This past weekend I was one of the lucky attendees of Katsucon, an anime convention held in Washington D.C., who got to see a rough cut of Johnny Young Bosch’s new action film Broken Path. The film itself seemed to be complete but there were a few audio/video issues that needed to be fixed. There’s was even timecode still stamped on it. Johnny himself was there to introduce the movie and answer a few questions about it afterwards. During his introduction he was very candid about what we were about to see. He admitted it was cheesy, low on plot and heavy on action. Well, that pretty much sums it all up. The cheesiness is easy to ignore and is nothing new in these type of films. The plot however, is nearly non existent. The first 15 minutes takes the time to introduce the characters but beyond that there are only a handful of scenes with dialogue. According to Johnny this was a deliberate action by the producers because they saw his acting in Power Rangers. I never expect action films to have the deepest storylines but the only movie that comes to mind that had less of a plot was I Spit on Your Grave. Now, since there’s not much in the ways of storytelling all that’s left is the action and it delivers. The fight scenes are brutal and even our hero isn’t scared to fight dirty. In an early scene Johnny knocks a guy down and immediately tries to take him out by smashing his head with a television. Every fight lets you know this isn’t some weak, overstylized kung fu flick. Real punches and kicks are landed and every actor does their own stunts. And then there are the kill scenes. I won’t spoil them for you so all I’ll say is that they are extremely gratifying. The fact that Johnny was Power Ranger makes watching him kick as much ass as he did in this movie that much more entertaining. The only problem is that there is too much fighting. After a while I started to get the same feeling I got during the last 20 minutes of Hard Boiled. The action was great but too much of a good thing can spoil it all. Out of the total 90 minute runtime only about 20-25 minutes of that doesn’t have a scene of someone getting punched in the face.

It’s hard to say Broken Path is a “good” film but it certainly is enjoyable. There’s enough action to warrant at least a rental when it’s finally released. Considering it was shot in only 17 days and had an extremely low budget it’s shortcomings are forgivable. This film is exactly what it was intended to be, a pure action film and the cast and crew made sure they got that part right.