Bounty Hunters (2011)

Bounty Hunters (2011)
a.k.a. Bail Enforcers (original title)
Director: Patrick McBrearty
Stars: Trish Stratus, Frank J. Zupancic and Boomer Phillips

I get a little irked when someone calls a Sonny Chiba movie a “Kung-Fu” flick. Sonny Chiba is Japanese and practices Karate not Kung-Fu. It seems that the Kung Fu Banner is labeled on just about every kind of martial arts film, including Ong Bak, which is actually a Muay Thai movie, and the Korean Dragon Lee movies, which are Tae Kwon Do films.

Of course the average film goer won’t notice the different nuances between these styles of combat; still the miss-labeling bothers me, which brings to the classification of this film. After siting through this one I have to say I think it’s in a genre of all its own, “The Pro Wrestling Movie.”

The film is pretty simple to follow as if not to confuse the fans of Trish Stratus, a WWE Pro Wrestling super star. Three partners who are Bail Enforcement Agents or Bounty Hunters are on a routine arrest when they pick up a small time fugitive. On the way to lock up the fugitive convinces the Bounty Hunters to let him free in exchange for information on the whereabouts of a fugitive with a bounty of $100,000.

They get their man but run afoul of a powerful mob boss who is looking to silence the freshly caught fugitive and keep him out of law enforcements hands. Shady deals, double crossing, and a lot of fighting ensues to the final minutes of the movie.

This is the film debut of Trish Stratus, yes she looks great, and no she can’t act. As one might gather from the fact that the only other time this woman has acted was on Monday Night Raw. Miss Stratus cannot carry all the blame though; it looks like her co-stars can’t act either.

But we don’t usually watch an Action B-Movie for moving performances do we, we watch for the action. Judging this film at this level puts things in a fairer perspective. From the first scene were shown Stratus jumping around like the pro wrestler she is and doing all sorts of pro (read fake) wrestling finishing moves.

This movie does deliver the goods when it comes to the fight scenes, however I found it hard to get into some of them because they were all choreographed pro wrestling style.

If you have a hard time suspending belief when it comes to a Hong Kong martial arts sequence you might really have a problem with the fight scenes in this. With that one gripe aside I have to admit it was a fun little movie, and worth checking out if you know what you’re getting yourself into.