Shootfighter: Fight to the Death

Name: Shootfighter: Fight to the Death
Genre: Action
Released: 1993-05-13
Duration: 1 h 36 min
Rating: 5.5
Cast: Bolo Yeung, Maryam d'Abo, William Zabka

1993
R
1h 36m

IMDb RATING

5.5/10

1.5K

YOUR RATING

Bolo Yeung, Michael Bernardo, and William Zabka in Shootfighter: Fight to the Death (1993)

Fight matches, that end when a man is either unconscious or dead, are fought in Tijuana. 2 naive friends, hoping to make a quick buck, go there. One owes money to a loan shark - giving them plenty of practice in no rule fights.

Play trailer2:06

1 Video

60 Photos

Action

Fight matches, that end when a man is either unconscious or dead, are fought in Tijuana. 2 naive friends, hoping to make a quick buck, go there. One owes money to a loan shark - giving them ... Read allFight matches, that end when a man is either unconscious or dead, are fought in Tijuana. 2 naive friends, hoping to make a quick buck, go there. One owes money to a loan shark - giving them plenty of practice in no rule fights.Fight matches, that end when a man is either unconscious or dead, are fought in Tijuana. 2 naive friends, hoping to make a quick buck, go there. One owes money to a loan shark - giving them plenty of practice in no rule fights.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

5.5/10

1.5K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Trivia
In the original cut of the film, James Pax's Teng was the primary villain, having been defeated by Bolo Yeung's Shingo in a previous Shootfighting match, thus leading him to set up his own tournament to lure him back for a rematch. This is also why some international VHS summaries of the film have the line "From the day they were born, Shingo and Teng had been trained and primed like human bombs to explode." However, after internal screenings, additional funding was put towards reshoots, which would bring in Martin Kove as the film's new villain, Lee, and changing Pax's character to a subordinate villain. The reshoots would also add the new "octagon" location for the finals (most likely introduced into the production by Kazja Patschull, who would also play "Skeeter"), and ramp up the violence level in these new fights. The only footage released publicly of the original cut of the film came from a film market trailer/"sizzle reel" (awkwardly set to Giorgio Moroder's "Ivory Tower" from The Neverending Story), showing the original fights with Bolo VS Pax, as well as deleted dialogue segments.

Goofs
(at around 1h 29 mins) In the end fight, Lee fights Shingo. Lee throws several punches to Shingo's head. Shingo dodges them, but you still hear a punch impact sound.

Alternate versions
When this was first released on video, two version were made: A 94-min R-rated version and a 96-min. unrated version. The unrated version contains more blood and gore and uncut mortal kombat type fatalities. Cut scenes include:
Lee (Kove) tearing out Shingo's friend's throat.
At the end of the exhibition match between Boa and Buck, Buck picks up Boa by the throat on to the cage and tears his heart out while Boa spits out blood and blood squirts from the heart. In the R version, we just see Buck slam Boa on to the cage and here him punch into Boa's rib cage and about five to eight cuts.
A fighter gets his throat slashed and blood sprays out of his throat and blood flows out of his mouth. He then falls on the mat and blood starts leaking out of his throat into a puddle of blood on the mat.
During another fight, a fighter grabs his opponent's arm and bites a piece of his flesh off. He then spits out the chunk of flesh. In the R version, we see him knaw on it from a distance.
In the fight between Ruben and Hawk, Hawk is about to get back up to fight Ruben. But since Ruben's sword was pointing down, the sword went into Hawk's stomach. In the unrated version, we see blood leaking out of his stomach and at some times start to squirt.
In the last fight between Shingo and Lee, Shingo grabs Lee's arm and shatters it and the flesh bursts open exposing the bone and blood from the inside. We then see Lee's battered face and him screaming. In the R version, we just hear Shingo break Lee's arm and then we see Shingo jump down on Lee with a falling knee attack to Lee's back. The R-cut is rarely available to rent and has only been seen on HBO and Cinemax. All rental outlets rent only the Uncut version.

Connections
Featured in Bad Blood (1994)

User reviews20

Review

Featured review

7/10

Fun, Martial Arts, Retro VHS flick with notable actors

Oh, those good old days of the VHS, when movies, no matter their low-budget, had meaning. Back in the 80s martial arts films were so popular that any backdoor-garage-studio could produce a low budget film and make tons of money. After JCVM paved the way for tournament fighting style movies with his successful film, "Blood Sport," it was sure that many others clones would follow. Shootfighter followed on the same path but with a lower budget and less flare.

Shootfighter tells the story of two friends, Ruben (William Zabka) and Nick (Michael Bernardo), who are tricked to fight in a no-holds-barred tournament to the death by a blood hungry shootfighter named Mr. Lee (Martin Kove). Their master, Shingo (Bolo Yeung), has to save them from Lee and his cronies.

This movie was memorable because it had Zabka and Kove, both antagonists on Karate Kid (1984) and Yeung the main antagonist in Blood Sport. Now, the acting was average, photography was average, the plot was average, but the martial art choreography was top notch. That's one thing, no matter how cheap movies were back in the 80s and 90s they had some awesome fighting.

If you love old martial arts films, get a pizza, a case of beer, and watch this retro junk on a late Saturday night. You won't regret it.