Bloodfist III: Forced to Fight

My review was written in January 1992 after watching the movie on New Horizons video cassette.

This prison story is the best screen vehicle to date for kickboxing champ Don (The Dragon) Wilson. Currently in regional theatrical release, "Bloodfist III" should prove a winner for fledgling home video label New Horizons.

Action genre stars Sylvester Stallone, Tom Selleck and Jean-Claude Van Damme were in stir a couple years back, and the Big House also works well for Wilson.. He's a wrongly convicted guy in a state pen who continually has to prove himself against bigger and feistier convicts.

Scripter Allison Burnett and Charles Mattera wisely resist the temptation to write in a round-robin competition or some other corny excuse to put Wilson and fellow cmaps Stan Longinidus and Peter Cunningham in the ring. Instead, all the pic's well-executed fights are part of the dramatic action.

Under director Oley Sassone (a/k/a Francis Sassone), who previously co-scripted the radically dissimilar Disney family film "Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken", the film is tightly constructed. Wilson befriends John Cardone, a nerdy prisoner shunned by the other inmates and is in turn taken under the wing of prison sage Richard Roundtree.

Racism is the key theme, as white and black cons are continually fighting, with "half-breed" (half-Japanese) Wislon caught in the middle.. Per genre tradition, when the baddies attack Wilson's best friends, the star whips into action and cleans up the place. In a character roel, Roundtree is extremely sympathetic while laconic Wilson fits the bill as a no-nonsense hero. Cast is nearly all-male, except for a small role assigned to Laura Stockman as a TV news reporter covering the prison beat.

Don "The Dragon" Wilson stars as Jimmy Boland a prisoner who is forced to fight, after he kills a man named Luther, in self defense, Luther's partner Blue (Gregory McKinney)vows revenge, however when Boland turns down the help of a skinhead Wheelhead (Rick Dean) he finds himself being hunted by both the leaders. Enter Stark (Richard Roundtree) a peaceful man who shows Boland the ropes. Bloodfist III is by far the best movie Don "The Dragon" Wilson has made, thanks to some excellent actionscenes as well as a decent story, Bloodfist III is overall a solid effort, Making the next Bloodfist entry worth looking forward to.

Bloodfist III is a credible movie on many levels. It is an excellent prison movie, a legitimate hand-to-hand combat movie, and even a good message movie. It's far better than Stallone's Lock-Up. The fight scenes are much closer to being real than most of Don "The Dragon" Wilson's movies. Most people wind up hurt severely and unconscious after just one of two blows (just like real life). I'd give this one a solid 8.

The third in the BLOODFIST series takes a spin in a different direction. Don "The Dragon" Wilson still headlines the cast, but he plays a different character. He plays Jimmy Boland who is in the clink for manslaughter. It is a darker, meaner character than Jake Raye, but to be honest I thought it was the same character and prison time had done that to him. Anyways, everybody in the slammer wants Jimmy dead since he killed an inmate who had just murdered another inmate. So, its about Jimmy and his survival against the odds I suppose. At first he does not want to be anybody's friend, but he gets a new cell mate in Samuel Stark (really well played by Richard Roundtree) who he grows to become friends with. Roundtree in fact almost all alone made this film good and worth watching, but I really do believe they went way too far in showing that yes even the higher ups including the warden and all the guards wanted Jimmy dead too. So, they just don't really exist in the movie. They are NEVER present, so its like they just let the inmates wonder around and do whatever they please. Better than the previous two in the series, but just not good enough sadly. Like the previous two produced by Roger Corman.

Bloodfist III:Forced To Fight respectively stars Don Wilson as a prisoner who fights to survive the violence caused by racial gangs and the fury delivered by the leaders after a shift in power. Richard "Shaft" Roundtree is the mentor who takes Don Wilson under his wing and is the best thing about the movie. Don Wilson gets about as good as he ever gets and it helps that he is supported by a group of good supporting actors who give conviction to their roles. The main problem is that I was expecting kickboxing and lots of it, while it delivered enough of this to satisfy me, the whole Shawnshank Redemption approach mixed with kickboxing to the head never quite comes together the way it should. Others have given great reviews on this movie and while I agree that this is probably the best of the series it is still far from a good movie. It is instead just a decent martial arts time killer. The film's biggest crime however was inspiring the ultra lame Live By The Fist.

* *1/2 out of 4-(Pretty good)