Shootfighter - Scontro mortale

"You-disgraced-the-art-of-shoot-fighting" This opening quote sets the tone for this lively beat-em-up starring the ever-lovable Bolo Yeung as Shingo.

The plot revolves around two buddies named Ruben and Nick played by Zabka and Michael Bernardo respectively. Yeung plays their mentor. There is the prerequisite montage where he teaches them to "shootfight" and also they play basketball with young black children and Shingo smiles in an oddly fatherly way. Before the shootfighting tournament, there is a fight in a grocery store a la "Cobra" (1986) where Bolo shows off both his fighting and his broken English skills.

You may remember Zabka as Johnny from "The Karate Kid" where he infamously swept his leg at Macchio. Apparently he couldn't get enough karate-chopping action, so he hooked up with director Patrick Allen to give birth to Allen's one and only cinematic baby.

Ruben and Nick get embroiled in an underground "Shootfighting" ring. They eventually have to shootfight each other...to the death, but not before battling an array of wacky baddies in the ring, such as "Boa", who acts like a snake (including the hisses) and Mongoose, who adopts a mongoose fighting style, whatever that means. Some fights have a surprising amount of gore (i.e. limbs and fingers being broken off in a bloody mess), and this provides unintentional laughter and it sustains the viewer's interest until the end.

Martin Kove plays the evil mastermind, inexplicably named "Mr. Lee", who is behind all the shootfighting, and in his villainous rage, slices a pineapple with a samurai sword.

What is "Shootfighting" you ask? Well, that question is never quite answered satisfactorily, but after doing some research we were able to determine (by reading the back of the VHS box) that it is a "forbidden sport so brutal it's banned from the civilized world".

Prepare to get uncivilized with this classic.

Comeuppance Review by: Ty & Brett

For more insanity, check out:comeuppancereviews.com

Greetings And Salutations, and welcome to my review of Shootfighter; here's the breakdown of my ratings:

Story: 0.75 Direction: 1.25 Pace: 1.50 Acting: 1.25 Enjoyment: 1.50

TOTAL: 6.25 out of 10.00

Once in a while, there comes a surprise in the Martial Arts movie genre. An original story. Shootfighter is not that surprise. The only astonishing thing about the story is that it required three writers to borrow the usual elements from other fight flicks.

We have a villain, Mr Lee, who makes an enemy out of Master Shingo when he kills one of his pupils and friend in the Shootfighting ring. Mr Lee believes shootfighting should ask for the ultimate sacrifice. Unluckily for him, nobody else believes people should die for the sport, so he is exiled from the country. It's not long before he opens the gates to his own Shootfighting arena in Mexico, where a fighter's death is commonplace. Enter Rubin (the angry one) and Nick (the normal one), martial arts experts looking to make a quick buck to pay off the shark's loan on their dojo. Being the champions they are, it doesn't take long for them to enter the arena of death. Except, they don't know the principal fights are fatal. Oh, and guess what - their Sensai is none other than Master Shingo. But hey, it's a good job that most audiences don't watch Martial Arts movies for the riveting storyline.

The fighting isn't the best you'll see in the genre. However, a few different styles are on offer, which will please most. Luckily for the viewer, director Patrick Alan does a respectable job filming the fight sequences. Every fight holds an element of tension and excitement, which is what you need, especially when the weapons come into play.

The reason I watched Shootfighter was purely for Bolo Yeung. The physic on this man is intimidating. But when he gets his game-face on, he's downright scary. His fighting style also comes across as one of the strongest. It was a shame that he was not in the film for long. Out of the two main characters, it's Michael Bernardo, as Nick, who comes across as the stronger fighter of the duo. However, his acting skills aren't as sharp as William Zabka's. Though it's Maryam D'Abo I felt sorry for her as, like Yeung, she has little to do in the film, which is a sin as she's a good actress.

All-in-all, Shootfighter is a passable fight flick to pass an hour and a half of your time enjoyably. The fights are well choreographed and engaging enough for genre fans and newbies alike to savour. Well worth a watch or two.

Please feel free to visit my Holding Out For A Hero list to see where I ranked Shootfighter.

Take Care & Stay Well.

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.

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.

Shootfighter: Fight to the Death is a marital arts film at it's low budget best. But surpisingly the film does have some decent fight scenes. It was good to see William Zabka in another martial arts role and the always good Bolo Yeung. He final fight scene with Martin Kove is one of the best for both actors. If you get a chance check this one out cuz it's not half bad.