Sword of Heaven

The first hour of "Sword Of Heaven" is disjointed and nonsensical: we seem to be watching the "plots" of two different movies, one about an ancient sword with mystical powers made out of a comet (those powers don't seem to go beyond glowing in blue, however), the other about a serial killer whose victims are mostly rich people who have been blackmailed but refuse to pay up. An Irish police detective is on the serial killer case, and what do you know, his Japanese friend and martial arts instructor at the police academy is the one who has to protect the sword and deliver it to its rightful owner. The first hour is basically filler, but in the last 20 minutes we finally get some decent martial arts encounters as the hero, Tadashi Yamashita, has to fight a succession of henchmen one-on-one and sometimes one-on-two before getting to the main villain. Yamashita certainly has some moves, and there is a pretty neat beheading there as well. Also we get this amusing exchange:

• "Where did you learn all these acrobatics?"

• "Old Bruce Lee movies!"

• "You should be watching 007 instead"

The last 20 minutes almost redeem the movie. (*1/2)