This is one of those movies which is for karate, tae kwon do, kung fu and kick boxing fans, and of course, practitioners. This low budget martial arts movie, which is, as most of them very simple when it comes to the story, characters, directing and other stuff. There is simply no real complex stuff, no real dilemma between characters and no development. It's a typical good VS evil story with the haunting past element. A fighter Nick (Michael Bernardo) returns to his good friend Ruben (William Zabka), and upon their reunion they decide to sign in on the underground fighting tournament, held by Mr. Lee (Martin Kove). Nick founds out that the fights are brutal and sometimes to the death. But, Ruben is persistent and wants to fight. So, Nick asks for help from Ruben's teacher Shingo (Bolo Yeung), to save Ruben's life.
So, the movie is actually nothing special. Pretty bad when it comes to some stuff
For example, actors can't act. Well, most of them are martial artists. The real actors are maybe Edward Albert, Richard Eden and Maryam D'Abo (and I still don't understand how did she get here?). Edward Albert and Richard Eden are not bad actors, but they really appeared in much of the low budget films. Martin Kove is also not a bad actor, but his villain Mr. Lee is just evil and that's it. He is evil and he looks kind of deadly. Nothing more. Though Kove posses some kind of charisma. Michael Bernardo didn't do much with his character, he just under played it. William Zabka was not that bad, I think he was decent. Though his character is somewhat irritating. Just wouldn't listen and he is too prideful. And not in an interesting, complex way
he is just a jerk. Zabka did not move from these kind of films, he remained well known for being martial artist on the film, or rather a bully, just like in "Karate Kid". And for the last
I saved Bolo Yeung. What can I say? This man cannot act
and
he doesn't have to. This man has such a powerful appearance on the film, such a powerful charisma and character that he simply doesn't need to act. He played himself basically, but this time
he was the good guy. Go, Bolo, go! He is the main man.
The other things in the movie are nothing special, OK, the most important – fighting scenes. They were good, plausible. Well done filmed. Though, there are some that were ridiculous. And I think that music score is pretty interesting, especially in training montage. I recommend this film to all martial arts movie fans.
