ORDER OF ONE (2006)

A reporter (Woodhouse) and an ex-con (Cavalier) must protect a much ballyhooed sword, and deliver it to the mysterious Order, facing off with a horde of goons dispatched by kingpin Mr. Park (Grand Master Hyung Chul Kim). Harrison Chan plays Mr. Park’s nephew and numero uno henchman. I must admit that I don’t especially enjoy reviewing low-budget films that people have clearly put a lot of time, effort, and what little money they can into the enterprise. However, I have to be honest, this film really, really sucked (and besides, there’s already at least one positive review of it available, so fair game I say!).
Making an action film on an ultra low-budget is a pretty hard thing, and making a comedy is said to be the hardest thing of all. So when you decide to make a chop-socky comedy, you better either have a great script or be a very good director of action. Christian Viel proved that you could indeed make a decent low-budget actioner with his Recon 2020, which really benefited from the director’s competence in directing action scenes. Kevin Woodhouse, unfortunately, is no Viel, and Order of One is a cheap-looking (the mixture of action and poor video quality damn near gave me a headache), poorly acted (we’re talking porno-bad here, with Chan in particular looking like he’s reading off cue cards, and modeling his performance on the Method acting styling's of Don 'The Dragon' Wilson), and unbelievably dull film that wants to be somewhere in between Project A, Kill Bill, and The Matrix. Unfortunately, it’s not even up to the lowly standards of Kung Pow: Enter the Fist which at least had an hilarious kung-fu fighting baby.

Woodhouse (who looks a little like a tubby Michael Keaton) might think it’s funny to have little animations telling us what martial arts move is being displayed (not to mention telling us that the movie is filmed in Testostochrome!), but Quentin Tarantino pretty much already did the same sort of gag in the Kill Bill films (let alone Wayne’s World 2- remember the Seamonkey?). And the look of the film doesn’t help matters. Whilst the kitschy 70s style tinted scene transitions (think Police Woman or Foxy Brown) are good fun, at times the image was so grainy I couldn’t see a damn thing. What’s the point of an action film if you can’t clearly see the action? And speaking of the action, it mostly sucks too . There’s a great bit involving a flying kick into a windshield whilst another guy is chained to the back of a moving car, pretty amazing for a no-budget flick. But every other fight sequence shows the performers clearly pulling punches. I’ve been watching a lot of old-school WWE wrestling videos lately, and I’d swear the fights looked more realistic than in this nonsense (And Black Belt Jones could kick any of these guys’ butts any day!). Perhaps it’s all meant to be a joke, but given how bad the intentional comedy in the film is, I doubt it.
Who’s the audience for this? Action fans? It’s too badly made. Comedy fans? It’s not funny. Bad movie lovers? Once again, it’s not funny. How about exploitation movie fans (AKA Horny losers)? Nope, this film may go down in history (and this is the only notable thing about it) for having the least appetising strippers I have ever seen in my life. Not only would they need to pay me to watch them strip, I damn near felt that watching the male actors perform the scene would be more pleasurable, and I’m 100% hetero (and single, ladies...).

If you do bother to watch this film despite my protestations (and possibly misogynistic comments), answer me this; Just what the hell is that ending about? Look, I have nothing against low-budget filmmakers (John Carpenter is among my favourites, and Roger Corman is like a God to me), I really want them to succeed every time (or at least fail very amusingly!). But making a low-budget action film is very tricky (though I don’t think Jackie Chan’s early films cost much, and look at how popular they are), and if you can’t even get the action scenes right, you’re on a sinking ship with Celine Dion playing on a loop. Oh, the horror! The horror!