REVIEW: Ring of Fire – Chosen by Nick Fleming
Starring: Don ‘the Drag Goon’
Wilson, Maria Ford, Eric Lee, Vince ‘Vanilla Ice/morden creature’
Murdocco
Director: Richard Pepin / Joseph Merhi
Year: 1991
Tagline(s): A one man army against evil. Love brutality
on the streets Los Angeles.
Suggested replacement tagline: Ice Ice Dragon.
Theme: Gangs, Vanilla Ice, Marshal arts, Axe Ear Rings,
ET
Plot Synopsis:
L.A.'s Chinatown is torn apart by the rivalry between two groups of
kickboxers when the gym is no longer big enough to hold their battles.
Ant's balanced view:
Well I was expecting the usual clichéd nonsense
from ‘Ring of Fire’ however it turned out quite differently.
Instead of a clichéd storyline it has no storyline whatsoever.
Starring one of our ‘favourite’ actors – Don ‘the
Drag Goon’ Wilson (runner up in a tiddly winks competition where
his only competitors were retarded paraplegics) as Jonny, apparently
a doctor who just happens to be good at fighting, but is reluctant to
fight. After about 50 minutes a vague storyline almost emerges about
some stupid fight between two rival kickboxing teams and some inter
team relations between Don and the leader of the rival teams sister.
You can guess the rest quite honestly. This film has some of the most
disgusting sex scenes (well more like a silicon dangling scene)s ever
in any film starring some guy trying to be Vanilla Ice and some chick
that was paid to get her kit off a bunch of times. The worst bit is
when he takes her ‘high heals’ off with his mouth, I almost
puked up at this point. Other points of interest include an incredibly
drawn out ‘training’ scene that lasts almost 20 minutes
and a totally useless cop who was obviously reading from the ‘how
to be a tough American cop for dummies book’.
Possibly the most shocking feature is the cover art for this film –
looks like it was put together by a class of 5 year olds on acid. Eric
Lee is also awesome in this film as a drunk Chinese guy.
Warning: this film contains some disturbing cringe making love scenes.
Rudi’s Journal from ‘Ring of Fire’:
It was with some little dread that we sat down to watch Ring of Fire. We had put it off for some time. Which is understandable considering that it stars that Sophie Ellis Bextor on copious amounts of testosterone freak, Don “the drag goon” Wilson. The fear in our hearts rose when we saw the cover artwork. Which appears to have been put together by David Blunkett’s least intelligent guide dog, under his direction. The film opens with some mildly diverting martial arts fights – WARNING – This scene may contain mullets and other shocking ‘80’s haircuts. Inter-cut with the fight sequences (which we know is kickboxing because some of the contestants have it written, rather helpfully on their shorts) is some rather disgusting canoodling between “Brad” (who sports a Vanilla ice haircut and acting ability to match) and some sub-standard page 3 girl reject. Her sole reason for being in the film seems to be to get her rather unsightly cleavage out. From there on the film develops into a rather touching story of true love against the odds – the odds being most of the other cast members.
My top 2 moments from Ring of Fire:
1 Eric Lee’s character Kwong taking a leak on the rival gang
2 Brad’s Axe earring
Overall percentage (not an average): 66%