SYNOPSICS
18 Fingers of Death! (2006) is a English movie. James Lew has directed this movie. Shane Aaron,Koji Abe,Michael Andersen,John Arrington are the starring of this movie. It was released in 2006. 18 Fingers of Death! (2006) is considered one of the best Action,Comedy movie in India and around the world.
The "buzz" in Hollywood is that, "18 FINGERS OF DEATH!" will kick the butt out of the low budget martial arts movies genre and knocks us down to the ground laughing! This funny "sockumentart" of the world of Chop sockey, kung fooey, ninja poo poo, karate kidding croutching tiger stuff takes you on the journey of making martial arts movies at it's lowest. The best kept secret in Hollywood is legendary martial arts star, Buford Lee. He has starred in eight hundred and three "B" minus minus martial arts movies. But nobody knows who he is! Nobody, that is, except Ronald Mck, fresh out of inner city high school, full of unstoppable energy and determined to shoot a documentary on his favorite martial arts hero, Buford Lee. Through interviews, personal footage, private behind the scenes clips and selected action scenes from Buford's classic movies like "I KILL YOU UNTIL YOU DIE", "17 FINGERS OF DEATH!", and "THE LEGEND OF THE DRUNKEN BASTARD", you'll really experience what it is like to be ...
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18 Fingers of Death! (2006) Reviews
Great idea, but...
The idea of a mockumentary on creating a stereotypical low-budget martial arts movie is great. This movie definitely had some potential - some of Lew's lines on the aspects of these martial arts movies are great! But the whole thing is just too corny to be genuinely funny. Silly celebrity sound-alike names really take away from the celebrity impersonators ("Steven Seafood"? Why not just like, "Steven Seagull," or just use his real name? I think laws on parody would have had them covered). Add to that very poor editing, with lines obviously recorded afterwards and edited in (they even overlap what the on screen character is saying) and a "fart fight" scene, and the whole thing just goes down the chutes. It's really unfortunate that some of the best scenes are in the trailer! It opened promisingly enough ("I'm Deadly Thug #1!") but just couldn't keep up. Worth a rent maybe, but that's about it.
Shoot me now
This movie is absolutely horrible. Let me clarify, the first 20 minutes that I forced down were absolutely horrible. This movie is about as interesting as air. It's sad that it compares itself with Kung Fu Hustle. Using the same font and graphics layout as the Kung Fu Hustle DVD did. Don't be fooled. This is just a wanna-be decent movie hiding beneath a decent cover and some huge martial artists who aren't even given decent rolls. If you want to see a good funny martial arts movie check out: Kung Fu Hustle, Shaolin Soccer, or any other Stephen Chow film. This movie doesn't even compare to Kung Pow: Enter the Fist. I like stupid movies, but the movie still needs to be entertaining.
The worst movie ever made to date
I went into seeing this with no idea of the concept & no notion of what I would be watching. It was 4 house-mates & friends, along with myself. Total 5 people, all with vastly differing movie tastes to say the least. However there is one thing were were all unified on for once, it took us less than 30 minutes to decide to turn this movie off & save what few braincells we had that either thankfully slept thru this torture or didn't succeed at committing suicide in a rage against me for forcing them to acknowledge this trash. Since I cant submit a rating of 0 for the movie, I was forced to give it a rating of 1, which in my opinion is 2 more than it deserves. Save yourself the time wasted & the mental anguish & AVOID this movie!
18 Fingers packs a slight punch, but an enjoyable one
An amiable and amusing mockumentary, 18 FINGERS OF DEATH stands roughly in the same relation to Kung Fu movies as SPINAL TAP does to rock music. Low rent action star Buford Lee (James Lew, familiar from supporting roles BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS and TRAFFIC), sporting a certifiable Bruce Lee accent, is trying to get his new martial arts film 18 FINGERS.. off the ground. His travails are recorded by first time documentary maker, ever enthusiastic fan Ronald Mack (Maurice Patten). Along the way there are gentle parodies of martial arts heroes 'Stephen Seafood' 'Chuck Snorris' and most memorably, 'Antonio Bandana' etc, extracts from Buford's previous releases and scenes of the rehearsal and shooting of his latest one. Much of the acting on offer here is fine and the cinematography is excellent too (my DVD box claims the ratio is 4:3 but it is actually 1.85:1). The relationship between Lee and Mack is what gives the film its gravity one especially relishes the scene when the star proudly shows him his collection of treasured Kung Fu memorabilia, including 'the actual socks worn by Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon' (sadly unwashed) - and the obvious affection shown the genre by the principals shines through constantly. It's a shame that the film somewhat runs out of steam at the end, especially once Mack has left the story. Occasionally too, jokes could have been sharper, a fact especially true of the late, extended fight scene between Bandana and Lee which plays out the old farting routine for too long, its introduction a sure sign that invention is flagging. One misses the insane surreality which appeared in KUNG POW its absence due, perhaps wisely, to 18 FINGERS' recognition that such elements would appear somewhat jarring in the context of a supposed factual format. But the buoyant Patten is a real find, one of the best things in the picture in fact, clearly a talent to watch, Lew's more restrained performance allowing his co star his head. On my copy some of the action scenes seemed a bit dark, but this is not too much of a distraction. All in all, this is worth watching, with no real slow patches, although as one might expect martial arts fans and lovers of straight-to-video chock socky - will laugh the most.
A waste of time
Going by the previous comment here I thought this movie would be comical exploration into the kung-fu world. What a mistake that was! The only laughs I got were at the expense of the acting and the script (if there even was a script, often it felt as though the entire movie was being ad-libbed by a first-year college movie class). Although there are numerous references to classic kung-fu movies, they don't come across as a tongue-in-cheek homage, but rather a pathetic attempt to legitimise the meaningless content. There are plenty of low brow jokes which only serve reinforce the weak script and poorly written characters, with nothing original or witty as a saving grace. A waste of time & money.