Shootfighter: Fight to the Death

Shootfighter: Fight to the Death is a marital arts film at it's low budget best. But surpisingly the film does have some decent fight scenes. It was good to see William Zabka in another martial arts role and the always good Bolo Yeung. He final fight scene with Martin Kove is one of the best for both actors. If you get a chance check this one out cuz it's not half bad.

Greetings And Salutations, and welcome to my review of Shootfighter; here's the breakdown of my ratings:

Story: 0.75 Direction: 1.25 Pace: 1.50 Acting: 1.25 Enjoyment: 1.50

TOTAL: 6.25 out of 10.00

Once in a while, there comes a surprise in the Martial Arts movie genre. An original story. Shootfighter is not that surprise. The only astonishing thing about the story is that it required three writers to borrow the usual elements from other fight flicks.

We have a villain, Mr Lee, who makes an enemy out of Master Shingo when he kills one of his pupils and friend in the Shootfighting ring. Mr Lee believes shootfighting should ask for the ultimate sacrifice. Unluckily for him, nobody else believes people should die for the sport, so he is exiled from the country. It's not long before he opens the gates to his own Shootfighting arena in Mexico, where a fighter's death is commonplace. Enter Rubin (the angry one) and Nick (the normal one), martial arts experts looking to make a quick buck to pay off the shark's loan on their dojo. Being the champions they are, it doesn't take long for them to enter the arena of death. Except, they don't know the principal fights are fatal. Oh, and guess what - their Sensai is none other than Master Shingo. But hey, it's a good job that most audiences don't watch Martial Arts movies for the riveting storyline.

The fighting isn't the best you'll see in the genre. However, a few different styles are on offer, which will please most. Luckily for the viewer, director Patrick Alan does a respectable job filming the fight sequences. Every fight holds an element of tension and excitement, which is what you need, especially when the weapons come into play.

The reason I watched Shootfighter was purely for Bolo Yeung. The physic on this man is intimidating. But when he gets his game-face on, he's downright scary. His fighting style also comes across as one of the strongest. It was a shame that he was not in the film for long. Out of the two main characters, it's Michael Bernardo, as Nick, who comes across as the stronger fighter of the duo. However, his acting skills aren't as sharp as William Zabka's. Though it's Maryam D'Abo I felt sorry for her as, like Yeung, she has little to do in the film, which is a sin as she's a good actress.

All-in-all, Shootfighter is a passable fight flick to pass an hour and a half of your time enjoyably. The fights are well choreographed and engaging enough for genre fans and newbies alike to savour. Well worth a watch or two.

Please feel free to visit my Holding Out For A Hero list to see where I ranked Shootfighter.

Take Care & Stay Well.

I watched this for the first time a few years ago to declare my fan-lust for Michael Bernardo, back then anything that came out his mouth sounded good. But I saw it again today and on closer inspection, this movie has some of the worst dialog ever. When viewed with the sound off the actors do a generally good job of presenting their feelings, so they cannot be blamed for the corniness of the final product.

As such the deepest soul searching moments are the ones that are presented through what some may call typical a training montage, and of course the tournament fights with a wide variety of styles and weapons.

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.

I bought this one hoping for a fighting movie with Bolo Yeung as the main character. I was wrong about that. Bolo is more of a supporting character in the movie, and he only has one real fight. That was a disappointment to me, although the two main characters in the movie are OK. When it comes to the fight scenes, they're far from the best that I've seen. But, I've seen a lot worse too (try the totally ridiculous "Gladiator Cop", for example). The whole movie looks a bit cheap. The fight scenes are also very brutal, I guess they're the most brutal scenes I've seen I a martial arts movie. I have no problem with that, but I didn't really see the point in it. If you're not a hardcore action/martial arts-fan, you won't find any entertainment in this movie.