Released: September 2015

Director: Michael Baumgarten

Not Rated

Run Time: 103 Minutes

Distributor: Traditionz Movie 1, LLC.

Genre: Action/Family

Cast:
Don “The Dragon” Wilson: Glen
Cynthia Rothrock: Cindy
Jansen Panettiere: Robbie
Kathryn Newton: Rina
Matthew Ziff: Bo
T.J. Storm: Coach Laurent Kaine
Chuck Zito: Frank

Growing up in the 80’s and 90’s, I got really into martial arts movies, starting with Enter The Dragon.  It is easily one of the greatest Kung-Fu movies of all time.  I really got into the action movies starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Carl Weathers, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Chuck Norris, and Steven Seagal.  It was a testosterone-fueled decade.  The 90’s wasn’t much different.  During the 90’s, I began watching some of the smaller martial arts flicks with actors like Yuen Biao, Richard Norton, Sammo Hung and Cynthia Rothrock.  To my great regret, there were some martial arts actors whose movies I have completely missed out on.  Don “The Dragon” Wilson is one of those actors that I completely overlooked.  Hopefully, I can start watching more of his stuff, because with The Martial Arts Kid, I actually like what I see.

The film opens as a bunch of kids, led by a youngster named Robbie, are trying to outrun the cops.  After getting tackled in front of his grandmother, Robbie is sent to live with his aunt Cindy and uncle Glen in Florida.  Shortly after, he befriends a girl named Rina before he’s clobbered by her boyfriend, Bo.  He’s attacked again during his first day of school, and almost attacked again near Cindy’s cafe.  After seeing his aunt give the guy a whoopin’, he decides he wants to learn that stuff.  So, he decides to visit his uncle’s dojo and is allowed to begin training.  It’s a story that’s been told a million times over, and yet for some reason, it feels real here.  Now, a lot of us have had issues growing and had turbulent teenage years.  I was no different.  The story here feels like I’ve been there, because I have.  I got picked on when I was in school.  I was bullied and made fun of.  So, my parents and I decided that I needed to take some self-defense classes.  So, I enrolled in what is known as the United Studios of Self Defense.  It was a mixed style of martial arts, combining elements of kung-fu and karate.  So, when Robbie attends his first class, I know exactly what he’s dealing with.  You’re surrounded by strangers, you have no idea what’s going on until someone shows you the way.  So, The Martial Arts Kid brought back memories for me.  That’s not a bad thing.  These were good memories that I had.  I didn’t complete my training, but I learned a great deal from my experience.  So, in a way, I see some parallels to my life.  It’s ultimately a pretty heartwarming story.  I really liked it.

The acting is surprisingly pretty strong across the board for what is basically a family film.  At least with The Martial Arts Kid, they managed to get real martial artists for a lot of the big roles.  Don “The Dragon” Wilson is a name that should be familiar to anyone who watches martial arts movies as much as I do.  Like me, you didn’t need to watch his movies to know who he is.  This guy is the real freaking deal.  He’s won MULTIPLE world kick-boxing championships and his final record is 72 wins, 5 losses, 2 draws, and 47 wins by knockout.  There aren’t many martial artists out there with that kind of a record, period.  He comes across as very likable in this movie.  His character, while somewhat reluctant, begins teaching Robbie.  Jansen Penattiere is a real surprise here.  He comes across as a genuine teenager with genuine issues, and it’s hard NOT to relate.  T.J. Storm plays a rival teacher, and is pretty intimidating.  I have a confession to make about Cynthia Rothrock:  When I was younger, I had the biggest crush on her.  She was beautiful and she kicked some serious ass.  She’s still gorgeous and she still kicks ass.  She’s absolutely fantastic.  Like Don’s Glen, Cindy is a very likable person.  She’s the kind of gal that you would love to have as an aunt.  So, yeah, the acting is pretty good across the board.

