Gedo

Gary Daniels has one of the best DTV martial arts movie careers and I think this is one of the highlights ... A half-American and half-Japanese production, shot in a combination of both Japanese and English.

All the action scenes are terrific, Daniels gets to do what he does best but we get the extra element of swordplay. Kiyoshi Nakajoe kind of steals the show with his performance, a super-cool Yakuza character who seems to control the space around him. What I liked about the film was how the dueling narratives of both men intertwined... Cop and criminal that may have more in common than they realise.

I have no idea why this film has bad reviews on IMDB, I think its well worth tracking down and watching if this is your genre. Its very much an above average DTV martial arts film in terms of craft (the often pastel colours give a nice aesthetic feeling) and the action is mostly superb. Would be a good double-feature with White Tiger or one of Gary's PM entertainment flicks.

Lord! I can´t believe that a movie like this could be done. It´s very bad, the story is a bulls***, the actions scenes aren´t good either. In the beginning it semmed to be interesting, but lately I could see it was one of the worst movies ever made! Keep your distance from this s***.

Fatal Blade has some of the best fights, Than Most of the other Gary Daniels films I've Seen Besides (Black Friday, and Bloodmoon). I like the idea of Making a little war to where east meets west, With china and the local crime lords of L.A., and having The LAPD put right in the middle. This is not the best Daniels film. However any Gary Daniels film that has been made, is alot better than any s*** that you see on the big sceen. This means that people should start putting his movies on the big sceen, and not wasting time with Action Stars who don't show what action is about.

This movie is poor. Especially the action scenes are very badly performed. The martial arts is one of the worst in recent years: People behave like puppets and as seen in many low budget movies, enemies seem to stand in a queue: only one is attacking the "hero" at once. Talking of the "hero": One of the cops (Gary Daniels) is supposed be the protagonist in this movie. But he such a lamer without any style. I really hated him and really wanted HIM to get killed.

Also, I wonder why this film is rated 18+. There is almost no real explicit violence in this movie. No head shots, no dust of blood from bullet hits, nothing at all. Bullets don't even punch holes into cars. Only the later scene in the grill meets today's standards.

The only reason for an 18+ rating might be the fact that the cop's (imho) ugly wife's breasts are visible in one totally displaced sex scene, which summits a totally lame and boring side story of the cop's private life.

The swordsman himslelf is however great. It's also a nice idea to have the Yakuza guys talking in Japanese (with subtitles)

This film falls into the Action Channel late night "guilty Pleasure" zone.

It's derivative in many ways, but I agree with another reviewer here that what made it sort of interesting is that more than half of it was subtitled in Japanese.

What separated it from the norm a little was the impressive screen presence of Kiyoshi Nakajo, as a mysterious Yakuza swordsman, who helps a woman find her sister's killer (played in a nasty but quasi-comical manner by Victor Rivers, the smarmy guy with the thin moustache who was part of Eddie Murphy's con artist posse in "The Distinguished Gentleman"). There's also Martial Artist Gary Daniels, not the best actor around (I sort of lump him into the Daniel Bernhardt category) but has great fight moves. I agree the fight sound was muted for my tastes. I had never heard of or seen Kiyoshi Nakajo prior to this film. He is apparently very popular in Japan. He sort of emanates that conflicted "brooding" Chow Yun Fat thingie (think "The Replacement Killers") which says a lot because his dialogue was all in Japanese. But I found him very intriguing to watch. Think of a Japanese Lee Van Cleef. Stern, quiet, face says it all. Senses his LA Yakuza brother is up to no good.

Kiyoshi is a bit older than the rest of the actors, one who has left a lot of dead bodies in his wake, especially with that sword. You just don't play around with this guy.

Other than Daniel's avenging cop, Kiyoshi and two others, it's hard to tell who is who.

Just get some Kettle Korn, check it out for the fight sequences, don't try to figure it all out. It has a certain style. There's far worse stuff out there than this.