Star Runner: A Disputa Final

If you can slush through the first 40 minutes of STAR RUNNER, which features one of the most contrived and inexplicable romance in movie history, then the film is worthwhile. The fights range from decent to good, and the final brawl is impressive. The female lead is very beautiful, but her character is also the weakest element of the film. Whenever the character is onscreen, the cliches come hard and fast, and you'll be hard-pressed to survive it all.

Summation: Nothing original, but decent if you can survive the silly and unbelievable romance angle that incredibly takes up the film's entire first half.

5 out of 10

There isn't a lot to be said about the movie other than some good fighting scenes and a Korean actress who, while not truly beautiful in the eye of this beholder, does possess certain charm. More interesting is the reasonably good tackling of the Wing Chun martial art style, including authentic scenes of workout at the Wing Chun wooden dummies. Ti Lung (family name, given name) who plays the Wing Chun master, however, did not learn his martial arts from Yip Man (ditto, dittto) (1893 – 1972), the grand master who founded the Hong Kong branch of Wing Chun, and was also Bruce Lee's teacher during the latter's early martial art days. (Those interested in having more details can check out the website www.cebridge.com.au/Ipman/). In founding of his Intercepting Fist style, Lee had much inspiration from his earlier Wing Chun training.

The premise is rather familiar: down on his luck fighter digs deep within along with the help of some quirky coaches to fight in an international kick boxing tournament. It's nothing we haven't seen before, but then again, it is always in the details.

Star Runner in the grandest sense is a very typical movie, but the allure of Hong Kong and the fight sequences are still pretty solid. Throw in the ravishing Bond, and you get a pretty watchable movie. Overall, this film probably needed some better actors and some fine tuning in regards to the script, but at least it was still decent to view.

An against-all-odds love story of a young man who is to become the boxing champion and his Korean language teacher. This is the prequel for `A Fighter's Blues'. The plot isn't original.

This is a movie for teenagers. If they make more like it please let me know because I couldn't find anything today, I'll keep looking tomorrow. (THIS PART BECAUSE I HAD TO MAKE THIS LONGER??) (ok I started watching it several months ago and just finished it, maybe because I didn't want to read the subs or I've seen too many movies that start this way or better. The movie makes no apologies and neither does Daniel Lee. Again, if anyone knows more movies like this please let me know.) (OK I HAVE TO WRITE MORE STILL) (...maybe Siskel and Ebert made a mistake when they added the thumbs-up-thumbs-down parts to the reviews when people asked 'should i see it or not??' I think it was a really bad idea because reading more about the movie that you don't know you wanna see or not is a good exercise in academia and all people who watch movies should read really long reviews before...hand)