Action-wise, it’s pretty decent.  It is a bit of family film, so the fight choreography couldn’t be too violent.  A leg or two is broken, but it’s never gratuitous.  It’s not really that kind of a movie.  The Martial Arts Kid has a message that it’s trying to get across about the proper use of martial arts.  It should be used for the right reasons.  That’s a message that is universal across every single style.  The use of the camera is pretty decent, so we can see what’s going on.  No wires are used, so that’s a definite plus.  Actually seeing Don Wilson in action is pretty cool.  His is not the most flashy or elegant of styles, but it does prove to be effective.  Cynthia Rothrock’s style is certainly flashier, as she’s still very flexible and can do that scorpion kick with ease.  The movie is never boring either.

The film definitely has a sense of humor, although it’s more family-related kind.  Still, the movie gets points for actually succeeding at that.  That being said, the movie does have a few rough spots.  The beginning of the film was kind of rough and the introduction to Glen was a little heavy-handed.  Now, a lot of people would accuse this movie of having teenage drama.  Well, that’s because teenagers are often dramatic.  Some of the bullies are kind of just there to be scummy.  There’s also some blatant sequel-baiting that I really don’t like.

Overall, I have to say that I’m impressed with what was achieved here.  This is a movie that I think anybody could watch.  What I personally watch it again?  I wouldn’t say no.  I kind of prefer super, ultra-violent martial arts flicks, but The Martial Arts Kid has some real heart.  It portrays the martial arts with the utmost respect, except for MMA, I think that angle could have been handled a bit better, but the message gets across.  Is it realistic?  Not particularly, but you know what?  What martial arts movie is?  It’s actually very refreshing to see a movie about martial arts that’s as much about family as it is about the art.  For my first movie watching Don “The Dragon” Wilson in action, I’m going to have to find more of his stuff.  I can honestly say that I can recommend this one easily, particularly to families.

Final Recommendation:  It makes you want to sign up for a class or two.  8.5/10

Released: April 1989

Director: Albert Pyun

Rated R

Run Time: 86 Minutes

Distributor: MGM Studios/Cannon Film Group

Genre: Action/Science Fiction

Cast:
Jean-Claude Van Damme: Gibson Rickenbacker
Deborah Richter: Nady Simmons
Vincent Klyn: Fender Tremolo
Alex Daniels: Marshall Strat
Dayle Haddon: Pearl Prophet
Ralf Moeller: Brick Bardo

The 80’s were a very interesting time when it comes to movies.  We had a lot of fantastic movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Terminator, The Road Warrior, and Aliens among others.  On the flip-side, we had lots of bad movies as well, most of them courtesy of the infamous and now-defunct Cannon Film Group.  They gave us some serious crap like Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, a vast array of ninja movies, and a whole slew of Chuck Norris movies.  As bad as most of the movies they gave us, they also managed to produce some memorable and decent movies like Highlander and Masters of the Universe(that may be debatable to some, but I loved the hell out of it).  In 1988, Cannon gave us our first real look at up-and-coming action star Jean-Claude Van Damme in a martial arts movie called Bloodsport.  While it wasn’t particularly accepted when it was released, it quickly became a cult classic, and is generally regarded as one of the better martial arts movies of the 80’s.  Because of that particular break-out role, Van Damme’s career really took off.  In 1989, he starred in a little science fiction film called Cyborg.

Opening in a future where the world has been devastated by a plague, Cyborg follows pirate-killer Gibson Rickenbacker as he discovers a cyborg, Pearl Prophet, needs help getting to Atlanta.  After being ambushed by pirates led by the mysterious and violent Fender, Pearl is taken captive.  Gibson decides to follow them, because he has a personal vendetta against Fender.  The story is less Terminator and more Mad Max.  While the story isn’t particularly original, it’s not actually terrible.  My issue with the story, however, is that there are certain characters that I would have loved to learn more about.  Fender, in particular, is one character that I would love to learn the history of.  We do know, through flashbacks, that Fender did some really terrible things to Gibson.

