Prince of the Sun is a fantasy/martial arts movie directed by Wellson Chin (Super Lady Cop, Inspectors Wear Skirts and its sequels) and Shan Hua (Super Inframan) starring Conan Lee (Mulan), Pak Lam Cheng, Sheila Chan (Outlaw Brothers, Madam City Hunter) and Cynthia Rothrock. Funny story, the filmmakers were so caught up in doing comedic scenarios for Sheila and Conan that they forgot almost completely about Cynthia Rothrock, who was about to leave, so they quickly decided to shoot her scenes in a hurry. You can tell by watching this flick.
In this film, martial arts master Bencheuk (Rothrock) is tasked with protecting a little boy who will claim the throne as the Prince of the Sun, a reincarnation of Buddah, who is escaping the wrath of evil monks along with a thief.
We are dealing with a typical cheapo martial arts production with a dose of adventure and comedy thrown in. Cynthia is mostly secondary, all of her scenes are so discordant and look so different from the rest of the film that you can tell she was sidelined, she barely interacts with the main characters and her sequences feel intrusive, once she does interact with them (during the third act) things get better and more exciting but there's a very long stretch in the middle where she is totally absent.
Overly talky, sluggish in its pace and often recurring to silly slapstick and goofy jokes only suitable for children's films, the film doesn't achieve many comedic highlights, at least not intentionally (the scene with the fake kid on Rothrock as she fights is hilarious). Some jokes land, a lot of them don't. It's certainly not a very notable, different or original entry in Rothrock's filmography (or in the adventure martial arts genre), but her scenes are interesting because she directly interacts with a fantasy storyline involving buddha and stuff, I can't say I have seen that before with her.
The choreographies are well executed, they do their job but I must admit that they are routinary and do mostly what's expected. Nothing more, nothing less. If you came for the cool fights and nothing else, can't say you are gonna be cheated.
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