Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.
Producer Roger Corman has brought us many a movie rip-off over the years, the most famous being his Jurassic Park 'inspired' Carnosaur.His movies usually try to 'out-nasty' and out sex their bigger budgeted, and almost always bigger qualitied counterparts.
Some of his movies are entertaining, some painful.He has been involved in well over 300 movies in some capacity.Today we will be looking at his 1989 picture Bloodfist.
Bloodfist is clearly Corman's rendition of the 1986 Jean Claude Van Damme movie Bloodsport.To find his star, he even chose someone with a similar history to Van Damme's.VD was a former martial arts champion who's early roles include 'Gay Karate man'(Monaco Fever 1984) and 'Passerby in the first dance sequence'(Breakin' 1984), his breakthrough movie was Bloodsport., a story about an American man who enters an underground fighting championship in the far east.Don Wilson was a highly acclaimed martial artist, whose previous roles were 'Sparring Partner'(Say Anything 1989) and 'Corpseman - Vietnam'(Born on the Fourth of July 1989), who would shoot to (semi-)fame in Bloodfist.A story about an American man who enters an underground fighting championship in the far east.
To add a little spice to the mix, Bloodfist adds a sub-plot about vengeance.
The story goes a little something like this.
Jake Raye(Don Wilson - Ring of Fire) is a retired kickboxer, who runs a gym with his brother Mike(Ned Hourani - Caged Heat 2), and their friend Hal (Ken Peerless - The Sisterhood).Mike is away in the Phillipines fighting in an underground martial arts competition known as the 'Ta Chang', Jake recieves a phonecall informing him that his brother is dead, so Jake sets off for Manila to gather his brother's remains and look for his killer.
While investigating, he comes accross a training camp for martial artists,after fighting a few guards, he has to escape.This is where he meets Kwong(Joe Mari Avellana - Vital Parts).Kwong introduces himself as Mike's trainer and the two go for a drink.
In the bar he meets Baby Davies(Michael Shaner - The Expert), a gambling addict.After helping Baby out of a spot of bother, Baby promises to buy him dinner to make up for it.He also invites Jake to stay with him while in Manila.Back at Baby's flat, we meet his sister,and obligatory love interest, Nancy(Riley Bowman - in her only movie).
What follows is Baby and Jake entering the tournament, the fights and Jake's quest to find out the truth about his brother.
The movie features some excellent martial artists, including Mr.Tae Bo himself Billy Blanks, as Black Rose and Chris Aguilar as the evil Chin Woo.Unluckily for the viewer, the fights scenes are mostly garbage.The one exception being the Black Rose v Jake fight, but that gets so little build up it seems wasted.Very few of the fights have any building up at all.It just flashes to a few punches and kicks, then onto the next.The characters aren't really all that interesting either.Black Rose is never given any depth,other than "He will be hard to defeat",Chin Woo grew up in Vietnam, and was 'scarred by Napalm, so he takes his anger out on the world', the guy with the dragon tattoo who is named after a god because he is so fast, and a German who likes music.
They actually couldn't have made Chin Woo any more like Chong Li without getting a law suit.Like Bolo Yeung, Chris Aguilar is small, but built like a brick sh*thouse.They even rip off the head stomp move that Chong Li pulls on Ray Jackson.
Another fault would be the slight confusion caused by some of the things they say in the movie.The Raye's clearly run a KICKboxing gym, yet Kwong says to Jake that he needs to learn Kickboxing?
The acting is for the most part poor.There really isnt a stand out performance amongst them.Wilson floats between wooden and decent,Shaner is obnoxiously bad and the fact that Bowman never acted again tells you something.
There are no real special effects as such, just some fake blood that appears a bit too much.
The music is alright.It's neither offensive or good.
The plot twist is fairly interesting, I suspected the right character, but not for the reason given, I was quite impressed.
Bloodfist isn't a terrible movie.It just isn't very good.It may be of interest of fans of 'The Dragon'.This was before he attavhed the tacky nickname to himself, and as far as I know is his only headlining movie that lacks it.
If you were wondering about the out-nastying and out-sexing Bloodsport., Bloodfist feels the need to kill Jake's friend, whereas BS just sends him to hospital.(and for another horrible rip-off, Chin Woo steals Baby's headband) and Nancy works in a strip club so there are breasts on show.
The movie would go on to spawn 7(YES SEVEN) sequels, all of them starring Wilson, most of them unrelated.Wilson would continue to star in straight to video garbage all through the 90s, taking a few breaks to make decent movies.
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