This movie was based on a video game that spawned several sequels. Hopefully this piece of cheese movie didn't. It begins with a story on how a good Chinese king wanted to protect his village, and to this end he creates two talismans, one of which controls Power and one of which controls Spirit. They fit together rather predictably. He gives them to his son. This protects the village until we are zoomed to "Somewhere in China" where a bunch of annonymous evil ninjas are looking for these two amulets. They work for an evil guy named Shuko who wants them. How he knows of them we don't know; if they had been meant to protect a village from evil I would have hidden them and never shown them to anyone, ever. But he wants them, because they will let him rule the city mentioned below.

This story takes place in 2007 in "New Angeles." Computer-typed subtitles tell us it is seven years after "The Big Quake," and we are shown an aerial view of a trashed Los Angeles. Fires burn in places, and there are big support rods holding up buildings. It looks like after the "Big Quake" no one bothered to clean up. Why Shuko wants it, we have no idea whatsoever. It is just a way to direct the pathetic plot.

Next we see a karate tournament where the two heroes, creatively named Billy and Jimmy Lee, and their lady friend are. The two brothers are fighting, and we see one of them, Billy, jump on the back of one of the fighters and give him a noogie. This is, for all of you who aren't familiar with the martial arts, a debilitating move that severely weakens your opponent, thereby setting him up for immediate defeat.

In the next scene the trio are leaving from the place in a station wagon with a flamethrower attached to the top. As they drive, they are set upon by a gang led by Abobo, a guy with a sometimes badly dubbed voice. He and his scrawny little sidekick drive a clunky looking truck and pursue the good guys, and we are treated to a severely cheesy chase scene. The brother's station wagon, fortunately, can reach speeds of what looks like 65 mph due to the flamethrower strapped on top. They power it by shoving TRASH into a pipe between the front seats. Laughably stupid. Then they throw a map directly onto the truck's windshield, and it stays there. However, the truck can be guided by a joystick inside of the cab with a pathetic looking 3D viewing system. It was high-tech then (which was supposed to be 2007 in the flick), but our standards today are much better.

The two brothers stand off against Abobo when the two cars crash, and it looks grim (two on one IS pretty grim if you think about it), but a gang appears out of nowhere, descending the walls and wearing graffiti covered trenchcoats in front of graffiti covered walls. This made me laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of it all. They stood there just waiting for this. Anyway, I'll point out some more cheesy highlights:

- Confronted by a huge, altered Abobo, the brothers look at him, look at each other, pause, scream, and run away.

- The HouseJack commercial.

- There was a bug-eyed man killed when his shadow got strangled.

- Jimmy doesn't care when one of his closest friends dies in an explosion. No emotion, just, "Let it go."

- Traffic cones used as weapons.

- A mailman, standing on a building, yells, "Special Delivery! Air mail!" and attacks the brothers by trying to fall on them. They step aside. Jimmy says, "I never seen a postman move that fast." They laugh and high-five, temporarily oblivious to the horde of angry rabble behind them.

- Hollywood RiverTour. Again, no one bothered to clean up.

- Jet skis that appear out of nowhere, armed with rockets.

- Flammable water and explosive street signs.

- "I just want domination of one major American city! Is that too much to ask? Huh?!?"

- Torture by eating spinach.

- Misfit friend of the brothers who is also in charge of a gang of "Good Kids" juuuuuuust happens to be the daughter of the Chief of Police.

- Inexplicable moment between Billy and the police chief's daughter.

- Billy is supposedly a joker, a wisecracker. Too bad all of his jokes SUCK.

- Abobo's humanizing, crying moment, and knowing inexplicably what to do with the two samurais.

- Jimmy jumping into Shugo, and everyone having a laugh at his expense.

- One hundred and twenty nine million dollars is how much Shugo owns?

The fighting sequences are mediocre and slow, and most of the laughable scenes are not because of bad filming but the extreme cheesiness of the movie itself. The "climax" is weak and predictable. The acting is deplorable. I can only imagine 6 to 10 year olds being entertained by this movie, but bad movie lovers will get a kick out of it.

Rating: three turkeys.

Scene to watch for: Trenchcoat camouflage.

Best line: "Stop hittin' yourself! What are you doin'? Stop hittin' yourself!"

Things that make you go "Huh?": The good gang's hideout.

Response From RinkWorks:

I loved the video game "Double Dragon." But I don't understand why so many people seem to think a video game would be a good basis for a movie. Especially one so pathetically repetitive as "Double Dragon." Oh well.