After the disappointment of TERMINATOR SALVATION the last thing we need is another movie that fails to live up to James Cameron’s original creation. But here is TERMINATOR WOMAN, which not only lacks the punch of Cameron’s two sci-fi action classics, but also fails to communicate to the viewer (in this case me) why the hell it’s called TERMINATOR WOMAN. The cover says “It’s about time!” as if to suggest it’s exciting to have a woman Terminator (before TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES), but the movie isn’t even remotely about robots or even terminating, and there’s also a man in the movie who fights on what is portrayed as an approximately equal skill level with the woman. So if she counts as a Terminator then he must too. I’m not sure why it’s not TERMINATOR MAN AND WOMAN.
TERMINATOR WOMAN is about two American karate cops in Africa fighting some crime lord who wants to get back some gold that was stolen from him. But the crime lord is not Warwick Davis, it’s Michel Qissi, also director, co-writer, fight choreographer and fight editor.
If you don’t know Qissi you at least know his friend: he grew up with and trained with Jean-Claude Van Damme. Onscreen he most memorably played Tong Po, the villain in KICKBOXER, although he was uncredited (it said Tong Po played himself). But here is his first try at directing (he did one other, 2001’s EXTREME FORCE). (read the rest of this shit…)
