I just realized something, I'm the only one on this site who is brave enough to review more than one Albert Pyun film (Pat reviewed the atrocious Captain America and i've done the rest) Which brings us to Knights which is easily Pyun's most ambitious efforts and by ambitious I mean contains the worst ideas that any sane director would not commit to celluoid. Pyun however is insane and few movies prove this as well as Knights.

Well for starters Knights casts country singer Kris Kristofferson as a kickboxing robot. Let me say that again, Kris Kristofferson is playing a robot who has been programmed to destroy other robots, well at least they didn't hire Willie Nelson. Also the other robots are played by Gary Daniels, Scott Paulin and Lance Henriksen who runs around with a metal arm that would make him look like a robotic version of Captain Hook, he's also a philisophical robot because he ponders about what it means to live, to die and how the world got destroyed. Keep in mind Kris Kristofferson and Lance Henriksen are the only decent actors in the cast, and when you see what ridiculous parts they play, you hold no hope for this movie. In its favor Knights has decent production values (But so did Cyborg...) and an abundant level of silly action so in that regard the movie is isn't too dull to watch but the movie works best as 'so bad it's good' fare.

The ridiculous movie starts with farmers who are then attacked by robots, you see Knights establishes right away that in order for robots to survive, they need human blood to survive, so the robot's whole battle plan is to run through the ruins of society and drink blood from humans, but the person has to be alive, because otherwise it doesn't work. (This movie makes so little sense and is so surreal it deserves a plaque from Buenel) So the robots are vampires, and only one robot (made out of spare parts) knows how to destroy them and that robot is played by Kris Kristofferson. I know i've said this at least three times, but for goodness sake it's Kris Kristofferson as a kickboxing robot! Anyway after dispatching these vampire robots, he then teaches a human (Played by Kathy Long) who then becomes society's last hope.

Aside from casting Kristofferson as a robot warrior, the movie actually gives him fight sequences where we are asked to believe if the 54 year old (At the time) can keep up with a young Gary Daniels. And somehow he does, although Pyun slyly never films Kristofferson's head while delivering the karate blows. Kathy Long also trades in the action towards the end and fights everyone pretty much around and Pyun constantly gives us close ups on Long's breasts and butt, the only problem is that Kris Kristofferson is slightly better looking, therefore the babe factor is non-existant. However one is thankful there was no nudity since that would've been quite unpleasant.

The half assed story never amounts to much, and the film earns it's wings of unintentional hilarity in its climax which consists of Kathy Long fighting with a dismembered Kristofferson in her backpack (Once again any sane director would actively resist such elements in a movie) oh and these sequences we see a very unconvincing midget who is swordfighting while Kathy Long is fighting and doing backflips. A midget who looks nothing like Kristofferson, and done from such distance that we can tell it's a midget in the bag. Then Kristofferson puts himself back together and dukes it out with Lance Henriksen and wins. Henriksen enjoys the fact that he can experience death (Probably because he's certain he won't be in the sequel) and we get an overall cheesy philosophy surrounding the film. Knights also lies open for a sequel, in which Kris Kristofferson and Kathy Long would run around and kickbox more robot vampires as well as the master robot vampire and she bascially gives away the ending for the potentional sequels, in that she survived and had many adventures. Of course the fact they didn't make sequels requires such forgiveness so we can then be happy mentally that it all ended well. Yay.

Knights also features believe it or not, many sequences where robots, soldiers and well anything accidently falls down, a guy with a bow and arrow falls down on accident, a guy who falls down gets stabbed and so on. Also there is a kicking decapitation, lots of nutty violence and lots of sequences of knifes going in people's heads, with a badly dubbed in shutdown sound provided on the soundtrack to make it convince you that the robot vampire is dead. This is of course a hilariously bad movie, with so much ridiculous things going on that the sheer surreal clutter of it all makes one laugh all the harder.

Plus with Knights you're Chuckscaping, with notedly unattractive actors, with our high kicking heroine being what I imagine what Chuck Norris would look like as a woman. It's no secret that to get ahead in hollywood, you need good looks and good luck but it's no accident that Kathy Long went onto a fulfilling career as a stuntwoman, bodyguard and kickboxer. She just has no sex appeal, although i'm guessing if I was drunk enough...

Hamlin Grade: 6

Ryan