Breathing Fire (1991) Review

“Breathing Fire” Theatrical Poster

Director: Lou Kennedy
Co-director: Brandon De-Wilde
Cast: Ke Huy Quan, Eddie Saavedra, Ed Neil, Jerry Trimble, Bolo Yeung, Wendell C. Whitaker
Running Time: 85 min.

By Henry McKeand

How’s this for an early-90s time capsule? Breathing Fire is a film so dedicated to its Xtreme teenage aesthetic that the plot revolves around a group of kickboxing bank robbers searching for a slice of pizza. Just when you think it couldn’t get more radical, the two young heroes turn out to be martial arts prodigies who turn even boring chores into electro hip-hop dance competitions. These are Power Rangers characters filtered through a sun-soaked DTV action filter—Chuck Norris acolytes with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle personalities. 

These characters exist in a movie that belongs to the unofficial “evil henchman played by Bolo Yeung” subgenre of American action cinema. Everyone’s trying to kick like JCVD and the whole thing is shot like a Fat Boys music video. It’s a visual celebration of yuppie American excess, but it worships at the altar of HK action and uses a Taiwanese crew to craft bold, workmanlike fight sequences. It’s clearly shot in contemporary California, but there’s something alien about its world—dialogue delivered by native English speakers is stilted to the point of sounding dubbed. 

The plot revolves around Tony, played by Eddie Saavedra, and his adopted Vietnamese brother Charlie, played by Ke Huy Quan. Unbeknownst to them, their father Michael, played by Jerry Trimble, is a ruthless criminal who has stored the loot from a major gold heist in a vault that requires two keys to enter. Naturally, he and his gang encrust the keys into a plastic pizza and then cut the pizza into several slices, meaning they need each other to access the gold. Through a series of misadventures, Tony and Charlie are introduced to Annie (played by Laura Hamilton), the daughter of a man that Michael has killed. They don’t realize that their father is the killer, but the plot quickly builds to several revelations that are painful for the characters and hilarious for the audience. Rounding out the cast as Michael’s upstanding brother is Ed Neil, who fittingly went on to make a career as a Power Rangers actor and stunt performer.

This is Saavedra’s only acting credit, but Quan had already starred as Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Data in The Goonies, and he recently returned to acting to deliver an astounding performance in the fantastic Everything Everywhere All At Once. Despite his obvious charisma and acting ability, there isn’t a single performance in Breathing Fire that registers as even half-believable. Trimble, who at one point takes a bite of the plastic pizza, is literally chewing scenery, but Saavedra and Neil give him stiff competition. Bolo predictably plays a mostly silent heavy, but he does get the chance to kick ass while dressed as an old woman.

Thankfully, the lack of naturalistic acting is a result of the performers all being real-deal kickboxers, and the fresh-faced leads have genuine martial arts talent. They’re each given plenty of opportunities to show off their skills, and it’s easy to forget that they’re taking on opponents twice their age and size. In what other movie could Short Round and Bolo have a brutal one-on-one fight? 

Like the low budget U.S. martial arts films of the time that stared heavy hitters like Gary Daniels, Jeff Wincott, Cynthia Rothrock, Don Wilson, etc., Breathing Fire features impressive Golden Harvest inspired fight choreography. Money constraints keep it from being as polished as A-list action films of the era, but the effort and talent is evident in every shot. Plus, directors Lou Kennedy and Brandon De-Wilde keep the energy high by never forgetting what martial arts fans want. Why resort to gunplay or long dialogue scenes when a kick to the face will do just as well? 

What makes this slug fest stand out is the pervasive sense of weirdness. Most DTV action movies have bizarre line readings and glaring narrative holes, but some of the tonal and narrative decisions here are beyond the pale. There are scenes that venture into Best of the Worst territory, making the film feel like a hybrid between Kickboxer and Miami Connection. At eighty-five minutes long, it’s also remarkably short for a movie that makes so many bold choices. The various twists ensure that the plot is rarely predictable, and the two fun-loving protagonists set it apart from the “man on a mission” stories that often serve as an excuse for movie-length stunt reels. If the combination of mean-spirited DTV violence and cornball teen sports movie tropes sounds appealing, then Breathing Fire is worth checking out. You’ll know if it’s for you within five minutes, but you probably decided the moment you saw Bolo on the cover. 

Henry McKeand’s Rating: 6.5/10