The plot twist at the end is very silly, in fact the whole movie's plot is a bit far fetched. There are some felicities. It has the splendid Cynthia Rothrock though she doesn't appear that much. It has Loren Avedon as an entertainingly over the top villain. And it has the great Carter Wong bringing class, dignity and some smooth moves in his role as a sifu. That's it really. Not exciting or engrossing. Jalal Merhi's stunt double deserves a mention though as he bounced around most athletically.
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davidjhutchison6 May 2023There's not much here to recommend this film. Cynthia Rothrock is barely in it, bookending the story. The lead is forgettable, and villains are laughable. The plot has Rothrock, and her partner investigating some nut named Striker, and catching him in the act of resurrecting 3 evil warriors from the past. Rothrock is killed, and her partner goes on a quest to stop the 3 warriors and avenge Rothrock. Carter Wong (Thunder in Big Trouble in Little China) puts in an appearance as Striker's former master, who oversees the hero's training montage. The only entertaining part of this film is the actor playing Striker. At first he plays the role straight, but realizes the film he's in and just starts playing it for laughs. I got quite a few chuckles watching his antics, and the zero respect he gets from the 3 warriors. Anyway, the hero defeats the warriors, and it turns out it was all, not a dream, but a premonition! Thus they are able to stop Striker before he is able to summon the warriors, and they all lived happily ever after. Blech!
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tarbosh2200011 March 2016Tarek (Merhi) and Linda (Rothrock) return as "New York City"* cops in this third and, thankfully, last installment of the Tiger Claws franchise. And what a franchise it was. This time around, an evil baddie named Stryker (Avedon) comes on the scene. While we have seen many guys over the years with the name Stryker, this time he mentions that his name is "Stryker Godunov". Okay. So, Stryker Godunov for some unknown reason unleashes three unkillable Martial Arts masters onto the streets of Toronto...sorry, NEW YORK, and all sorts of havoc ensues. Because Tarek is a bit slow in the head, it takes him a while to find the answer that will stop all the madness. Obviously, the answer is Carter Wong, just like in real life. Carter, as Master Jin, takes Tarek to the icy wastes of...New York...to train hard, Rocky IV style, to fight the bad guys that are Superman 2 style. With Stryker controlling the baddies, is anybody safe? Will Tarek rise to the occasion? Or will something truly stupid happen to screw it all up? Yes, as you may have noticed, there is a Tiger Claws THREE. Just why, exactly, is anybody's guess. We had a hard time sitting through TC3 (and if Billy Blanks is to be believed - and he usually is - there are only 1,997 sequels to go) for numerous reasons. Sure, it has some of the standard low-budget movie pitfalls we are more than used to and totally okay with: bad lighting, junky-looking cinematography, and acting so stilted it should be used by Uncle Sam in a Labor Day parade. The real crime here, if you can overlook the surface problems, is the minimal appearance by fan favorite Cynthia Rothrock, in favor of Jalal Merhi and the ever-unlikable Loren Avedon. Though, to be fair, he is well-cast as a pompous jerk bad guy.
Why director Maunder thought axing the delightful Rothrock just so Merhi can clog up our screens like a hairball in a shower drain remains unknown, but maybe it wasn't up to him. Maybe Rothrock, wisely, said no more. Speaking of hair, and to be fair to "Tarek", Merhi's hair does look less painted-on than usual. But the lack of Rothrock isn't even the worst of Maunder's sins. Without giving anything away, there is a mind-numbingly stupid plot twist that, as a viewer, will likely make you feel angry and insulted. Again: why? And no amount of recycled Bolo Yeung scenes and "33% new footage!" flashback moments can paper over it.
So while Stryker's need to take three 500-year-old outfits in a museum display and make them come alive and do wire-fu is not explained, neither are the methods used to combat it. Tarek prepares to combat the supernatural evil by attempting to snatch a piece of sushi hanging from a string by sticking his hand through a Price is Right-style moving wheel. That oughta show'em. Thankfully, however, the great Carter Wong is here to help us all, and his classic Hardcase and Fist-style delivery is still in full force. For example, when he says the word "Stryker", his super-thick accent makes it sounds like he's saying "Fraggle". Which leads to quotes such as "Fraggle is against me". Perhaps a Doozer would be more intimidating than Loren Avedon.
