Late entry in the Joseph Lai-produced cut-and-paste action cycle, ‘Royal Destiny’ is cobbled together from various other low-rent action flicks (‘Royal Angels 1 & 2’ and ‘Queen of Phoenix’, if sources are correct!) to create a whole new movie. By Lai’s cut-and-paste standards, ‘Royal Destiny’ almost plays like a coherent film. Almost.
This is partly due to the footage used from the above movies and the new footage shot for this film actually looking like it could be from the same film, as opposed to other Lai ventures, which often featured newly shot footage spliced with footage from a much older film, making for a jarring viewing experience. While most of ‘Royal Destiny’s footage looks like it could be from the same film, it doesn’t, unfortunately, make for any less confusing an experience. Something about police officers out to get drug smugglers crossed with a Richard Harrison lookalike (Raimund Harmstorf) helping a woman (Julia Kent) get away from her criminal martial arts lover (Jonathan Isgar).
The various story/film strands sort of cross over to give the illusion of a linear and comprehensible narrative but, really, it’s just an excuse to race from one scene of shooting to one of punching/kicking to one of incessant shouting, to dupe one into thinking they’re watching a supercharged, coherent action film. ‘Royal Destiny’ is not this, but it is oddly watchable, moves fast, and is consistently (and unintentionally) laugh-out-loud funny. This is partly due to having the mainly British/German cast constantly shouting and swearing at one another, no matter the situation or nature of the conversation. F-bombs and C-bombs are dropped with regular aplomb, everyone seemingly constantly about to boil over into a violent rage. The action comes thick and fast but is all too rushed and low-rent, meaning the film isn’t really saved by its action.
Rent-a-bad-guy regulars Ken Goodman, Jonathan Isgar, and Wayne Archer all show up (along with a bunch of other obviously living-in-Hong-Kong-at-the-time Brits), as do the likes of fight ace Bruce Fontaine (‘Operation Condor’) and early in their careers Byron Mann (‘The Corruptor’) and Kenji Tanigaki (‘Raging Fire’), who unsurprisingly appears in probably the best two action scenes. This adds some fun to proceedings but can’t save this from being a confusing, nonsensical, Lai-produced hatchet job, really only recommended to low-grade movie lovers and those looking for something trashy to watch past the midnight hour.
