Bloodfist
                              
Director: Terence Winkless
Year: 1989
Rating: 5.0
Bloodsport with Jean-Claude Van Damme kick started a trend in Western martial arts B films of tournaments to the death. Of course, these had been a staple of Hong Kong films for years. Not surprisingly, Roger Corman was one of the first to jump on the bandwagon with this film. He looked around for a martial artist who was photogenic, could speak a few lines without tripping over himself and found Don The Dragon Wilson. Wilson had done some small bit parts previously. and he is fine in this film. It was a success and they went on to make Bloodfist 2 with Wilson as the same character. I was expecting more quite honestly as they hired a bunch of legit martial artists to participate.

 

The fight scenes were over much too quickly and not particularly well-choreographed or staged. It made me think of Samurai duels where it will rarely last more than a few seconds. I was looking forward to some good smackdowns. Especially from Wilson who was famous for his kickboxing. We get a little bit of that in his final fight in the ring. The most impressive fighter in terms of style and speed was Billy Blanks who performs some great spin-kicks. 

 

Wilson plays Jake Raye who has gotten out of the fight game. but when he hears his brother was murdered in Manila, he hops on a plane to investigate. Ah, the Philippines where bad films go to die. His brother was a fighter and was supposed to lose a fight - but he got so pissed off at his opponent hot-dogging that he gets up and kills him.  Then he gets drunk and is an easy target for a killer. The only way that Jake can get to the bottom of his brother's murder is joining a tournament - though no idea how that gets him closer.  First though he has to train which basically means jogging and having sex with a woman who looks like a truck driver on a bad day. But it does set up a number of fights - not just his but others as well. And that is really the whole point of the film.