My Cultural Diet

Even though it doesn’t feature a single mystically powered ninja, 1993’s Undefeatable is officially now one of my favorite Godfrey Ho movies. Cynthia Rothrock (Yes, Madam!) stars as a waitress who participates in underground fight clubs to pay her sister’s college tuition. But when her sister becomes the latest victim of a deranged serial killer, she’s forced to team up with a homicide detective to bring the killer to justice. Undefeatable is proof that Ho really could make a coherent film without resorting to spliced together footage from two totally unrelated films. Of course, “coherent” is a very relative term here. Apparently, Ho couldn’t decide if he was making a martial arts film, a slasher flick, or a buddy cop film, and so he just decided to make all three, and the resulting film sticks a three-point landing squarely in the “so bad it’s awesome” category. Be it the corny one-liners, the ill-timed humor, the ridiculously over-the-top acting — Don Niam really does give it his eye-popping all as the serial killer with a puffy mullet and serious mommy issues — or, of course, the iconic final duel between two shirtless and extremely well-oiled combatants, Undefeatable delivers some of the best martial arts cheese this side of Miami Connection or Samurai Cop.

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