Power Kids (a.k.a. Force Of Five) grabbed my attention for two reasons. First off, it sounds like an awesome 80s animated series and second, it’s a Thai action movie. Actually, the plot of the movie is a lot like an 80s movie. A group of kids learning Muay Thai discover that their young mascot is sick and needs a new organ. The problem? A bunch of terrorists take over the hospital that the organ is being harvested in. Our kid heroes will not stand for that and make their way to the hospital where they kick some terrorist ass, take names and save the day!

Plot-wise, it’s not the greatest of movies, but that’s forgivable because it’s basically a kids movie. I’m sure some of our parents thought Goonies was worth watching when it came out (“Pirates? Sure…”). For no particular reason that I could decipher, there’s a young girl terrorist as well as a goofy older guy who wants to learn Muay Thai and thinks that the kids will teach him. During that scene, a misunderstanding with the big, dumb white guy leads to a fight between him and the kids that didn’t make a ton of sense (that guy hangs out there, why would he get so angry at the kids who also hang out there all the time?). But, it winds up being a fun scene that allows for children to beat up on an adult, a gigantic one at that.

So, the real question for action fans is how do the fight scenes stand up? Pretty good. This is no Ong-Bak or Protector, but like those movies, the fight coordination feels and looks real for the most part. The kids take some pretty nasty licks throughout the hospital scenes which is impressive. At the end of the day, it’s more of a kids movie (there’s a whole scene devoted to racing remote control cars with some real asshole kids) but it does have its action moments. Fun stuff, but you might not want to show it to your kid until he’s a little too old to devote his or her life to kicking ass (especially if you’re out of shape like me). I’ll show this one to my kid when they’re 27.

Wow. Bitch Slap’s a wild movie. It’s about three busty women in the desert who are involved with some crazy crime stuff, whose story is told through a series of flashbacks. I’m really not sure what to make of this movie. On one hand it’s a highly ambitious movie that doesn’t allow the lack of money to get in the way of the more expensive scenes like a secret agent fight on a snow-covered mountain complete with explosions. On the other hand, those scenes look pretty lousy and there’s a lot of them. Oh, it’s also filled with T&A that would make good ol’ Russ Meyer happy, though I’ve never seen his movies.

I want to like this movie but between the Green Screen scenes, the not-so-great acting by two of the three female leads and the overly complicated plot (the flashbacks go pretty far back and then there’s a wacky twist at the end). For what it’s worth, I didn’t see the twist coming and was thinking that someone else would be the mysterious and dangerous Pinky. If you’re just looking to spend an hour and a half with some super hot ladies, give Bitch Slap a try. If you’re looking to see what some creative, though not particularly skilled filmmakers can do with not a lot of cash, check out this movie. If you’re looking for a great action flick, give something else a shot. What’s that? You stopped reading after “super hot ladies?” Fair enough. Here’s the trailer.