Blackbelt

Look Don The Dragon Wilson may be a great legitimate fighter but he is terrible on screen in this movie. The movements are slow and the choreography boring and ponderous. he also makes Chuck Norris look like Laurence Olivier in that he has ZERO acting ability and almost no charisma. This is a problem when you are carrying the movie.The singer girl here was annoying and unlikeable but the villain was fairly creepy and well done. Overall this was just a low rent waste of time and no amount of blood or nudity can change that. Watch something else!

Straight-to-video hero Don "The Dragon" Wilson was never going to be one of the big time martial arts stars, but he does well enough with BLACKBELT, a film which may be the best of his career. BLACKBELT is a non-stop assault on the senses of extreme violence, bone-breaking brutality and bloodshed, with a wafer-thin plot that doesn't get in the way of a fight scene every five minutes or so. This is definitely one of the most violent fight flicks I've seen in a long time, and despite heavy cutting on release (both in the UK and the US) it still remains a gruesome exercise in stage blood and bone-breaking sound effects.

The plot is nothing special: imagine a hard-assed version of THE BODYGUARD with Wilson replacing Costner and you'll be halfway there. The female leads are non-actresses but attractive enough in their roles, and although Wilson is typically wooden as the hero he packs a wallop in the fight scenes and kicks ass more times than I can count. Matthias Hues (DARK ANGEL) is surprisingly good as the psychopathic killer and I love the flashback scenes which explain his mental disorder. It's a shame the shaggy-haired hardman hasn't appeared in more flicks and has been typecast as the villain; I for one would like to watch him as the hero for a change.

BLACKBELT offers one adrenaline-charged fight scene after another during its running time, all battles excellently choreographed by Wilson himself. The budget is low and executive producer Roger Cormaan seems to have played a part in assembling an American-looking Filipino cast to fill out the smaller roles, up to his old tricks again by the look of it. The wealth of action that BLACKBELT offers is impossible to dismiss and this film hits the mark where many others fail. The finale is a class act and his final one-on-one unmissable entertainment.

This movie is amazing. Don the dragon Wilson is like the edward norton of martial arts, he can play any part you give him in a kun-fu movie. And his fast paced action style of fighting is reminiscent of the great chuck norris. God chuck why did you have to go to tv? Don't you know we miss you, please come back. Well at least you have brought the martial arts genre to tv. The best way to describe this movie is enter the dragon meets the matrix meets pulp fiction meets gone with the wind or something because there is a little romance brewing in the air. The first scene of the movie already has martial, arts murder, and brief(and classy) nudity. The movie only gets better from there as it goes on till the end. The end is sooooo good, I won't tell you what happens I will just say that it is like all this fighting and you aren't sure who's going to win and then it ends and you're like whoa no way, did you see that? But you did.

Don Wilson stars as Jack Dillon, a karate instructor (Also ex-cop) who protects the superstar singer Shanna(Dierdre Immershein) who is the target of a psychotic fan named John Sweet(Mattius Hues), seems Sweet had a love affair with his mom(Eeew!) and Shanna reminds him of mom which is why he kills brunettes and sends their fingers to him. (A true romantic, if there ever was one.) Also on board are the mobsters who look to collect the insurance on Shanna's contract, due to her reluctance to sign again, this all of course leads to a three way fight with Dillon fighting not only the mobsters but also a psychopathic serial killer. Blackbelt is a better than expected martial arts action flick which ripped off 'The Bodyguard' only this time there are a lot of fight sequences and less bad singing. (Although the soundtrack and the 80s music is terrible also) This of course works for the type of angle that the movie aims for. Also the climax in particular is exciting and the movie is packed with gore and enough action to entertain any schlock movie fan. I saw this back in 96 on WGN and because I missed about 20 minutes of it, I decided to rent it the next day. So far it ranks as the only enjoyable flick I've seen from Don Wilson and as a guilty pleasure.

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

Matthias is the ultimate "bad guy" in this one...and you just love him! He's about the only actor I can think of that you just love to hate. Maybe it's the hypnotic blue eyes, maybe the dimples or maybe its the muscles. Maybe its a combination of all, but he lights up the screen in a way that keeps you coming back for more. Don "the Dragon" Wilson is the "star" of the movie, but Matthias is really the STAR of the movie.

Watch it once, you'll watch it twice...watch it twice, you'll watch it trice...and so on and so on. It's a movie you won't get tired of watching. So when you don't know what you want to watch, watch Black Belt. You'll be glad you did!