For a Van Damme movie, Cyborg has a pretty serious mean streak.  The level of violence in this movie is really unlike anything that I’ve seen from those kinds of movies.  From what I’ve been reading, the director was forced to cut some of the more violent material to get down to an R-rating.  That makes me very curious about what was cut.  If there’s an issue with the action in the film, it has more to do with the camera-work than the actual violence itself.  Make no mistake, some of the violence in this movie isn’t particularly enjoyable, and I don’t think it was meant to be.  While the action is pretty solid across the board, I found that some fight sequences were marred by an unnecessary amount of edits.  It jumps from one angle to another too quickly.  That kind of editing tends to make things a little more confusing than they need to be, but the overall action is pretty hard-core and I found myself pretty engaged with it.

While the film’s focus was supposed to be about Pearl, the cyborg, I found myself more interested in two particular characters:  Gibson and Fender.  Gibson, in particular, because he’s haunted by the memories of what Fender did to him several years prior to the film’s events.  Fender on the other hand, is a complete mystery.  This guy is the leader of a band of pirates and is almost superhuman in terms of strength.  As far as I’m concerned, Fender is one of the coolest and most interesting villains that Van Damme has gone up against.  Make no mistake, the character is pure evil.  He enjoys killing and he enjoys the chaos of the world.  I’m curious as to what made him that way.  If he’s human, he’s unnaturally strong.  If he’s a cyborg of some kind, it would explain some things, but not others.  We just don’t know.  On one hand, that’s frustrating, but on the other hand, I enjoy the mystery.  The acting is kind of…meh across the board.  Again, this is Van Damme’s movie through and through.  While I wouldn’t say his acting was the greatest, his screen presence was phenomenal.  The same could be said for Vincent Klyn, who played Fender.  The guy’s physique and overall look was enough to be extremely intimidating, but his physical presence was amazing.  While Klyn would be remembered most for his role in Cyborg, he would get some roles later on.

The visuals for the film were surprisingly not terrible for a low-budget sci-fi flick.  Some of the backgrounds and matte paintings are pretty interesting.  However, the one thing I didn’t particularly care for was when Pearl revealed herself to Gibson.  The animation and design of that particular sequence may have been acceptable back in the 80’s, but now, it’s just downright freaky.  I look at that and I’m somewhat repulsed.  It doesn’t last very long, but stuff like that you can’t get out of your head.  Aside from that, the production values on the movie were decent.  It certainly felt like a post-apocalyptic movie.

Overall, while I wouldn’t say this is the greatest science fiction movie ever made, it is by no means the worst.  It’s got some really good things going for it:  Jean-Claude Van Damme’s performance and presence as well as a particularly strong and memorable villain.  It also has some pretty decent action sequences that hit really hard.  Even though some violence may have been cut to get the film down to an R-rating, they still really pushed the envelope.  Cyborg is without a doubt one of Albert Pyun’s best movies.  It’s one of the movies that I grew up with and I love the hell out of it.  It’s not without it’s problems, which are fairly obvious, but I have to give credit where it is due.  Cyborg is one of the most interesting sci-fi movies I’ve ever seen.  Would I put it up against the likes of The Terminator or Mad Max?  Not really, but I think it stands well enough on its own.  I’ve been hearing rumors and conjecture that there’s a director’s cut out there somewhere.  I hope I really get to see that version at some point in my life, if it exists.  At the end of the day, though, what we have here is a solid little action film that’s one of Van Damme’s more interesting roles and one of the best villains in cinema as far as I’m concerned.

Final Recommendation: Beware of bloodthirsty pirates that wear dark sunglasses and chainmail.  8.5/10.

