questions of, they were not actors and actresses.
10. Cynthia Rothrock recalled a story involving her mother, who was on set when a frustrated Bolo Yeung stormed off the set, which prompted Cynthia’s mom to wonder aloud what “Bozo” was upset about… Cynthia quickly corrected her mother, but the “Bozo” story would live on for the remainder of the shoot.
