DOA: Dead or Alive

I love martial arts movies and in particular Cory Yuen films. No Retreat, No Surrender 3: Blood Brothers is a favourite. Having previously done great work with Jason Statham in The Transporter I had pretty high hopes. But I had reservations - this was a starring role for Holly Valance after all.

It wasn't everything I hoped it would be. Compared to the raw energy of Crank, DOA was committee film-making as usual. Colourful and featuring plentiful (reasonable) action DOA is only interesting in the opportunities it presents to draw comparison to others.

Borrowing stylistic and casting ideas from Charlie's Angels and Kill Bill, DOA is essentially Mortal Kombat and Streetfighter combined. Drawing parallels to Enter the Dragon too, there is nothing original or inventive.

Kane Kosugi benefits most from the choreography. He has a sequence on a flight of stairs which is brilliant and brutal - very similar to his scenes in his Japanese breakthrough vehicle Blood Heat. Elsewhere, while the film sexes up the concept of the tournament/video game movie, it's fatal flaw is that it's heroines don't convince. In Charlie's Angels they did.

Cory is notable for doing more than his share of fighting femme movies back in Hong Kong, including the recent So Close, but none are classic. DOA should have featured support from the likes of Cynthia Rothrock and Michelle Yeoh rather than Eric Roberts and Robin Shou. The girls are pure eye candy. Only Pressley comes close to credibility - because she has an impressive physique and attitude. Holly flutters her eyes at Coronation Street's Matthew Marsden while forcing an English accent. Devon Aoki lacks charisma.

The incorporation of the video game elements such as the character intros, K.O. freeze frames etc works really well and the costume design and production design brings the game to life brilliantly. You believe in the exaggerated world and that is key. But ultimately this is little more than a time waster.

A decent popcorn movie but nothing new for action fans.

Wow. I never thought In my wildest dreams that I would be standing behind this film, sticking up for it opposed to slandering it with the rest. I actually went to see it for a laugh and so what if there were a half dozen beautiful girls flaunting there stuff right? well the first 10 minutes kinda made me think I was gonna be dead right, but not entirely. Sure it was a very poor excuse for a plot, but the action was really quite good. Before I get into that I need to make a remark, a lot of people have been slandering this movie because of it's story line, fair enough, but if you say that it doesn't make sense, you must be one thick chimpanzee, The story is so linear it hurts, and very, I repeat VERY easy to understand! Back to the movie. The acting was fine, I was especially pleased at Holly's Performance, A perfect role for her I would say, if Anyone's ever seen any of her film clips

Plot: Pro-wrestler Tina (Jaime Pressly), master thief Christie (Holly Valance), and ninja princess Kasumi (Devon Aoki) are competitors in a martial arts tournament with a $10 million prize.

That pretty much sums up the basis of the plot haha but yeah. Good Action, Hot Girls, a worth while watch. Oh and another thing, Sarah Carter who starred in 3 episodes of Smallville plays another butt kickin' Babe, very sexy. It was kind of refreshing be able to watch a movie where the plot wasn't really a problem at all, all you had to do was focus on what was going on, no having to think about how this person knows this person and why they want to kill each other. It was also good to see a 'Girl Power' Flick which wasn't cheesy in the way that Charlie's Angels was, yeah it was cheesy in other ways, but none of that, "come on angels, let's go get 'em" All in all a good watch, I just hope they don't try and do a sequel *sighs* and IF they do, I hope they get a damn script writer!!!!

7 Stars

It is 2021 now.but watch this 2006 movie is still fun.it is a tv game adapted movie,not big budget mission impossible or the bourne identity.but still full of good action fights,great stunt design,no unnecessary cheap CGI,good charactor development.and even it is 15 years ago,the director made a full hot diverse female team do the final big combate.

nothing to complain,just good entertainment.

Dead or Alive is a film that is so exploitative and atrociously bad, that somehow it ended up being a whole lot of fun. However to view this as a fun film, it must be viewed as intended: With brain switched off, and ol' Mr McDong taking control of your functions for 80 minutes. Yes, this may be a film with a predominantly female cast, but ladies need not turn up to watch this, cause they probably won't enjoy it, unless their sexual barometer is registering the opposite end from "hetero." This film is total gratuity in every regard, from the scantily clad, sexy ladies, to the barrage of testosterone pumping action. This is hot chicks doing high kicks! So with that, and having this the pre-conceived idea when I bought my ticket, I knew I'd enjoy it. Hell the film was marketed right. It's about a video game and has the subtlety of said game, which is in the button bashing, short attention span of the games spectrum. It's a simple movie for a simple movie going experience. IF anyone goes into this film and comes out having not enjoyed it, then they SHOULD have known better! I think only those who want to see this kind of film, who are in the mood, will watch, and they'll get a kick out of it like me. Critics will despise it cause it represents a film they have to watch, but probably don't want to.

So DOA is essentially a non-interactive video game, an FMV if you will. It's got an awful script, mediocre acting, and all the efforts of the filmmakers have gone into perfectly capturing, glistening, bouncing boobies amongst the martial arts mayhem. The plot essentially is nothing more than little set-ups to all the fights, taking place at a secret fighting tournament set up by Eric Roberts, in grade-A scenery chewing mode. Roberts to me is a tragic waste of talent, who in the early 80's looked a great prospect and to some, me included, has more talent than his over-rated sister Julia (who now of course takes all the plaudits). Roberts is consigned to doing DTV movies now, or TV movies and on the rare occasion he appears back in the multiplexes, it's in another B-movie that usually is awful. However at least Eric is enjoying himself here, relishing his return (somewhat) to the limelight. or to put it another way, to remind people Julia wasn't an only child! The rest of the main cast, who register any interest, are the hot ladies. There's the rather bizarre, yet strikingly attractive looking Devon Aoki and then there's also Holly Valance, Sarah Carter and Natassia Malthe too. However it's Jaime Pressley who steals the show, not only with her performance, that delivers the most laughs (intentional ones that is), but also she has a bod to die for and considering some stiff competition from Valances sculpted physique in particular, that's no mean feat.

Overall though this film will go down as a classic bad movie. The filmmakers never intended making anything beyond what they deliver. This is bad, it's cheesy and it's forgettable. But it's outrageously fun while it lasts and it most certainly requires the wearing of loose fitting underwear to allow for Sgt Schlong to stand to attention every now and again. I feel guilty having enjoyed it, but I had a good idea of the film that would be delivered and it was delivered as I imagined. ***

Here we have yet another video game movie that makes me embarrassed to play video games. One comment here claims, "Teenage boys are going to love it" because of the plentiful T&A and ample dose of action, and while yes, we do love our sex and violence, we live in a society where these things are the norm. Personally, I like the boobs and fighting to be handled with some sort of art. The script is laughable, the premise is incredibly derivative (although this is true of the game), and the talent of the actors is essentially irrelevant. The fights seem to be a loving tribute or rip-off to other, better fight movies. The camera work is frantic and overworked. This movie felt like a 90 minute pilot for a bad 90s TV show starring Pamela Anderson.

Yes, DOA is pretty weak source material, but if you're going to adapt a video game, try to put a little effort into it. If I just want tits and gore, I can watch porn and hobo fights.