Alley Cat

Stumbled upon this movie while adding stuff to my Amazon Prime account to watch later.
I loved the poster:

Hot chick looking bad ass with a nice body. My whole thing is, when I read the synopsis about a girl who was stooping a gang from robbing her and that gang retaliates by killing her grandparents, forcing her to kick ass and take names, I assumed that the movie was going to be a karate extravaganza, which was all the craze all the way up to the time this movie came out in 84.

I was expecting at best to see her boobs jiggle in a tight tank top on a cold night (just how she looks on the poster).

I did luck out though. The opening title went by quick and as they were running, the crime the synopsis mentions takes place. Then when the credits were over, we get introduced to Billie Clarke who thanks to a neighbor discovers someone is steeling her wheels. She could not go out in her night gown so she changes into something better to kick ass in. Then boom! I got a brief nude scene (Yeah!). Reminds me of the opening sequence in Foxy Brown in which Pam Greer did the same thing.
And the film is till going pretty fast. Billie stops the gang from steeling her wheels with a few basic punches and throws and then a nice whip kick to the face. Nothing to write to Chuck Norris about, but I’m guessing it’s just a taste.

Then quickly the gang goes to their leader (Which quickly shows another nude scene) and he decides not to take any shit, so they attack Bille’s grandparents.

That was like ten minutes into a a 90min movie. Now most of the movie is a 80min propaganda about how the streets are dirty and the police are filled with corruption. It’s an easy enough plot to do for an action movie given a feasible reason for Billie to use her black belt in karate to protect the streets.

The Karate is not all that impressive (or to put it nicely, again, nothing to write to Chuck Norris about), but for me that makes it a little more better. Somewhat like Steven Seagal movies in which Seagal claimed, while he was starting out in the biz that all the moves you see are real and can really be used the way he’s using them in the films in real life. I feel the same thing is going on here. Their not trying to make Bille look like a superwoman, the fact that she cares enough to get evolved makes her that, so  don’t over exaggerate on the use of Karate, making it seem that the thing she does in the movie can really be use to defend yourself.

Well…I’m over hyping the film and it’s star a little (You know, cause her boobs are nice). The fights are not all that nice and relies a lot on quick cuts and low lighting, which I’m sure was not done on purpose but was rather done cause they could not afford good lighting.

Just like they could not afford good sound. There’s never a scene in which the boom mic is seen in the picture, but I know enough about how sound works to know what it sounds like when a boom mic has hit a wall or the wind is too strong for it, and I guess they could not afford the ADR we have these days.

I felt like the actress they got to play the Alley Cat, Karin Mani was selected not only cause she had a black belt in something , but because she looks like a tougher Ralph Macchio, then again Macchio did not know any karate when he did the Karate kid so once again I’m over praising due to my personal satisfaction with the hot body combined with the so so moves.

I can see however, why I never herd of this flick until now. Not much to it really. Though I like the concept of using a realistic karate style it’s not making the movie. It’s not making the movie most likely because it was not the intention of the filmmakers. They probably would have wanted to cast someone like Cynthia Rothrock (if the name does not ring a bell, Rothock was A karate girl in a world filled with Karate boys, so good that she made a big name for herself in Hong Kong movies of the 80s (but I don’t think Rothrock was the get naked type).

The story was a dime a dozen. The Streets are so messed up even the cops are shitty. They banged it over your head so hard cause they thought it would make the movie marketable like tossing in the Marines would make a movie marketable today.

It may have worked better if the actors were not getting paid by the meal to do the flick. Nobody in the film really gave the impression that they were not phoning this in, well, all except for Mani herself who probably saw an opportunity to advance her career with a cool movie about being a Karate knowing vigilante, a big market in the 80s that she had a niche in being that she had a real nice rack (I mean, she did two shower scenes one of which happens in a women’s prison with other cellmates. I cannot possibly see how she thought this was not going to lead to box office gold)

The poster of Alley Cat is not saying I’m going to get a lot of T & A but it suggest that I’m might get some. The film does not disappoint. In fact it’s a lot better than I would have thought featuring many nude scenes by the star and a series of other actresses though out the flick. Almost felt like whenever the movie would cut to a new scene I would get a nude scene.

However, I did not fully get what I was expecting from the synopsis. The tougher Ralph Macchio look was more bark than bite. I was hoping Mani was some black belt off the street they got to be in the movie cause she walked the walk and looked so good doing it, and while the Karate did get much better as the film went along (Which had a lot to do with a not so obvious but obvious stunt man) It did not click enough. It’s like Michael Jackson is considered one of the best dancers ever and a lot of that has to do with what his movement clicks inside of you versus just how good of a actual dancer he is. Mani was an actress that had a few moves but did not know how to make them click.

I wonder if it was this disappointment that made the movie fail? Who cares if the story’s stale and the actors are really lame cause I was expecting a Chop socky with some nudity in it. I got my nudity, but it just was not a meal without my Chop socky.