image courtesy of Amazon

Rating:

3.5

AKA: Honor & Glory, Honour and Glory

Year of release: 1992

Company: Action Star Pictures, Filmswell International

Genre: action

Running time: 84 mins.

Director: Godfrey Ho (credited as Godfrey Hall)

Script: Herb Borkland

Action director: Tai Yim

Producers: Godfrey Ho, Vash Klein

Cinematography: Michael Law

Editor: Grand Yee

Music: Todd Hahn

Stars: Cynthia Rothrock, Donna Jason, John Miller, Chuck Jeffreys, Robin Shou, Richard Yuen, Gerald Klein, Yip Yim Hing

Rated R for violence and language

Related links:

Cynthia Rothrock biography
Movie Review index
Main Page

Honor and Glory

Cynthia Rothrock. Image courtesy of Bad Cinema Diary.

Despite some contrary information on other sources like the IMDB, this is not the same movie as Angel the Kickboxer (aka Angel of Kickboxer), though in true Godfrey Ho (or Godfrey Hall, as he is billed here -- like he's fooling anyone) style, that film uses a good amount of footage from this one. And as per Ho's modus operandi, the star on the box (Cynthia Rothrock in this case) doesn't really appear much in the movie. Of course, no Ho motion picture experience would be complete without some gratuitious characters thrown into the plot so that they can be swapped into other movies. Can you guess that Honor and Glory is another craptastic Godfrey Ho torture device?

The slim plot centers on a reporter played by Donna Jason, who is uncovering the dirt on a slimy businessman named Slade (John Miller). Turns out Slade is doing more than embezzling funds, and is looking to buy and sell nuclear detonators. This attracts the attention of Donna's sister Cynthia Rothrock. When Cynthia comes to town, Donna tells her "you go for the honor, I go for the glory" -- this type of dreck is typical of the lousy dialogue featured in Honor and Glory, and the fact that it's delivered for the most part with all the emotion of a crack whore on valium doesn't help matters much.

Getting back to the plot, Slade is buying the detonators from a guy named Silk (played by Gerald Klein, who gets to deliver zingers like "it'll go smooth as silk"), who in addition to pimping out the ugliest whores in the Washington area, just also happens to have some detonators for sale. You know, you might think that Russians, Germans or some disgruntled scientists would have this kind of stuff, but I guess you gotta go to pimps -- who says these kinds of movies don't teach you anything?

Slade -- who apparently already knew to go to skeezer seller for your mass destruction needs -- plans to sell the goods to an Arab, whose portrayal uses every bad cliche and stereotype in the book. Even though this is a simple operation, it takes Cynthia, Donna, Chuck Jeffreys (who plays Slade's bodyguard who has a change of heart -- what character development) and Robin Shou (who comes on-screen long enough so he can be pasted into other Godfrey Ho movies) a hella long time to figure this out, and eventually they team up to take out Slade. Along the way, Donna also manages to patch up things with her estranged father and Chuck gets back to his roots by visiting his old boxing coach (who fufills the "old guy dispensing fortune cookie advice" role in this movie). Awww... I'm getting all warm and fuzzy inside.

Honor and Glory might have been a decent B-movie if the action was good, but it's just plain sorry. While there are some talented fighters in the mix, they're often paired off with really weak gweilos and the fights just look weak. Even the big henchman guy (Richard Yuen) looks like he spends more time lifting Big Macs than weights. Combined with the tired story and lousy acting, the lack of quality action regulates Honor and Glory to B-movie hell, or rather the back of the video store shelf, which is where you should leave this crud.