Sans pitié, ni pardon

Starring: Billy Blanks, Michael Blanks, Blankety Blanks, Jalal Merhi, Brett Hasley, Lauri Holden (who would go on to star in The Walking Dead!)

Truly Mong Fu from start to finish, Expect No Mercy has Billy Blanks taking on two enemies: an assassin school and computer technology!

Some guy called Warbeck (yeah! The Beyond!) runs a martial arts academy where the students hook up to a machine and go head to head with simulations. It's all very cult-like and Warbeck kind of has some sort of God complex. Also, it's all really just a front for his assassin school, which makes millions wasting people for cash. Warbeck uses his computer technology to plan his executions then watches (and records) the killings via cameras.

When the previous undercover cop turns up dead, the cops recruit Billy Blanks to go undercover and contact Eric, another cop pretending to be an instructor. Billy takes on the virtual enemies, some other students, He hates technology and regularly tells everyone so (especially those guards who are sent to capture him after Eric and Billy are caught uncovering the assassin school thing).

Most of this film is just kung fu fighting. Some in this world, some in the virtual world. The virtual stuff is pretty funny, both retro- wise and mainly for the fact that the virtual enemies are hilarious (wait until you see Billy getting a proper kicking from a ninja, a samuri, a kick boxer, a clown etc all at the same time!) There's a pretty good gun fight right around the one hour mark, but mostly it's Billy and Jalal kicking people's heads in. Billy even faces off against his real life brother in a fight that seems to last about three days.

Expect No Mercy is chock-full of continuity errors (breathing corpses, visible dummies etc), unintentional laughs (check out the positions Billy and Eric are lying in after falling off a building) and dodgy acting (the lead baddie, plus sometimes Billy comes across like he's been kicked in the head too many times).

Not bad though - worth a look if you can tolerate these things.

I seems like Billy Blanks and Jalal Merhi are really fond of each other, since they have been in several movies together. Both "Talons of the Eagle" and "TC 2000" were quite good, and so is this one. It's a rather simple, action-packed flick where the action is totally at the center of attention. Action lovers get their dose of everything that's good, both martial arts and gun/explosion-scenes are abundant. Both are really good, and Blanks again does a rather great job in everything he does (except the acting itself, who I don't care about at all). Simple things are often the best. Today's movie makers should take a look at this for a good example of how an action movie should be.

Although not the best of the Billy Blanks and Jalal Merhi films, this action packed sci-fi thriller sees the two martial artists collaborate once again to smash a virtual reality martial arts school headed by the feminine Wolf Larson and this fellow thugs who use this as a front for an assassin-for-hire type business. I love the shot at the beginning where the muscular Michael Blanks (Billy's real life brother), chases a bodyguard and does a flying kick to lay him flat. One of the thugs, Damien, played by Anthony De Longis really annoyed me, maybe it's not his fault but he quotes "What a lovely singing voice you must have" to a pinned down victim in an office, which we all know was quoted by Bill Murray in the 1984 smash hit sci-fi comedy "GHOSTBUSTERS". I really like Billy Blanks as he is as tough as action heroes come but sweet, not portrayed as a bas boy with an attitude like Steven Seagal. I also dig Jalal Merhi who is really cool. If you are a fan of Mr. Tae-Bo and the Fearless Tiger don't miss it. Plenty of good fight scenes including Billy killing his own brother (not really though), and a good relationship that is tough and comic between the two leading men.

The worst movie I've ever seen. Unbelievably bad on every account. I didn't used to think it was the worst, yet when I started ranking the worst movies I'd ever seen, it took the top and nothing could unseat it. The video game tie-in was no better.

I know some of the people who worked on this film, and I still can't stand it. Most of the fight scenes were wooden and boring - your basic B-movie fare, the dialogue bites and was there a plot here? I'm sure someone thought so, but I didn't.

I watched it once to be polite to my friends, but I felt like my foot was caught in a bear trap and I would have to gnaw my own leg off to escape. Never again.