laslopaniflex

This is a fun, cheap and cheerful martial arts throwback. The fights and cinematography were actually a lot better than I was expecting (I saw the blu ray and the visuals and colour grading were well done).

The film however does appear to be lacking that final polish which I'm sure is a by-product of the minimal budget (a few scenes are missing sound design, e.g: in a club without much crowd noise or background music)

The editing by Youtuber Oliver Harper was decent, especially the fight scenes. But the overall structure did have some pacing issues, at 1 hour 45 it did feel too long and took almost the first half of the film to get to the actual kumite/major fights, so could have been tightened up I felt.

The script and plot were pretty generic and some of the lines/delivery a bit clunky, again maybe trimming this down might have helped the overall piece.

However no one stood out as dreadful in their acting. The main lead (Mathis Landwehr) I was not familiar with, and he had some impressive fight moves and physique so will be looking out for his other work.

Youtuber David Kurzhal (aka the "Viking Samurai") also stood out as an impressive on screen fighter, with a Van Damme inspired helicopter kick and good reactions to the hits.

Nice to see Kurt Mckinney and Mohammed Quissi back in action too, both looked good on screen and had a presence in their smaller roles.

Also impressive was a solid variety of different fights (capoeira, kung fu, lucho libre wrestling, muay Thai etc) which was great to see captured well.

Matthias Hues was hamming it up as the main villain. Billy Blanks and Cynthia Rothrock were fine as pretty standard trainer/mentor roles.

Paul Hertzog and Stan Bush provided music for this (they also have links to the original Van Damme Bloodsport) so there is a retro sound and feel, although as mentioned, it did feel the final sound mix didn't quite make the music pop off the screen as much as I was hoping/expecting.

Overall it was well put together considering a low budget effort, although a few overly cheesy parts did stand out (but still, some of that naffness actually made it more endearing somehow). I had a good time and have watched it a couple of times now.

The fights were very high quality and captured well, which is what I was wanting out of the film. The rest of the film, despite slightly lacking that professional final polish, was still enjoyable and the soundtrack is now on my work out playlist along with the other Paul Hertzog Van Damme scores.

Having read up on the production of this film, I must say I'm VERY impressed with what the filmmakers have achieved on such a tiny budget.

Helicopters, zombies, destroyed cities, soldiers all look like they are part of a Hollywood film. Whilst the acting and the plot aren't 100% (although i read that the whole film was improvised by the cast and shot at weekends over several years so that can be forgiven) it's an enjoyable unpretentious zombie action film.

The film is very similar in style to 28 Days Later in terms of visuals and tone, had some funny moments, a few jump scares and plenty of zombie carnage. Well worth a watch if you're a fan of the 2002 Danny Boyle film.