Hermanos de sangre

I've seen this movie before, but most recently over-dubbed in Spanish (I do not speak the language). It is honestly one of the funniest movies I've ever seen when you don't understand a word. Then again, this was on at about 2am, so I may have been deliriously tired, but inspired enough to write this review at 4am. The acting is beyond horrible - but the scenes with the white haired terrorist were so over the top that I laughed until I cried. Besides being the silliest looking bad guy, he appears to be playing right to the camera. This is worth it just for the laughs, though there are brief segments of reasonably talented martial arts moves - only to be ruined by any attempt at acting.

This film is the best of the three No Retreat, No Surrender films. This is your typical revenge movie, but it involves two rival brothers, played by martial artists Keith Vitali and Loren Avedon. At first the brothers totally hate each other, but then their father's death brings them together as they take on the terrorists responsible for their father's murder. The fight scenes are a thrill-a-minute, the highlight being in a garage with Avedon and Vitali teaming up to fight terrorists. This is in fact the best of the three and I strongly recommend you see this film!

I wasn't expecting much from No Retreat NoSurrender 3: the DVD I watched was a bare bones pan and scan effort (meaning that the distributor either couldn't be arsed or thought the film unworthy of much attention), and the director and 'stars' were unknowns to this fan of fight-fests. However, despite some awful acting and an unimaginative story, Blood Brothers actually proved to be quite good fun. Not groundbreaking in any way, shape or form, you understand, but solidly entertaining stuff nonetheless, particularly if you enjoy silly action trash from the 90s (it comes packed with nasty hairstyles, a naff soundtrack, and plenty of hard-bodied babes).

Loren Avedon and Keith Vitali play Will and Casey Alexander, two brothers who fail to see eye to eye; Casey is a womanising CIA operative, whilst Will is a selfish Karate instructor with a strong moral sense (but no fashion sense—check out his denim and leather blouson jacket, chinos, and aviator shades combo!). But when their father is murdered by a group of terrorists, led by white-mullet-ed baddie Franco (Rion Hunter), they eventually learn to work together in order to bring the killers to justice.

Casey uses his connections in 'the company' to locate the whereabouts of those responsible for his old man's demise, and then convinces Maria, his ex-girlfriend (and also an ex-employee of Franco's), to help him make contact with them; Will, on the other hand, is a little more impetuous and hot foots it to Florida on his own (after taking a peek at his brother's Top Secret file on the case), changes his name to Jessie, and gets a job with the bad guys as a 'heavy'.

Inevitably, Will's true identity is discovered and big brother Casey must come to the rescue.

Of course, it's not the quality of the story that matters in a film like this—it's the action. And with bone-crunching stunts, and loads of fast and furious martial arts, fans of the genre should not be disappointed. What Avedon and Vitali lack in acting skills, they more than make up for with their ability to kick ass.

The fighting is certainly impressive stuff: acrobatic, fast, and very painful looking, with bodies crashing through glass, falling from great heights, and generally being treated in a manner that would cause mere mortals like me to spend many months in hospital (or, quite likely, an eternity six feet under). The use of some unconvincing stunt-doubles, particularly in the film's closing moments, kinda spoils things a tad (Hunter's stand-in wears a VERY bad wig), but, on the whole, as low-budget actioners go, this one delivers the goods where it matters most.

6.5, rounded up to 7 for IMDb

this third film in the series has no relation to the previous two other than the title.it's the best movie of the first three,in my opinion.there's much more action,plenty of pretty good fight sequences,and it's fast paced.the story line was nothing new or original,but it was well done nevertheless there are some exciting moments,and i was drawn into the action.it was almost compelling in parts.of course the bad guys were your typical stock two dimensional characters just like in the previous two films,but sadly,that's almost to be expected.apparently there are at least two more movies in the series,but i think i've had my fill for awhile.for me,No Retreat, No Surrender 3: Blood Brothers is a 6/10

NRNS3 has some of the best Hong Kong Style action from a western based movie we'd up to this point (1990). Both Keith and Loren step up in terms of their ability to deliver great action but they were never really good actors. The script doesn't help them out much though, it's full of clichés, one liners and dialogue that feels like it was written by a non English speaking person. But all of that plays second fiddle to the real star of the movie. The Action/martial arts choreography. Insanely this has some of the best fight choreography outside of the Hong Kong action movie world (up to the point in 1990). Kicks, blocks, punches, twists, backflips and basically everything you can imagine is incorporated into the fight sequences. The final fight between the two brothers and the main bad guy Marko is pretty awesome (if you can ignore the stunt guy in the blatantly awful white wig that is). It's one I have revisited a few times because it really is that good. I do think if they had focused a little bit more on giving the main characters believable dialogue (and possibly a few more acting lessons) they could have had a stone cold classic on their hands but a lot of it feels rushed and just an excuse to get to the next fight sequence. Also... the soundtrack is fairly bad. It genuinely brings the rating down a star because it feels so generic and the synths date it terribly.

But gawd damn there's some fun to be had with this movie. If you were to watch it as part of a bad movie night you may be surprised by just how hard it goes with the action. If not for that it would have easily made into an episode of BOTW by redlettermedia on Youtube.

Anyway, yes, if you go in expecting awful acting and great action you'll definitely be satisfied.