White Tiger Reviews

Aussie kickboxer Gary Daniels stars in WHITE TIGER, a low-grade addition to the swelling ranks of the genre that calls for a cop to take revenge on the drug lord who killed his partner. DEA agents Mike Ryan (Gary Daniels) and John Grogan (Matt Craven) are on a camping trip in New York with Grogan's wife and son when they get a call to fly to Seattle to bust ruthless drug dealer Victor Chow (Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa). Chow meets with another dealer named Tang (Max Kirishima) to convince him to buy an addictive new drug he has invented, but Tang refuses and a gunfight erupts. Ryan and Grogan are caught in the crossfire, and Chow manages to escape by abducting Grogan and using him as a shield. Chow shoots and kills Grogan and jumps on a boat as Ryan watches helplessly. After the funeral, Ryan is told to lay off the case by his superiors and sent home, but he decides to go after Chow anyway. Meanwhile, crime lords in Hong Kong decide that Chow's violent behavior and his new drug will put them out of business, so they put out a hit on him. At a nightclub Chow owns, Ryan meets a mysterious woman named Jade (Julia Nickson), and as he's leaving the club, a gang of hoods attack Ryan, but he beats them all up. After following some of Chow's men to a pier where Chow keeps his drug lab on a freighter ship, a cop named Fong (George Cheung) comes to escort Ryan out of town, but he's actually on Chow's payroll. Fong tries to kill Ryan, but Ryan strikes first, then goes to Jade's house, where the two make love. Jade tells Ryan where Chow lives, and Ryan manages to break into his house, kill dozens of bodyguards and confront Chow. He tries to arrest him, but Jade shows up and claims she's been hired by the Chinese mob to kill Chow. A bodyguard comes in and knocks out Ryan, and Chow forces Jade to get on his ship. Ryan escapes and sneaks onto the ship, kills a dozen more men, then fights Chow. The drug lab catches fire, and Ryan jumps into the water as the ship explodes, killing Chow. Jade is reunited with her daughter and Ryan finishes the camping trip with Grogan's son. WHITE TIGER is a strictly routine direct-to-video revenge actioner that brings nothing new to the genre and is tediously stretched out with endless slow-motion shots of shootouts and explosions. Daniels may be capable in the martial arts, but with his bland personality, shaggy blond hair and somnambulistic acting, he's about as threatening as a California surfer dude. Hiroyuki-Tagawa does his usual odious Asian bit. In fact, all of the Asians in the cast play nefarious criminals. As with most films of this type, more imagination has gone into the stunts than the script, which is filled with laughable tough-guy dialogue and pathetic wisecracks. (Graphic violence, profanity, nudity, sexual situations.)