A martial arts expert must defeat his power mad brother in order to save his girl.

The Korean Connection has one claim to fame and it’s not the English title meant to exploit Bruce Lee’s unrelated Chinese Connection (AKA Fist of Fury). No, the reason is that the film features cult favorite and superkicker extraordinaire Hwang Jang Lee. But, before any fans get excited, it must be stated that Hwang plays nothing more than a faceless thug who does not participate in any worthwhile combat. Now, aside from some decent Taekwondo-style action from an unrecognizable lead that Pathfinder credits as “Yong Chul,” the film is utterly worthless by all other standards.

The story is a jumbled mess thanks to bad direction and a poorly constructed plot. This is compounded by sloppy and amateur English dubbing. Basically Yong Chul is adopted by a crime boss who turns him into a competent martial artist tasked with performing various unsavory deeds. Yong falls for a woman, but he’s asked by her brother to quit his life of crime. Yong has a falling out with his adoptive father over the issue and turns into a drunk which is where we find him at the beginning of the film. Poorly handled flashbacks within flashbacks later tell this earlier part of the story.

Moving on, Yong’s martial brother named Yamamoto kidnaps his girl and kills the crime boss. In a confusing series of encounters that include a pipe-playing nationalist and martial arts expert who is after Yamamoto for being allied with the Japanese, Yong struggles to save his girl.

The one positive element of the film is that there is a plentiful supply of martial arts action. It’s all external in that the point is for each person to whack each other with their fists and feet until their enemies drop dead. The choreography is decent and some of the camera work is also. Yong Chul’s leg work is outstanding as witnessed by a scene where his hands are tied and he’s forced to fight a mob with his feet. But, the editing splices up the action too much. Also, with such bad acting and directing it’s impossible to see the action as anything more than an emotionless exercise. For example, a well-staged fight takes place in the middle of a large suspension bridge between Yong and a mass of thugs, although for no particular reason. After Yong knocks most of them to the ground and one of them into the water, they all magically disappear and his lady accomplice immediately appears and congratulates him with absolutely no enthusiasm.

I cannot recommend this film to anyone. Sure, Hwang Jang Lee shows up in a few scenes, but he does nothing. Yes, there is some adequate action, but not enough to justify sitting through such a low grade production. Some martial arts movies are so bad they’re good which means that they maintain a minimal level of acceptable quality and are still entertaining. That’s not the case here. You won’t find a better way to regret lost time than by watching this bomb.

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