| The Octagon (1980) Cast:Chuck Norris,Lee Van Cleef, Tadashi Yamashita,Karen Carlson Chuck Norris plays a martial arts expert who trains hard to fight his jealous brother who is a Ninja and is training men to kill in the way of the ninja in this disappointingly sub-par effort from Norris, which is too slow and dull to work as a straight forward chop socky actioner. The Octagon is the anti-thesis of what a martial arts actioner should be. In the sense that nobody wants to see a martial arts movie that takes itself seriously, and that's just what The Octagon does. The fightscenes have their moments but mainly this is sub-standard that is highly out-classed by Van Damme and Lundgren stuff let alone Bruce Lee and Jet Li martial arts classics. Basicly this may be a cut above most martial arts movies of that particular decade, but still it's doesn't add up to much. D.Eric Karson *1/2 |