Martial arts instructor Susanne Carter (Jillian Kesner) travels to Asia to find her sister, a journalist, who has gone missing. Could the local mafia be involved?

This is a New World Pictures production which is, of course, Roger Corman’s company. And the result is…OK but nothing to really write home about.

The film’s original title is Firecracker but it was released as Naked Fist (which sounds like a really niche gay p*rn movie for the guys who wear a red hankie in their back pocket) in the UK. The BBFC cut nearly 4 minutes (!) out of the film.

It’s watchable enough but doesn’t really gel. This is no Enter The Dragon. Some fight scenes are a bit clunky as is the rest of the film.

There’s also a nasty streak of misogyny in the film that they try and dress up as female empowerment. An example- the fight scene in which the leading lady just happens to lose almost all of her clothes so that she has to fight a male adversary topless and wearing a tiny pair of underwear. She beats him and sticks a pole into his crotch. So all of the titillation (pun not intended) of her being almost completely in the buff can be quickly turned into some half-hearted and disingenuous ‘feminist’ statement. I’m not buying it. They do the same thing in a frankly bizarre steamy scene in which her suitor use a couple of knives to cut her clothes off her before they get it on. Well dodgy.

The film also uses the main theme from Shogun Assassin which reminds you that you could be watching a much better film instead.

2.5 out of 5 stars