There's the time-honored warehouse fight, a lot of yelling and grunting (mainly because the three baddies never say anything), and even a T.I.G.-style farmhouse fight. Even at the final fight, the jumping/alternating hitting the sides of the feet thing looks less like a battle to the death and more like the Kid n' Play dance. At one point, someone even says "they are fighting spirit" - perhaps a reference to the 1992 Loren Avedon movie of the same name? But, in the end, Tiger Claws III feels like a loser of a movie, if not a complete waste of time...and that thing we mentioned earlier is the straw that breaks the Tiger's back.
*Toronto, Ontario, Canada -
Blackace29 January 2004Where do I start. I think this is probably the worse Tiger Claw movie of them all. Why? For several reasons.
1) Cynthia Rothrock is suppose to be the star, but Jalal Merhi ends up being the lead. Now go back to the cover of the box art. Who do you see? Cynthia Rothrock and the 3 freaky Superman 2 rejects, right? I don't see Jalal on the cover, so why is he the lead star? Cynthia appears at the beginning, in the middle (dream sequence) and at the end of the film. She only fights in the beginning and it's very lacklusted. Not to take anything away from Jalal, but he's no Jet Li or Jackie Chan.
2) It good to see Carter Wong & Loren Avedon, but they are just totally wasted in this movie. Both are extremely talented martial artists. See No Retreat, No Surrender 2 (Loren Avedon) and Carter Wong's earlier work like, Hapkido, Kids of Shaolin or even Big Trouble In Little China. All these movies are better then Tiger Claw 3.
3) Stupid plot. A student of a great master decides to resurrect 3 evil Masters from the undead to help him take over the underworld of New York. Extremely hokey!! Watch these Superman 2 type rejects deflect hundred of bullets from a bunch of underworld thugs was a big laugh. Special effects were even worse.
4) Even with the story this bad, you would hope the fighting would be at least up to par. Nope!! Just awful. The choreograph was terrible. Richard learns Black Tiger technique from Master Jin (Stryker's Sensai) to stop the 3 evil Master. O.k., so why doesn't he claw them and leave bloody scratch marks on anyone? It's just stupid.
I'm not sure how much Cynthia Rothrock got paid for this movie. It was quite obvious that she didn't want to do a 3rd movie, which is why she's barely on the screen. The producers knew it wouldn't sell well at retail unless she was on the cover or involved in some way, so that's why she's there. Bad move if you ask me. Many Rothrock fans will be totally disappointed and seeing her as a sellout for making this crap.
Stay away from this film. Glad I watch it on cable and didn't pay a cent to view it. -
paul_haakonsen11 January 2022After a less than mediocre 1991 "Tiger Claws" and an even worse 1996 sequel "Tiger Claws II", then I should just have steered clear of the 2000 "Tiger Claws III: The Final Conflict" movie. But still, it being a movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I ended up sitting down to watch what writer and director J. Stephen Maunder had to throw at me as a viewer.
And let me just be the first to say that what J. Stephen Maunder had to offer wasn't much to write home about. And just as I had expected, then "Tiger Claws III: The Final Conflict" was even worse than the preceding two movies.
The movie didn't have Bolo Yeung in it, whom was essentially the core reason for why I watched the first two movies. And I can't claim to be a fan of neither Cynthia Rothrock or Jalal Merhi, whom starred in this third movie. Well, Cynthia Rothrock wasn't really in the movie all that much, so fan of hers are striking out on this 2000 movie.
