From Roger Corman’s New World Pictures, the script was co-written by actor Dick Miller (a frequent player in Corman’s films). Director Santiago worked (uncredited) on many Corman flicks, three of which starred Pam Grier. Shapely Jeanne Bell (a former “Playboy” Playmate) is just one of many Grier lookalikes Santiago would put in his later films.
This is an ultra-cheap chop-socky martial arts flick with a slight twist. In what could be called “Foxy Brown in Hong Kong”, the casting of two black actors, Bell and Stan Shaw, give it the appearance of a Blaxpoitation film. But the two genres never blend. The result is an awkward, implausible fish-out-of-water feeling.
The derivative revenge plot unfolds with Diana “TNT” Jackson, a foxy, karate-kicking babe, roaming the mean streets of Hong Kong after her brother is killed in a drug deal. And before you know it, everybody is Kung Fu fighting — but these cats are not “fast as lightning”. In fact, this has some of the slowest and least convincing fight scenes ever filmed. It looks more like rehearsal footage. Jackson is supposedly so skilled that she routinely pummels half a dozen Chinese thugs at a time. Plus, her fighting style also includes frequent acrobatic back- flips that just look silly.
Posing as a bad-ass looking for action, she infiltrates a powerful heroin smuggling ring with absurd ease. This is incongruously led by two Americans — Sid (Ken Metcalf), a dapper white dude who looks and behaves more like a college professor, and his black henchman Charlie (Shaw). Jackson seduces Charlie, and some dated jive-talk dialog ensues — along with several shoot-outs, fights, and a totally predictable ending.
Watching Bell’s flat, featureless performance, one appreciates Pam Grier all the more. Grier generated a charisma and sex appeal that jumped off the screen, even when the scripts were terrible (and they usually were). Although Bell is lovely to look at, especially in her two obligatory nude scenes, her personality and acting skills are as bland as steamed rice.
Although this movie is consistently awful with nothing to recommend it, there is one scene that is hard to forget (though poorly filmed and executed). In a dark bedroom, Jackson, nude except for a pair of black bikini briefs, kicks the crap out of a gang of goons who have abducted her. An almost iconic scene. Don’t be surprised if Tarantino does an homage to it some day.
