No Retreat, No Surrender 3: Blood Brothers

Wow. Just wow. This film and its video cover easily have the greatest tagline of any film, in the greatest series of movies ever. Putting this film into words does not do it justice. Loren Avedon is one of the most amazing action heroes of all time. The fact that his career during its success period only featured 3 amazing and mesmerizing movies, it's like he was Bruce Lee, in the way that he was so amazing for such a short period of time and he gave the art away. See it, but see it as a film enthusiast, starting from hiring it at the video store after studying and looking over the video cover, then come home and put it in the vcr on a summer evening. You will have an experience that only the most fortunate people on earth experience.

STAR RATING: ***** The Works **** Just Misses the Mark *** That Little Bit In Between ** Lagging Behind * The Pits

Will (Loren Avedon) returns to be with his CIA brother Casey (Keith Vitali) at their father's 65th birthday party. However, when the old man is murdered by the evil Franco (Rion Hunter) they are both re-united in a quest for revenge...

When the movie opens, we see a foiled bank hold-up where American Imperialism self-righteously prevails when we see that the gangs agenda appears to be against American-imposed wars abroad. From there, we're left to gawp at just how much charisma Avedon actually had and how sad it was that he never moved on to bigger and better things. His delivery's a little ropey, but other than that, he's a spot on action star. Hunter in the bad guy role also has a genuine presence to him that is typical of DTV action fudd of the time that this movie was released.

From here, we see what is essentially a very weak film. It's predictable, clichéd, simplistic and lazy. But, for fans of the past two films, who get a kick out of the hammy over-acting, corny 80s soundtracks and the cleverly choreographed martial arts sequences, it may just pass muster all the same, but it is an undeniably wise final edition to the series. **

I've seen this movie before, but most recently over-dubbed in Spanish (I do not speak the language). It is honestly one of the funniest movies I've ever seen when you don't understand a word. Then again, this was on at about 2am, so I may have been deliriously tired, but inspired enough to write this review at 4am. The acting is beyond horrible - but the scenes with the white haired terrorist were so over the top that I laughed until I cried. Besides being the silliest looking bad guy, he appears to be playing right to the camera. This is worth it just for the laughs, though there are brief segments of reasonably talented martial arts moves - only to be ruined by any attempt at acting.

Loren Avedon and Keith Vitali star as two martial arts expert brothers ho team up to take down the ruthless murderers who squashed their father. Lot s of martial arts battles are waged in the course of this film. Loren Avedon is a gifted martial artist and watching him fight is ultimately the real show to watch. He actually has somewhat of a screen presence and his acting while admittedly not very good is still better than his co-star Keith Vitali. What finds most strange about No Retreat No Surrender 3:Blood Brothers, aside from the obvious fact that it has nothing to do with the first (Sadly there is no ghost of Bruce Lee) or second (I guess, since I haven't seen it) is that it makes literally no dramatic sense on any level. There are so many scenes of gleeful stupidity that you can't help but cave and enjoy the movie as such. The action sequences are however are what make this thing great to watch. The action sequences are thrilling and in a Z-grade martial arts thriller, that is all that counts. I recommend it as a perfect way to avail yourself in glorious ass-kicking, that is why this movie is so enjoyable.

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

NRNS3 has some of the best Hong Kong Style action from a western based movie we'd up to this point (1990). Both Keith and Loren step up in terms of their ability to deliver great action but they were never really good actors. The script doesn't help them out much though, it's full of clichés, one liners and dialogue that feels like it was written by a non English speaking person. But all of that plays second fiddle to the real star of the movie. The Action/martial arts choreography. Insanely this has some of the best fight choreography outside of the Hong Kong action movie world (up to the point in 1990). Kicks, blocks, punches, twists, backflips and basically everything you can imagine is incorporated into the fight sequences. The final fight between the two brothers and the main bad guy Marko is pretty awesome (if you can ignore the stunt guy in the blatantly awful white wig that is). It's one I have revisited a few times because it really is that good. I do think if they had focused a little bit more on giving the main characters believable dialogue (and possibly a few more acting lessons) they could have had a stone cold classic on their hands but a lot of it feels rushed and just an excuse to get to the next fight sequence. Also... the soundtrack is fairly bad. It genuinely brings the rating down a star because it feels so generic and the synths date it terribly.

But gawd damn there's some fun to be had with this movie. If you were to watch it as part of a bad movie night you may be surprised by just how hard it goes with the action. If not for that it would have easily made into an episode of BOTW by redlettermedia on Youtube.

Anyway, yes, if you go in expecting awful acting and great action you'll definitely be satisfied.