As soon as I saw the words "Directed by Godfrey Ho" flash on screen in the first few minutes of THE DRAGON'S INFERNAL SHOWDOWN, I audibly groaned. Despite being a bad film connoisseur of sorts, I've never been able to get much entertainment out of Ho's output, which usually consists of two or three different ninja flicks sloppily edited together with incompetent direction and ho-hum fight scenes. But, miraculously, INFERNAL SHOWDOWN is relatively well-done (by C-grade Taiwanese ninja flick standards), with plenty of laughs and solid fighting.
The plot exists solely to introduce fights every 90 seconds, but I'll introduce it nonetheless. A brother/sister duo whose family was killed by a gang of ruthless land owners ("I'd die to make more money!", says one) come back when they're older to exact revenge. There's also a mysterious man in a blue hat who looks to be doing the same thing. Who is he? Will they find their revenge? Will the awkward, incestuous sexual tension between the brother and sister ever be resolved?
As should be the case with a film starring a man double-billed as Dragon Lee AND Bruce Lei, INFERNAL SHOWDOWN never takes itself that seriously. The main baddies wield a "magnetic sword" which is exactly like a normal sword except it brings out different cheesy sound effects. Dragon Lee has a habit of running his hands up and down his enemies and randomly douses himself in oil during the climactic fight scene. And, as is to be expected, the British voice-over cast sound like they received their lines 5 minutes before recording started.
Outside of a really fun final 20 minutes, most of INFERNAL SHOWDOWN is business as usual if you've seen a few of these '70s/'80s kung-fu flicks, but it's damn near a masterpiece by Godfrey Ho standards and should inevitably bring some entertainment to anyone looking at reviews for martial arts flicks with 100 votes on IMDb. 5 light-up utility belts out of 10.
