O Grande Mestre dos Kickboxers

An awful movie, but the fighting is not that bad, not if you compare it with Michal Dudikoff's performance in American Ninja... But this is not a good movie, i repeat, it sucks!!!!!! But if you team up with some of your friends in the evening and you watch it together, it is quite amusing:)

This was released in the UK as a completely unconnected sequel to the film Bloodfight, starring the one and only Bolo Yueng.

I say unconnected advisedly, as there really is no link between the two films whatsoever unless you take the basic shared premise of a martial arts tournament. Of course, if you do just that then virtually 50% of all martial arts films could be released with Bloodfight *insert number here* as a title however(!)

But I digress.....what of the film reviewed here?

Well sadly it's a typically formulaic tournament flick; the sort we have seen an infinitude of times before in fact.

Cliché ridden - check. Poorly acted - check. Horrible dubbing/voice over work - check. Yep it's all here. Having said this, I must admit that at least to begin with it did make me chuckle on quite a few occasions at it's sheer ineptitude although unfortunately, as it progresses it does tend to outstay it's welcome and it is then that the ineptitude so prevalent throughout which initially served to actually elevate the film, does sadly begin to drag somewhat.

In truth I can really only say four positive things about this flick: One is the presence of a pre Mortal Kombat Robin Shou (listed as Chou in this) who as always, looks in fantastic physical shape for his role. Secondly (and the main reason I watched this) this stars none other than real life kickboxing legend Joe Lewis as the head bad guy who always made me laugh when he appeared on screen with his constant and excessive usage of expletives. Thirdly the 'Death Cage' of the films title is indeed quite a cool looking arena laden with sharp spikes upon which to impale opponents...and finally, the film features some of the most hilariously poorly rendered usage of wire work I think I have ever seen which certainly made me laugh more than once.

What more can I say? A very low brow affair overall and probably only of any real interest for fans wishing to complete their collections of films featuring either Lewis or Shou. My best advise for anyone else is to skip this; trust me, you're not missing anything special.

I watched this for free on YouTube under the title Bloodfight 2 and didn't expect much from it, but you know what actually it was pretty good! Robin Shou (Mortal Kombat dude) is the protagonist and he's great, Joe Lewis plays an incredible evil white guy who swears a comical amount, there's a duo of deadly American(?) kung fu girls, a training sequence where they learn kung fu by working on cars, a fight to the death, MORE evil white dudes, whole thing really was decent!

Is it perfect? No but for the genre it was a nice treat. Well paced, fight scenes were well-done, even the dub was decent. Definitely worth a watch especially cuz at least of today it's free on YouTube.

Has everything you want in a martial arts movie. Storyline, training sequencing, a psychotic villain, and fast pace action with a great ending that is not anti-climatic.