Short films are an interesting bunch.  I tend not to review short films because there is only so much you can pack into one of these things.  A run time of 4-30 minutes doesn’t give you a lot of time to tell a really compelling story.  That’s really not my field of expertise.  It doesn’t mean I don’t watch them.  I do, I just like to be able to talk about these things in depth.  Short films generally don’t offer a lot of depth.  It’s the nature of the beast.  That being said, I have seen quite a few that are surprisingly compelling.  Not necessarily in the story department, mind you, but in everything else.  Sometimes that’s all that is needed.  What I have for you today is a bad-ass short film called Kid Fury.  Jino Kang, of Weapon of Choice, plays a mobster that’s looking for a box that hides a mysterious object.  One of his students has found it and brought it to him.  Unbeknownst to him, but knownst to us, the student was followed by a kid played by Timothy Mah.  Demanding that the mobster return the box, the kid takes on the entire school.  For a short film like this, that’s all we need.

It really doesn’t take long for the ass-kicking to start.  I love it.  The fight choreography by Master Kang is truly something to behold.  It hits surprisingly hard.  The students do their flips and kicks, and it’s spectacular.   When it comes to martial arts movies, I prefer the movies where they don’t use wires.  Don’t get me wrong, wires have their place in certain sub-genres, but for something like Kid Fury, it would seem way out of place.  Thankfully, everything you see here is done for real and without wires.  The humor is spot on as well, and it’s provided largely by Master Kang himself.  He’s clearly having fun playing a bad guy.  His reaction when his students are getting whooped by Timothy Mah is hilarious.  Honestly, I wish more bad guys had this kind of smart-ass attitude.

The cinematography for this film is interesting.  I really like the whole black-and-white motif.  It gives it a little bit of a noir-ish feel.  You can see the fight scenes and the moves, which is fantastic.  One of the things I thought was cool, was when Master Kang’s character opened the box and it gave off a gold light.  Somebody clearly watched Pulp Fiction.  It was a very cool throwback.  I can’t wait to see more from Timothy Mah.  This kid’s got some serious moves.  His fight against Master Kang’s character is probably one of the coolest fight scenes I’ve seen in a long time.  If there’s one real nitpick I have with Kid Fury, is that it ended.  You ever watch something so cool, that when it ends, you want to see more?  That’s what I got with this.  I wanted more, and apparently it’s the first in a short film series.  I can’t wait to see what they come up with next.  Honestly, I think Jino Kang needs to be taken seriously as a fight choreographer.  I think I’m going to watch this again.  And again.  And again.

Released: 2014

Director/s: Jino Kang/Tony Urgo

Run Time: 101 Minutes

Not Rated

Genre: Action/Thriller

Cast:
Jino Kang: Jack Lee
Douglass Olsson: Michael Banducci
Katherine Celio: Ashlie Jordan
Artem Mishin: Don Orloff
Kelly Lou Dennis: Jaime Lee

It used to be back in the day before the Internet, independent film makers had a very hard time finding audiences for their movies.  Has that changed much in the last 20 years or so?  Yes…..and no.  Yes, because it’s actually easier for indie film makers to be able to put their work on the internet using various means.  It’s made even easier with the advent of social media platforms like YouTube, FaceBook, Instagram and Twitter.  These platforms allow up-and-coming film makers to be able to share their work with the entire world.  In some ways, it’s actually harder, though, because you have so many people who want to have their work noticed, so you begin to see an over-saturation of the market.  So, a film has to really stand out from the crowd in order to be noticed.  I’ll be honest, most indie movies are not that good.  It’s not necessarily because of the format, but it’s because people really aren’t taking the idea of film making seriously, so they put out a lot of garbage.  There are some, however, that manage to beat the odds and get into the spotlight.  Road To Hell was one such movie that I feel that really deserves attention, as it was the focus of my last post.  Another one I watched last night was a nifty little action flick called Fist 2 Fist: 2-Weapon of Choice.

Weapon of Choice begins in a small restaurant that’s serving some gangsters.  Shortly into the festivities, a lone man walks into the room and slaughters the entire group, leaving only one man alive to tell his boss what he has seen.  The man’s name is Jack Lee, and 6 years later, he’s living a quiet life with his “daughter” Jaime Lee.  While Jack is upstairs exercising, a group of masked gunmen break into his house and kidnap Jaime.  Taking out several of the gunmen, but failing to save Jaime, Jack discovers that his former employer is responsible for Jaime’s kidnapping.  The setup for the film is not bad, actually.  It’s a similar story I’ve seen a million times before, but it’s still effective.  It does go through the motions of your typical revenge thriller, but it’s the approach to the material that’s important, and it’s surprisingly engaging.  My only real issue with the story is the pacing.  There are points throughout the film where it can drag quite a bit.  When it comes to thrillers like this, you want the pacing to be tight and quick and not let up.

