Things are looking up for Leroy until he encounters the obligatory huge
guy, in this case, a John Goodman body double. Leroy's normally quick
moves are replaced with sluggish punches, and the big guy picks him up and
throws him on the ground repeatedly. Not good.
Luckily, help arrives in the form of Johnny and the students from Leroy's
dojo. Even though they're just kids, they still manage to push back the
armed thugs attacking Leroy. If only Eddie had screened these thugs a
little more carefully.
Even Johnny does surprisingly well, though he's shown no fighting prowess
at all up to this point. He does slow down a little when he's ambushed by
Sho'nuff's thug, Cyclone, but that only makes things worse for them:
That's right, boys. Now you've awakened the awesome might of the little
Asian kid! The spry lad leaps into action, taking down Cyclone with a
little help from Johnny and pummeling a dozen more foes on his own.
Things are going really badly for Eddie. Still, he's not yet ready to
shoot anyone. Instead, he and Rock retreat with the bound and gagged Laura
in tow, leaving the equally bound and gagged Richie behind. He taunts
Leroy into following, but Leroy is beset by a giant albino man-baby.
Leroy slips out of his wimpy bear hug, and the students pummel and pants
the poor fellow. By the way, nowhere in the fight do you see the barking
guy who wanted double pay. You could see his face in the pre-fight stage,
but he never takes the stage. What a let-down. Anyway, Leroy takes off,
leaving his brother to fend for himself. He's got things well in hand:
Richie manages to groove his way out of his bindings. It's a good skill to
have when you're as trouble-prone as Richie. Speaking of which, Richie
runs after Leroy to get himself into a bind once again.
Eddie lures Leroy into an abandoned warehouse adjacent to the studio.
Leroy follows and eventually overtakes Eddie. Eddie is unaware of this,
and is quite surprised when Leroy hurls some kind of throwing spike into
the wall in front of him.
"Holy shit!"
Eddie decides to revise his gun policy.
Richie, meanwhile, has run right into the arms of Rock. Instead of going
in the trashcan again, he simply kicks Rock right in his Apollo Creeds
until he lets him go. He then runs right into the arms of Sho's thug,
Beast. Worse yet, Beast wore a cup!
Thankfully, Leroy is there, but that doesn't save Richie from getting
tossed in the trash (it's a trash pile this time, so at least he's moving
up in that regard). Beast puts up a better fight than any of Sho's other
thugs, but the end result is still the same. Leroy finishes him and gives
Richie the Johnny treatment, locking him in a storage room just in time
for the final showdown.
Yes, we all knew it was coming. Sho'nuff appears and the fight is on! He's
still wearing some padding underneath his robe, though, so that could be
why he and Leroy are evenly matched for the first part of the fight. The
fight seems to shift in Sho's favor when he kicks Leroy through a wall.
Leroy counters with a crane-assisted jump kick, and it seems like the
fight is over.
Just as Leroy starts to relax, Sho calls out to him, and Leroy finds that
Sho's body has disappeared. Leroy goes to investigate, and gets an
unpleasant surprise.
Looks like Sho'nuff figured out that old man's riddles before Leroy. Sho
puts on his best pirate face and puts Leroy through the paces:
"Now, when I say 'who is da mastah?' you say, 'Sho'nuff'!"
Leroy is really getting spanked. Even when Sho goes so far as to rip
Leroy's shirt off, the kid still refuses to call him the master... I'm
sorry, "da mastah!" Finally, Sho works his way over to some kind of open
tank of water and starts dunking Leroy's head.
Leroy starts flashing back to a number of different parts of the film, all
of which point to the one logical conclusion. Sho pulls him back out of
the water and asks him once more: "Who is da mastah!?"
"I am."
Leroy starts to emit a strange yellow glow, and suddenly starts dominating
the fight. Sho's red fists of fury start to short out, and suddenly he
finds himself blinded by blue and gold sparks as Leroy pummels him. During
this time, Richie manages to find and untie Laura while Eddie runs off,
and they watch in amazement as Leroy demolishes the Shogun of Harlem.
Finally, Leroy puts Sho to bed with an explosive jump kick that hurls his
ass into the dunk tank. In spite of all that Sho'nuff has done to him,
Leroy plays the part of the good guy and lifts his unconscious head out of
the water. What about Eddie?
Eddie states what we've all known for some time, namely that a bullet will
do what an evil, poofy-haired fighter can't, and shoots Leroy. Huh, what a
bummer. Upon closer inspection, however, Eddie's shot missed the mark
slightly.
Man, thank god Eddie was aiming for Leroy's mouth, or that could have
ended in disaster! Leroy trips Eddie before he can aim for a part of his
body that can't catch bullets, roughs him up a little, and then suspends
him a few feet off the ground with a length of chain.
Then, moments later, the police and Laura's producer and hairdresser all
arrive on the scene. Neither the producer or hairdresser seem overly
concerned by the fact that there was a huge melee in the studio, or that
there were gunshots next door. They just want her ready for the next show.
Leroy uses his Glow powers to teleport away, and the cops finally, FINALLY
arrest Eddie, though they don't say why. My guess: Tax evasion.
Minutes later, Laura is doing her show, with the kid martial artists
donning all white clothes and joining the dancers on stage. She's taking
the whole "repeated kidnapping and attempted takeover of her show" thing
in stride, apart from pouting over her hero disappearing. Turns out he
just ran down to the flower shop. He calls out for Laura to teach him some
moves, and everyone laughs because they don't know he's talking about sex.
One of Richie's friends calls Leroy a cornball, but Richie stands up for
him, saying that he's neither a cornball, a weirdo, or a coward; he's the
master.
Man, what a movie. So many memorable characters and odd one-liners. And
nobody ever called the cops at any point. They just happened to show up at
the right place at the right time! Incredible. A couple things to note
before I wrap this up: the director reveals in the commentary that the
initial scene where Leroy is swatting arrows out of the air was real, and
that it took around two hours to film. Also, the little Asian kid kicking
some ass near the end of the film is Eddie Reyes Jr., who would reprise
his role as "ass-kicking Asian kid" in a number of other movies and TV
shows, and even wound up recently hosting Final Fu, which was also
ass-kicking-related. He also starred in Sidekicks - a TV show about
a cop and a kung fu kid who fight crime. Most importantly, though, he was
"Keno" in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. His dad (Ernie Reyes Sr.) did the fight choreography
for all the kids, although his kid was really the only one to be
prominently featured fighting. I wish they would do a sequel to this
movie. It could be about Sho'nuff trying to get his title back, only this
time, he teams up with a powerful ally: barking guy! Someone call Berry Gordy!
