Le Combat de la Mort

Two young karate heads (Michael Bernardo and THE KARATE KID villain William Zabka) travel to Mexico and become seduced by the world of shootfighting, a deadly bloodsport type tournament. Hoping for a quick profit, our dudes stay to duke it out with a bunch of other fighters. Profit, however, is the least of the tournament organizer Mr. Lee's (Martin Kove) motives. Seems the boy's sensei Shingo (Bolo Yeung, in a rare good guy role) disgraced Lee in the past, leaving him with an arm forever in a brace. Seeing as how these are the prize pupils, Lee hopes to get the sensei to come to Mexico, setting the stage for and unscheduled rematch.

This was riding that post-BLOODSPORT wave (hell, they got Bolo) but perks it up a bit with some graphic violence (throat slashings, brain bashing, and even a heart ripped out). It was one of the few direct-to- video action titles back in the day to come out in R-rated and unrated offerings. The fight scenes are nothing new and the two leads (Bernardo looking like a muscle-bound Mickey Dolenz) are annoying. But you have to respect a film that casts Bolo as a docile sensei. There is even a bit where he shoots basketball with a young kid. You can't beat that type of anti-typecasting. Maryam d'Abo is the love interest and Eddie Albert also appears as a manager/gambler type (which he also did in FIST FIGHTER). The two karate kids and the sensei returned a few years later in SHOOTFIGHTER 2 (1996).

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.

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.

Okay, well I have had the 1993 movie "Shootfighter: Fight to the Death" on DVD laying around for several years before I actually got around to watching it. Having picked it up at a cost of next to nothing in the local thrift shop, I only got around to watching it after a friend said it was actually a good movie.

I had always put off the movie on two accounts, first and foremost because of the lousy title. I mean, "Shootfighter", come on. What does that even mean? It is just hands down one of the worst and most laughable titles I have seen to a movie. And I can't claim that I have been much of a fan of Bolo Yeung neither.

However, I must admit that "Shootfighter: Fight to the Death" was actually a good movie, it was somewhat reminiscent of the "Blood Sport" movie in many way, yet mixing in elements from other martial arts movies. But still, writers Judd Lynn, Larry Felix Jr., Peter Shaner and Robert Ginty managed to put together an enjoyable enough script for director Patrick Alan to bring to life on the screen. Sure, the storyline was pretty straight forward and somewhat generic for an early 1990s martial arts action movie, but isn't that what makes it all the more enjoyable?

Something that definitely surprised me about "Shootfighter: Fight to the Death" was the cast ensemble. They definitely had a lot of familiar faces on the cast list, with the likes of Bolo Yeung, William Zabka, Martin Kove, George Cheung and Gerald Okamura. I have to admit that "Shootfighter: Fight to the Death" was actually one of the better movies that I have seen Bolo Yeung in, aside from "Blood Sport". And it definitely was fun to have Martin Kove and William Zabka back on the screen together after having seen them in the movie "Karate Kid" and later again in the "Cobra Kai" series.

There was a good amount of display of martial arts in the movie, and let's just be honest here, that is why we watch these movies, isn't it? To see impressive martial arts and fight sequences. And "Shootfighter: Fight to the Death" definitely has that. Sure, some of the martial arts performers weren't really great actors, but they definitely knew their fighting well enough.

I found "Shootfighter: Fight to the Death" to be genuinely entertaining and enjoyable. It was a trip down memory lane and back to when I was a teenager, growing up with these martial arts movies. Just look beyond the laughably bad title, and you have a rather enjoyable movie on your hands.

My rating of "Shootfighter: Fight to the Death" lands on a six out of ten stars.