Bloodfist IV: L'épreuve

We are now in the fourth part of the BLOODFIST series and personally I would suggest just thinking of this as just a Don 'The Dragon' Wilson movie. This one teeters right into silliness, but somehow it still works and I actually found this one engaging and in the end even good. Yes, it borrows some ideas from greater films and in certain scenes I was getting vibes from those films like DIE HARD, FRANTIC and even TOTAL RECALL. Very 90s action flick as there are endless slow-mo action scenes.

Wilson plays Danny Holt who is a repo man. What is interesting is I can actually believe that in a 90s action movie sort of way with his ability to use martial arts. Problem is he has repossessed the wrong car of an arms dealer named Weiss (Kale Browne). Trouble starts a brewin' pretty quickly as corpses are left in his wake as he wants some nuclear triggers that are disguised as chocolates. Soon Danny's daughter Molly (Heather Lauren Olson) is kidnapped and he must try and save her life while keeping a step ahead of the local cops, the FBI and the CIA. Also starring Amanda Wyss and James Tolkan.

This time everybody's favorite charisma-less kickboxing champ (Don Wilson, to anybody not acquainted with him) is a repo-man who gets a hold of nuclear triggers which the bad guys want to sell for lots of cash, they also abduct Wilson's daughter and are willing to make an exchange (Although considering how obnoxious the child is, I would have just asked for cash instead of the kid.) and if anything else Bloodfist IV proves that it takes a lot of kickboxing to save the world and your daughter. Bloodfist IV is the type of movie that you just love despite how stupid and insane it is. From Wilson's constipated acting to bad guys who rip off their shirts without a moments notice, Bloodfist IV could possibly be cinema's greatest hour, at least in terms of guilty pleasure. Of course the best line of the movie is when asked, where the nuclear triggers are, Wilson replies "I ate them!" it is zaniness like this that make the idea of sitting through a Bloodfist marathon not so painful to the brain. Even if my IQ drops well below 40. To explain how zany this movie is, consider that the terrorists hide nuclear triggers in chocolate! Genius!

* * out of 4-(Fair)

This sequel to "Bloodfist" was not my very favorite. I thought the third one was a slight downer, this one was the lowest. The action of the movie was there, but the plot was major stinker. Being convicted of killing a policeman in a traffic accident is bad enough. But when the details are sketchy, there's a chance of high hopes for the character to regain control of his life. When heard most of the details, I hear that the police officer that died in the crash, was drunk. That can clear Danny Holt(Don "The Dragon" Wilson) of vehicular manslaughter, however, more rogue cops hamper his chances on redemption. This police Lt. Garcia(Liz Torres) is terrible. She won't listen to anything. She is so hardened against Danny, she don't care about anything else. Maybe one day, she'll learn the truth about open her eyes, and see the error of her views. The action scene remain intact, and the the kitchen scene is unforgettable. Especially when the young woman gets burned on the stove during the fight with Danny. This movie was fine, it just a little downhill there. 1 out of 5 stars.

Yes, very much the Martial-arts movie, but fights/fighting is perhaps even above-average, I wouldn't particularly choose Don Wilson or any of his opponents like Daniels or the rest seen here even if I was looking for a fight, based on this, are brutal, dirty, brawlish and relatively believable, except perhaps how much punishment Wilson and Daniels heap on each other before there is a winner. The fight in the restaurant towards the end, between Wilson and the two thugs, was pretty real, you could almost believe that might happen with 3 good street-fighters or something..its no messing around direct sort of fighting compared to some movie martial-arts.

Director Sziller missed an opportunity with this, IMO, to further use and play-up the female villainess/fighter , the dare i say fabulous late Cat Sassoon, who battles Wilson twice during the movie: jumping him and heaping a beating on him in the movies last fight sequence, before Wilson turns it around just as hes about to be finished off with her trademark switchblade.

Now Catya Sassoons 'Lisa' would have to be one of the most evil//sadistic/sexy femme fatales villainess/henchwoman ever to appear on any screen,as far as actual hands-on violence villainesses go anyway, in this second clash with Wilson her 'outfit' speaks for itself, and shes the main reason many will watch or want to own this video, frankly, but we see FAR too little of her, despite the 40-second treat of this last fight,which she loses by KO in the end,sadly, although well ahead on points at the time, lol..the would-be devastating kick to Wilsons groin we could barely see,( black boot against a very dark background set, which WOULD have won the fight for her in the real world, surely!) even though patently obvious it was so good we were totally ripped-off even here.

Now Sassoon, who starred in 'AngelFist' as the main character, is sometimes talked about as not having genuine martial-arts ability, and I'm not an expert, couldn't say, I know she held some M.A. title in real-life,NA Forms/Weapons or something, but I guess there are lots of cereal-box M.A. titles, but that criticism is more for hard-core MA fans than for fans like me,(surely few would believe that in real-life Sassoon or any other female fighter could hold their own with Wilson or the the other men in the movie, but that is SO NOT the point !)to me, and many I'm sure, the unique key with Sassoon was her appearance, she was attractive, yes, with good figure, so are many others,maybe even some female fighters, but she has a particular one-off appearance and attitude with slicked-back hair as here that could have made her the #1 film villainess cult icon of this genre of cinema history, right here, in this film. Now, Sziller could have made his cult-mark with this film, by showcasing her more, more scenes, her 'doing' a few more people, including goodies, she kills in split-second two fellow bad-guys that have outlived their usefulness in one devastating scene , actually, but Sziller, apart from under-using her, also makes a dogs-breakfast of basic lighting in most of her scenes in the movie, the scene at the door with the other two bad-guys just mentioned is totally badly lit and filmed, and so is her final fight with Wilson, filmed in a gloomy room, with 'Lisas' unique spine-tingling dark looks and eye-goggling black outfit and boots making it sadly even more difficult to see her properly against background as she goes about punishing Wilson down the staircase, across the floor, and up against the wall, at the fight climax..which you want to see every detail of. I've got stills of this sequence, and its apparent in them how poor the direction and floor-management was, and how much this cost,the film and probably Sassoons own stardom.

Apparently Wilson remade the film himself, I'm not sure if he reprised her character and who played her,Sassoon was not in it, and if it was any improvement in lighting and filming at least, but it was a 'stinker' generally, apparently, was worse than this in film merit terms.. Sassoon lost her life tragically in 2001, we could and should have seen more of her, and we would have, if better-promoted through this film, which had the makings but not the execution.

Good bone-crunching brawling fight-scenes, though..Don't 'pick on' Don Wilson, would be my instinct and advice.

if you like b-grade martial arts movies than this ones for you,it's about danny holt a repo man who grabs the wrong car he's suppose to get. when he takes the car back to his work and ducks out for a minute the owners of the car turn up and murder everybody(because their after somthing very dangerous and valuable inside the car) danny is then framed for the murders,his daughter kidnapped ,and the real killers thinking he has what they want and trying to ransom her back to him for the weapon. this movie has a good plot for a martial arts flick so if you like these kinds of movies then give it a watch,you wont be dissapointed.

this movie was later remade by wilson,the movie is called moving target and doesnt even compare to this one,so steer clear!