recommended

Better Late Then Never

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

This movie essentially begins with six European women being abducted while on their way to Australia by some Chinese pirates who intend to sell them in the sex-slave market. Once they get to the pirate stronghold one of the women resists and she is killed by the boss named "Chao" (Hsieh Wang). Fortunately for them a beautiful Chinese woman by the name of "Ko Mei Mei" (Hui-Ling Liu) helps calm them down at which point they reluctantly do as they are told. From here on the first half of the movie subsequently consists of the women being fondled--and almost raped on several occasions--with Ko Mei Mei always seeming to come to their rescue in the nick of time. Not only that, but she also has a brother named "Ko Pao" (Hua Yueh) who is intent on helping these women gain their freedom. However, in order to do that he has to bide his time and wait for the right moment. Realizing this, Ko Mei Mei proceeds to teach them a few kung fu moves to help them in preparation for the day when they will be sold in the slave market—and they become quite proficient very quickly. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a rather odd Chinese kung fu movie which was filmed in German and used English subtitles. As I mentioned earlier, it had a rather basic plot and mostly consisted of either scantily-clad women being groped or long scenes involving martial arts—or sometimes both at the same time. It also had some humor here and there as well. Yet even so, I honestly didn't think it was a very good picture and because of that I have rated it accordingly. Below average.

"Karate, Küsse, blonde Katzen" or "Yang chi" (and there exist several English-language titles too for this one, is a collaboration between Hong Kong and West Germany from 1984, so this one is already over 40 years old. I cannot say I am familiar with any of the Asisn people who worked on this film, no matter if behind or in front of the cameras, but the name of director Ernst Hofbauer sure rings a bell and certainly not a positive one. He worked on many German films that were a mix of comedy and soft core porn, but the quality was always very low. The girls weren't that hot and the writing of the story and comedy was abysmal for the most part. And things look similar here in this pretty unusual collaboration. The film runs for slightly under 90 minutes and is about a bunch of young European women who are brought to Asia as slaves for a master who is very influential and owns a big company. Of course, there are also Asian girls for audiences with a more exotic taste. The story is about virginity, greed, loyalty and many other aspects, but the heart and should here is of course once again the mix of nudity and comedy. The women are trained as martial arts fighters to oppose their captors and so it is also somehow a story of survival, even if it is pretty much impossible to take the film seriously from that perspective. After all they are always topless during the fighting sequences. Enough said. I personally don't believe this is among Hofbauer's worst as the Asian influence and the general weirdness of this culture clash adds quite some (un)intended humor. But it's by no means a good film either. I just cannot recommend the watch. Thumbs down.

I saw this German/Chinese co-production in German and all I can say is at some point this schlock classic has to come to DVD in English because this movie is just too much fun.As I said I saw this in German so I can't be sure how much I understood but I think it goes something like this: a group of white women are sold into slavery by some pirates t some warlord who runs a town. The women are to be prostitutes and sex slaves. The women are secretly trained in various martial arts by a woman who is trying to get rid of the warlord. At some point the women fight back and a huge battle ensues with the half dressed women fighting for their freedom against an army of men dressed as ninjas.I really liked this movie a great deal even though I saw this in German sans subtitles. I didn't understand anything other than what could be shown, but with action this good it didn't make any difference. This is pure exploitation gold. The movie seems funny (intentionally), it has good acting, beautiful people, great action and the sense to just keep going. Its wonderful fun.See this movie, even if you have to see it un-dubbed or subtitled, this is a movie that should be sought out by action and exploitation lovers everywhere.

This movie rocks. Very attractive 70's chicks fight it out against evil chinese guys. This movie is highly entertaining and makes little sense. I simply loved it. The german director was also responsible for most parts of the infamous german sexploitation series SCHULMAEDCHEN REPORT, aka SCHOOL GIRL REPORTS in the early till late 70's.