CHINATOWN CONNECTION (DVD, 1990)

Starring Bruce Ly - Lee Majors 

Australian Region PAL Release

Movie Review :

Chinatown Connection is a decent, if unspectacular, action/martial arts movie. I was expecting something a whole lot worse given the stars - a virtual Bruce Lee impersonator, Bruce Ly, and Lee Majors Jr. They are both surprisingly adequate, although Bruce Ly's dubbing varies in quality. There are a couple of treats in the supporting cast for genre fans, namely Art Camacho and indie scream queen, Brinke Stevens. Actually, given the novelty value of the cast and the reasonable production values, it's rather surprising that this film is so obscure.

The plot concentrates around John (Bruce Ly), a policeman who reforms violent police officers by teaching them martial arts, and a trigger happy cop, Houston, played by Majors. Predictably enough, the two are paired together and they set out to find the person responsible for selling cyanide laced cocaine. The film's plot is pretty thin but it does provide sufficient opportunities for some decent martial arts action and gun fights. A shoot-out in a church and the finale stand up as well made action sequences.

IMDb has the film listed as being released in 1990 but it feels a lot older than that. The fashion, music and mountains of cocaine all seem very 80s to me and I wouldn't be surprised if this was made considerably earlier. Chinatown Connection is pretty standard 80s/early 90s martial arts fare. Genre fans will enjoy it, as will fans of Brinke Stevens and Art Camacho.