A martial arts-trained gunfighter (Michael Worth) branded a murderer returns to his hometown of Ghost Rock to face his enemy, former outlaw Jack Pickett (Gary Busey), now a crooked mayor.

Martial arts in the Old West is becoming a sub-genre all its own following Kung Fu the TV series starring David Carradine, the Spaghetti Western action of The Fighting Fists of Shanghai Joe, Isaac Florentine’s Savate, Once Upon a Time in China and America with Jet Li, Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson’s Shanghai series, and now Michael Worth’s Ghost Rock. Sadly, this latest B-grade attempt to merge Eastern and Western genres is the weakest to date. There is so much wrong with it that it’s hard to know where to start. Shoddy acting, tedious plotting and dialogue, cheap production values, excessive stereotyping, generic gunplay, and martial arts action that never fits in all play a part in spoiling what could have been a fun action flick.

U.S. Seals 2 star Michael Worth wrote the script and stars as the hero of the film. Regardless of Michael’s intention, the film is flawed from conception. First of all, putting martial arts into a Western presents some challenges like giving the audience a plausible reason for its presence, something this film never does. In fact, martial artists pop up all over the place and no one bats an eye. This isn’t all that sticks out like a sore thumb. For a frontier town, Ghost Rock is remarkably progressive and diverse in culture. You have kung fu-fighting Chinese immigrants, a geisha played by stunt actress Michiko Mishiwaki in her first English-speaking performance (in the extended version only), a black gunman, a martial arts-trained Native American, and a female gunslinger who is comfortable having a shootout in the nude. Add to this just about every Western stereotype from Texas Rangers led by Jeff Fahey and John Wayne-impersonating marshals to a wizened whore (Adrienne Barbeau) modeled after ‘Kitty’ from Gunsmoke, a reluctant sheriff modeled after Gary Cooper in High Noon, and the toady whose played for laughs. In this case, Craig Wasson gets his hand chopped off early on and ‘hilariously’ spends the rest of the movie casually clowning around with a bleeding, untended stump.

All of this could be excused if the film was a comedy or consciously led the audience into the realm of suspended reality. There are a few half-hearted attempts such as Worth’s Trinity-esque slapping of an opponent, a whore’s invention of the lap dance and the occasional bad pun such as Gary Busey’s awful “Johnny….be good” crack. Certainly the violence is excessive and the action exaggerated, but the whole film is heavily weighed down by way too much uninteresting plot and character development that shoots for heavy drama. It’s made all the worse by uniformly bad acting and dialogue that trips up any momentum the action starts. Then there is plain old sloppiness such as in a scene where Worth tells Wasson to run back to his boss barefoot over the “hot” sand….at night when the sand is actually cool.

Most disappointing is the action. B-movies are usually a success because they offer something that big budget movies don’t, like a disproportionate amount of action. But Worth and director Dustin Rikert make the mistake of trying to have it all, wild action movie and moving drama in the tradition of Clint Eastwood and John Ford. That means too much talkin’ and not enough walkin’. There are a number of violent shootouts, but they’re shot with the worst combination of old school and modern gunplay choreography. In one scene a near-static camera captures random shots fired and random bodies crumpling with no creativity whatsoever. In another scene, Worth is performing a completely over-the-top bullet ballet with a co-star as the two blast away at each other in a blatant John Woo rip-off. What really kills these scenes are the lousy foley effects. There’s no ricochets (for better or worse) and the gunshots sound too realistic, as in distant and clipped rather than loud and explosive. The bullet impact effects are also fake.

Worth and some of his fighting co-stars display a few decent martial arts moves in several fights. There is some crazy, spinning legwork that could have been great if expanded on. But none of the fight choreography is up to the expectations demanding viewers have today. Worth is in great shape, but most of his moves are poorly shot and edited. In fact, the editing and camerawork all around is bad. Some elements of good scene composition are there, but they don’t come together in a way that is flattering to the actors or the story. On the bright side, the lighting, which can often spell the doom of interior and night shoots in budget films, is well done.

I’m struggling to find redeeming value in Ghost Rock, in part because I love both Westerns and martial arts films. Although they can be an awkward match, I still want to see every attempt be a success and the potential is there. Having the usually wacky Gary Busey as a villain seems like a good idea, as does having an attractive female gunfighter (Jenya Lano), character actor James Hong (Big Trouble in Little China), and a (potentially) capable martial arts lead like Michael Worth. Yet none of the folks come out looking good and the whole thing is a chore to get through. It’s frequently so poorly put together that I found myself distracted by things that should normally stay in the background. The absolutely worst scene has Worth facing a Bible-reading Busey in what should be a tense moment. But all I could focus on was this extra to the right who kept stealing glances directly into the camera while she barely endured having this fly buzzing around her face. I have no idea what Gary and Michael said to each other during this scene. Another major annoyance are the obnoxious and endless ambient bird noises that interestingly sound exactly like the equally obnoxious bird effects Celestial has been using for their Shaw Brothers remasters of old school kung fu classics. It seems to be a popular bird.

But birds or no birds, Ghost Rock is still a bad B-movie with little entertainment value on any level. It should act as an object lesson when dealing with budget Western and martial arts action, one ought to steer clear of random Bible and Shakespeare quotes and can the high-concept drama so poor old John Ford and Louis L’Amour can rest easy in their graves.

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