MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological* The streaming title for this Korean-made revenge-fest is the horribly generic DRAGON FROM SHAOLIN. However, the American title THE BRAWL BUSTERS, while meaningless, at least doesn't sound like a million other kung fu flicks. That said, there's almost nothing else to say about BUSTERS. The identities of the characters and their motives are barely sketched out. An older kung-fu fighter named Tien holds his province in a grip of terror. But a strange female, usually called "The Mistress of Purity Manor," starts knocking off Tien's henchmen with the help of a coterie of female kung-fu fighters. This formidable woman is named (I think) Shao (Seo Yeong-Ran), and several years ago, Tien killed Shao's father. Fortunately, a wandering Shaolin priest finds Baby Shao and teaches her martial arts so that she can take vengeance. A couple of male fighters get involved in Shao's quest, but their motives proved impenetrable. As one of the very few reviews online observed, the only notable aspect of BUSTERS is that it tosses in a lot of weapons: a scarf that can lengthen to a yard long to strangle a victim, a room with closing walls, and circular saw-blades that can be flung at enemies but will zoom back to the thrower's hands like boomerangs. Oh, and there's one scene in which Shao is attacked by ninjas in differently colored garments. This is significant only because one of the BUSTERS producers was Tomas Tang, who became infamous in the eighties for unleashing on videostores a horde of cheap ninja flicks, which also often contained multicolored ninjas.
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