O Guerreiro da Estrela Polar

I love the anime version. I knew this one would be a train wreck, but had to check it out. The fights bored me to tears. The guy playing Kenshiro looked too much like Kevin Nealon in a bad wig for me to take seriously. The fact that Downtown Julie Brown was the best actor in the mess should be enough to warn you away. Kenshiro's head-exploding move looked like something out of hot shots part deux. A for effort, but they just weren't up the task.

I was exciting when this came out in 1995 and saw it in Tokyo. This was my favorite Japanese comic at the time. Unfortunately, this was one of the worst adaptations I could have never imagined. Although there were a few good fight effects, it did not make up for the poor screenwriting and plot. I want to remake this film with a big actors, and all the characters needed. This could be like a Lord of the Rings trilogy. The comic is tight, and the story is deep. So please don't watch this film. Read the comic and then let your imagination soar!!!

I cant even bring myself to write much about this gem but to say it was just awful. Easily one of the worst movies I have ever seen. There was a point while watching that I thought 'is this a joke? are they making fun?' but I concluded that this was no joke. The acting was as bad as the writing and the effects were just terrible. The lead character who could not act to save his life had what were supposed to be scars, they looked like condoms stuck to his body, some of which seemed to be peeling off!! How much did Malcolm McDowell need a paycheck to show up even for the 3 minutes he was on screen? Or Chris Penn who was probably the only half way believable character, even in the outlandish costume he was forced to wear? This film is a complete mess so I would say, unless you want to watch one of the worse movies ever made...avoid this one.

In the future the world has become a waste land after the apocalypse. The populated territory is now under the rule of the martial arts clan of the Southern Cross, led by Lord Shin. When the Master of the North Star is murdered the baton is passed and the new master has very personal issues with Shin. When he passes through a small terrorised village he comes to their aid and sets up a confrontation with Shin.

Even though I had read bad reviews about this film, I still had reasonable hopes for it, using the logic that I was prepared for a dumb martial arts movie. However some bothered me about the film was that it didn't seem to live up to the potential that the story had. The film should have been a more majestic story about mysterious clans doing battle in the future, but instead it felt very small and restricted. The story doesn't seem to go anywhere and lots of avenues are left unexplored.

The sets etc don't help as they were clearly pretty cheap and only the opening shot of Malcolm McDowell sitting in his oriental house really had style or imagination – the images of apocalypse were too cheap to be impressive. The fight scenes are pretty average I'm sad to say. While Honk Kong cinema was on the edge of things, this film was back in the 1970's with its standard fights. In the anime the fights are much more impressive and the film should have tried to capture much more of a sense of wonder. The effects are a little too gory for my taste and don't fit with the story, because the film lacks a sense of mysticism it feels ordinary – hence the problem when it tries to do something that is different or weird.

The cast has some well known faces in small roles but the lead actors aren't up to the task of delivering good dialogue, they have awesome bodies and can move quite well but they can't act! This takes away from the film a great deal and stopped me getting into the characters. Daniels and Mandylor are two of the guiltiest ones but it is spread through the cast of villagers, including Melvin Van Peebles. McDowell looks like he might add class but is a temporary narrator and faces like Penn and Howard are only of interest rather than stealing the show.

Overall this is a pretty poor film. It lacks the majestic, epic sweep that it should have had and feels small and cheap. The effects are OK but the fights really lack flair or imagination – witness people queuing up to come one at a time and you'll understand what I mean. The poor acting, bad dialogue and basic average delivery of every part of the film really makes this feel bad – I was in the mood for an undemanding martial arts movie to waste 90 minutes and even I was disappointed by this!

Satisfying only in an uncut video version, this outlandish martial arts costume piece relies strictly on lots of spraying blood, loud screaming and tensed muscles to makes it's inevitable point. Gary Daniels' sleek physique makes the best impression, along with Chris Penn's exploding head.