The storyline in "Tiger Claws III: The Final Conflict" was just not interesting and it was a sluggish movie to sit through. And it was downright abysmal to see the direction in which J. Stephen Maunder took the movie. I wasn't sure if I was watching an Asian parody of the old Christopher Reeve movie "Superman II" or if J. Stephen Maunder was so inspired by that movie that he was doing an homage. I mean those three magically resurrected Asian villains were just so far out there that it was difficult to take the movie serious. All hail General Zod, I suppose?
What does carry the movie and makes it barely watchable is the action and fight scenes, though the gun fights are rather cheesy. But hey, being 22 years old already, the movie hasn't really aged all that well.
My rating of "Tiger Claws III: The Final Conflict" lands on a generous two out of ten stars. This movie was bad. -
conanobr10 August 2001Where do I start? First, the three villains from Superman 2 come back to life to do this movie. But now they're asian! They still wear their black outfits and wreak havoc on the unsuspecting population, though.
Second, this is a Cynthia Rothrock film, so you expect some female fighting action, right? Wrong. As a matter of fact, Cynthia Rothrock is barely in the movie.
Third, this movie sucks in every conceivable way. I keep waiting for Cynthia Rothrock to do a decent movie. I'll be damned if I haven't been waiting for a long time. Now, they're putting her name on a movie simply as a publicity stunt. Next time her name appears on a movie, I'll wait for it to come out on cable.
Fourth, I want my $3.50 back. -
1991's 'Tiger claws' was, much to my delight, a whole lot of fun, balancing ham-handedness with earnest, careful construction to serve up satisfying entertainment. 1996's 'Tiger claws II' was regrettably no fun at all, for at the same time that it tried to adopt a more serious tone it also languished under a meandering pace, deemphasized action, and declined the deliberate gaucheness that worked to make its predecessor such a blast. One might hope that filmmaker J. Stephen Maunder, who wrote the first title and progressed to also directing the sequel, learned from their mistakes to make 'Tiger claws III: The final conflict' at least more balanced, but that's just not the case. Sadly, this struggles just as much as its immediate antecedent to produce any value - and in fact, there's even less here.
Bolo Yeung is missed after he graced the first two films with his presence, though at least in his stead we now have Carter Wong. Wong's attachment is almost one of name only, however, for while consistently present, he is nonetheless given a supporting role that mostly only puts him on a pedestal as though to say, "look who's here!" Cynthia Rothrock, meanwhile, is billed second only to Jalal Merhi - yet while she was sadly only second fiddle in 1991, and saw character Linda Masterston rather reduced to a bit part in 1996, she's barely involved at all in 2000. But maybe that makes her the smartest person here; I can only assume it was a contractual obligation or favor to her fellows that drew her in, and she seems to have ducked out as quickly as she could. At least Merhi is more prominent here than he was in 'Tiger claws II'; take that as you will.
The music of composer Varouje was one of the definite strengths of the first film, and gratifyingly sincere at that as the synth-driven score lent to a measure of atmosphere. Returning for 'II,' Varouje gave his music a more industrial edge - but also didn't seem to spend much time actually writing, as much of what we heard in the first sequel was distinctly repetitive and overused. Bringing their talents to 'III,' Varouje rather seems to be phoning it in. We get overt "traditional Chinese" music cues, tinges of glitch and IDM circa 2000, a little bit of guitar, slivers of spaced-out synthesizer, and... Oh I'm sorry, I'm bored now. Moving on.
Doubling as both writer and director this time around, Maunder mostly seems to have given up as they helm this production, for there's scarcely one iota of authenticity or earnestness about 'Tiger claws III.' Most aspects herein could best be described as perfunctory - serving their purpose, I suppose, but mostly unconvincingly and halfheartedly. Camerawork, editing, direction (building shots and scenes, guiding the cast), acting, humor (mostly boorish one-liners, almost no cleverness), action scenes, special effects, dialogue, characters, scene writing, plot development, and the overall narrative all fail to capture the imagination, and I rather wonder what the point of any of it was. Rounding details like hair, makeup, and costume design are unremarkable, and filming locations and set design and decoration were apparently given the lowest priority of the budget. The most well put-together scenes may well be those in which Tarek trains at the cabin, but one would be forgiven for thinking that Maunder was pointedly trying to draw upon viewer recollections of 'Rocky IV' in the process. The writing depends on a lot of action-thriller tropes to provide filler. Martial arts are played down even more here than in the 1996 feature, and cursory as all elements are - including the acting - nothing is more completely, astoundingly bland and uninspiring than those scenes that needlessly focus on protagonist Tarek's coworkers.