The acting here isn’t exactly the strongest that I’ve seen, but it’s still a hell of a lot better than The Room.  Jino Kang plays Jack Lee, a man with a particular set of skills…oh, wait: Wrong movie….or is it?  All kidding aside, Jino Kang is the real star here.  His character is clearly a major bad-ass that you don’t want to mess with.  Jino Kang, who holds a 7th degree black belt in Hapkido, gives the character a soft-spoken and reserved personality that gets thrown to the side when the shit hits the fan.  Even if you’re not impressed with the man’s acting, you have to give the man credit for having a powerful screen presence.  Douglass Olsson plays the crime lord Michael Banducci.  I really like this guy’s performance.  His character is clearly not somebody you want to cross, but he’s not without a sense of humor.  He gets exasperated almost every time that one of his goons does something stupid or says something ridiculous.  It’s actually quite amusing.  You don’t see a lot of big-screen bad guys wanting to smack their subordinates across the face for being idiotic.  Kelly Lou Dennis plays Lee’s daughter, Jaime.  I like her character, because she’s not your average damsel in distress.  In fact, there are scenes where her character can hold her own against Banducci’s goons.  Katherine Celio plays the cop, Ashlie Jordan.  You know, I really like it when the women in movies like this aren’t just pretty faces and can hold their own in a fight.  I think that’s pretty awesome…….and sexy.

You’ve gotta hand it to a movie like this for having a sense of humor.  I mean, you’ve got a pot-smoking veterinarian who ends up patching up Jack Lee.  Why am I not surprised?  Watching a bunch of “professionals” get their butts handed to them by a 17-year old girl is rather amusing.  I love it.  The action in Weapon of Choice is surprisingly brutal and realistic.  I haven’t seen Hapkido used a lot in movies.  I tend to pride myself on watching movies that showcase various styles of martial arts including Tae-Kwon Do, Wing Chun, Gojo-Ryu, or Muay Thai.  Hapkido isn’t the flashiest of martial arts, and while it definitely has kicks and strikes, it focuses on joint locks, throws and deflection.  It’s very impressive.  Jino Kang, as I’ve said, holds a 7th degree black belt in Hapkido, while also holding black belts in Tae-Kwon Do, Kyokushinkai Karate, and Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.  Master Kang not only co-directs the film, but he also choreographs the fight sequences.  There are quite a few, but the real standout fight sequence is the big finale at the end of the movie.  Not only does he use guns, but he also uses swords and knives in addition to his hands and feet.  That final battle is actually one of the most impressive fight scenes I’ve seen in a long time, especially for a low-budget indie film such as this.  My only real gripe, is that the camera can get in a little too close.  For fight sequences, you really want to be able to see what’s going on, so the camera-work can work against the film sometimes.  When you can see it, the fight is absolutely incredible.

Overall, I was actually rather impressed with the film.  It has it’s problems for sure with some of the story elements and pacing issues.  There are other issues, but those tend to stem from the fact that it IS an indie film and that carries with it certain freedoms and restrictions due to what technology you can afford as well as time.  Weapon of Choice is a film that I think is worthy of attention from anyone who considers themselves serious martial arts movie buffs.  Master Jino Kang has proven that he can kick ass just as much as Scott Adkins, Donnie Yen or Tony Jaa.  When he gets more experience in film making as he goes along, I think he can be a force to be reckoned with.  It’s remarkable what has been achieved here.  While Weapon of Choice won’t go down in history as a classic, I think it’s definitely worth checking out.

Final Recommendation: Don’t mess with Jino Kang’s on-screen family.  9/10.