| Shootfighter:Fight To The Death (1992) Cast:Bolo Yeung, Martin Kove, William Zabka, Michael Bernardo, Maryam D'Abo,Eddie Albert Bolo Yeung stars asthe greatest shootfighter to ever live, who has retired to become a teacher however when Martin Kove tricks his students (Zabka and Bernardo) into fighting in shootfighting matches, Yeung comes out of retirement to save his students in this predictable kickemup which is saved by a few gory death scenes. Shootfighter is in particular a very bad movie, infact it's so bad it's almost worth watching. Almost. Shootfighter if anything else at least has one actor who seems quite satisfactory to the role and that is of course Martin Kove. Kove has always been an underrated actor who has found himself in crap through out his career,Kove's performance isn't on a technical standpoint an example of good acting but for a martial arts movie like this a performance with actual life is indeed worth something to me. Bolo Yeung in particular looks bored with the movie, as if he's here because they gave him star billing and a good guy role, but couldn't even convince him to give anything but the least of any effort. As far as actors go, Zabka and Bernardo are as horrible as what you'd expect from a martial arts movie that has no notable heroes. Even the likes of classic stiff thespians like Gary Daniels and Lorenzo Lamas are more animated than these guys, plus they don't look as if they can fight worth a damn either. The aspect that makes Shootfighter slightly memorable are the gory scenes that distinguish the fights, throats are slit and crushed, a guy's arm is broken in very gory detail and of course a man's heart is pulled out. One gets the impression that the producers played Mortal Kombat and said "Hey let's make a movie that completely rips off the premise." Whether they did ripped off the video game or not doesn't matter, all that does is that this movie is a bone-headed martial arts opus which lacks style. Plus it's really only Martin Kove who seems well suited to his part. D.Patrick Allen *1/2 |