There are scraps of serviceable ideas here. I suppose one could reasonably argue that 'The final conflict' has no real intention but low-grade entertainment as it finishes the saga begun 9 years prior, and those involved worked to bring it to fruition with what they had. I try to find the worth in everything I watch, no matter how deficient a given title may be. Here, unfortunately, the shortcomings so heavily outweigh and dampen any advantages that there's very little enjoyment to be had. I admit I had low expectations in the first place, but I really did try to give this picture a chance. Fair enough, there are certainly worse films one could stumble upon to watch. The fact remains - when all is said and done, even if you're a die-hard fan of someone in the cast, there's just no compelling reason to check out 'Tiger claws III.'
Oh well. -
bsl057 August 2003I'll admit, I hardly watched this movie - therefore I'm not going to actually give it a numerical rating. But the parts I did see were pretty bad. Example scene with bad guys: "Everyone's running away from us. Oooh, there's a line of unattended cars! Let's walk menacingly while taking turns blowing them up in an evil manner!"
It also seemed to be kind of a rip-off of Superman II. Just look at the 3 bad guys and you've got the same demographics in each movie. -
neongen16 August 2001OK, so she`s not on screen every single second. The film had only been available in Germany and Russia before now. People have been known to learn German just so as to be able to enjoy TC III This release must be way easier to understand; that alone rates a ten right off. Does anyone have CR competition video?
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First of all, i watched this movie in 2010, so yeah i do get the part where special effects seem to come up from Mortal Kombat Conquest... the lighting stuff was kind of goofy sometimes, but thats just one part of the movie. The story itself was average, if your OK with supernatural stuff. Personally i can't stand Asian movies with people flying in the air or stuff like that, but i don't mind a supernatural aspect in a fighting movie if the fights looks real and good. And sure they did look good in this one. I saw better sure, but i saw way worst and overall i was pretty much satisfied. I saw people complaining that Cynthia wasn't that much in the movie... I have yet to saw Tiger Claws 1(cause its not on DVD) but in part 2 it was way more Jalal than her that had the lead. It seems to me the lead was always Jalal anyway and Cynthia was a good sidekick. They sure probably put her on the cover for publicity, but everybody that saw the first 2 movies, or even just the second will know she is NOT the lead actor. Then the other popular thing people like to complain... "the superman 2 rejects". Just because the bad guys are 3 and "stronger" than normal people dosen't mean it copy Superman 2... Except being 3 they have nothing in common with the superman 2 guys.. (Zod and his guys, yeah i do like Superman) Thinking this way you could say that every movie release since the original Die Hard with Terrorist taking over something would be a copy... Lets just say that overall Tiger Claws is a fun martial arts movie, not a big one that would be remembered like Bloodsport or something like that, but a fan to enjoy movie for fans of the style.
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bligeri30 September 2006Great movie. Movie Strengths: Fighting arts. Fighting choreography. Directing. Under its "fictional" story front lies a unique and literal purview of the Kung Fu Underworld in the heart and soul of where it all happens: Chinatown. Movie Weaknesses: Dramatic Acting. Budget constraints.
If you can get past the fact that this movie didn't have the luxury of Chow Yun Fat's endless budget, you'll see that it DOES have what Chow doesn't... Pure fighting arts at it's best. The fighters are real. The fights are real and true to the art... revealing an ancient, yet rarely (if ever) seen denomination of high-precision Kung Fu....
The slick black, soggy streets of the Chinatown "slums" embody the ghost district's pungent heart and soul... reminiscent of that banshee-type taste and feel you get in Michael Mann's THIEF.