Bloodfist

Roger Corman had an eye of what kind of movies the audience wanted to see....in the 80's and 90's there was a huge boom in the martial arts genre, Corman produced many martial arts movies starring kickboxing champion Don "The Dragon" Wilson.

The movie itself is stuff that you already saw: martial arts tournament, revenge and some twists (if you have seen Bloodsport and some other movie like that you know of what i am talking about), but is not so bad to get a 3.8 rating and it's not even the worst martial arts movie ever (trust me, i have seen crappier MA movies) My favorite scene in Bloodfist is the fight scene between Don Wilson and Billy Blanks, the slow-motion sound effects are just worth the whole scene.

The sequels are FAR better than this one.

Bloodfist (1989)

** (out of 4)

THE KARATE KID meets KICKBOXER Roger Corman style in this 80's cult favorite. Don 'The Dragon' Wilson plays Jake Raye, a retired fighter who travels to the Philipeans to get his brothers ashes and seek vengeance against his killer. He ends up getting involved in a kickboxer tournament and ends up falling for a big-breasted blonde. If you're looking for an uplifting story or a heart felt drama then it's best you go somewhere else. BLOODFIST, the first of (so far) nine films, is 100% exploitation and you get pretty much what you'd expect from a film like this. It's fast, cheap, questionably made but the most important thing is that it's at least fun. I thought Wilson was pretty good in the lead role and while he really wasn't required to give a "performance," I thought his skill as an athlete was on full display. He really makes for a good hero and he managed to be very entertaining during the fight scenes. The supporting players really aren't all that memorable but you Billy Blanks fans should be happy. The fighting scenes are entertaining but at the same time there's no denying that they were all cheaply done and quite often you have to wonder what the editor was doing. Some of the editing is quite sloppy but I'm going to guess this was due to how much footage was shot and him having to try and piece it together the best he could. For the exploitation factor there's some nudity as well but really not as much as you'd expect to find in a Corman-produced film. There's no question that the film was cheaply produced and it's not going to be mistaken for a classic but fans of cheap action films should at least get some mild entertainment from it.

My review was written in October 1989 after a Times Square screening.

Several notches below the level of Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme pics is "Bloodfist", a cheapo martial arts action for undiscriminating fans of the genre.

Pic gets underway with a novel opening credits sequence, in which each leading actor (i.e., kicker) is listed with his karate and/or kickboxing titles. Film quickly heads downhill with formula script, utilizing virtually th same premise as recent Van Dammr vehicle "Kickboxer".

Don (The Dragon) Wilson plays Jake (yes, the knowing screenplay by Robet King makes an in-joke about Robert Towne's "Chinatown"), who heads from L. A. to Manila when his brother is murdered following a kickboxing match. Under the tutelage of Kwong (Joe Marie Avellana), Wilson trains for a Ta Chang fighting competition, seeking vengeance on one of the combatants who he suspects killed his brother.

Pic has a couple of plot twists plus a statuesque blonde leading lady (Riley Bowman) to distinguish it from others in the genre. Unfortunately, the editing is ragged and photography hit-and-miss, while the fighters-turned thesps show little acting ability.

Lead Wilson, who's vaguely in the Mike Stone school of martial arts heroes, has a bland scr4een personality. Fans undoubtedly will be attracted by the high kicks and bloodletting. Roger Corman followers will be glad to see Vic Diaz again, stalwart of so many Filipino-lensed actioners of the early '70s.

First starring role for Light Heavyweight Kickboxing Champion Don "The Dragon" Wilson, 'Bloodfist' is worth every penny of the $4.95 I spent on the bargain DVD.

Forget the critics. This is one of Roger Corman's earliest ventures into the martial arts genre, and, like much of the Corman library, there's lots of respectable bang for the few bucks spent on the production.

First, let's get past the name thing. Wilson has taken some smirks in the media for adding "The Dragon" to his name. But the man was just being pragmatic. I mean, do you remember the other Don Wilson? The paunchy, bulldog-jowled, middle-aged announcer on the old Jack Benny Show? Prior to 'Bloodfist', he was the only Don Wilson anyone had ever heard of in showbiz.

Would you have lined up at the box office for a martial arts movie starring that guy?

The Set-up: Wilson's half-brother is a prizefighter in a shady Manila fight club who ends up dead after winning a fixed fight.

Cut to Wilson back in sunny Southern Cal, who promptly explains to a bunch of grade school field trippers that he runs a gym, but does not box professionally because HE ONLY HAS ONE KIDNEY. He donated the other to his (late) half-brother. This begs the question: Why was the brother fighting? One assumes that he also had one kidney (the donated one), unless Wilson generously gave one of his away because he felt his brother should have two ...?

As in the best Corman films, the action takes over fast, and the field trip isn't even out of the building before Don gets the call that his brother's dead.

The Dragon hops the next thing smokin' to the Philippines, officially to claim the body, but I can't help thinking that in the back of his mind, Don didn't wonder just a little about getting that kidney back. Imagine his disappointment when the Manila officials open a green file cabinet and hand him an urn. Full of his brother's ashes. Including at least one powdered kidney. Nothing left but revenge, since we're already here.

Wilson promptly picks up a painter-slash-kickboxing trainer, a party animal-slash-kickboxer roommate, and a translator-slash-exotic dancer love interest. Which brings us to actress Riley Bowman, who plays the love interest. Where did this woman go? 'Bloodfist' was not only her first, but also her last movie. And Riley exhibited ... ample ... uh ... skills. Exactly the type of open-minded, halfway-talented actress that Corman employed again and again and again in his New Horizon and Concorde flicks. What a loss.

Oh, well. Back to the action. You get a great selection of tournament adversaries for Wilson, who also double as suspects in his brother's murder.

There's a little twist to the ending, tantamount to Burgess Meredith whupping the daylights out of Rocky Balboa.

Better than 'Swamp Women'. Close to the pleasures of 'Attack of the Giant Leeches' or the first remake of 'Not of This Earth' (the Traci Lords one). No self-respecting Corman fanatic should be without a copy of this. 'Bloodfist' is worth a B-movie 5 out of 10.

I'd be lying if I say I do not love this movie, Bloodfist was one of those movies you see on TV all the time to fill some space in the programming, is a typical martial arts film of the nineties,enters the fighting tournaments genre,nineties were plagued by this type of movies and it was awesome,the titles in those movies were very generic like Bloodsport,blood fist,blood match,ring of fire,forcé to fight,showdown,American kick boxer,you put two words together than meant something intense and you had your title,it is more likely that if you saw two or three of these films saw virtually all,with a minimum differentiate in each one all these tournament fighting movies had the same plot, but Bloodfist was the most cliché of all these films, not only that this film was cloned at least twice: Full Contact (1993)and Dragon Fire (1993)which does not involve a dragon or a technique called fire dragon,these three films have in common the same exact plot, I mean scene by scene they are exactly the same movie just in different locations and with different actors but dialog and the characters are the same in each of the films.

This is because these three films have the same writer credited to each one Robert King if you think this was his nadir, he is one of those responsible for the screenplay of Cutthroat island his most decent work was red corner (1995),back to Bloodfist as any illegal martial arts tournament film it begins when the protagonist learns that his brother was killed by participating in an illegal tournament, in search of the murderer and the ends participating in the tournament and wins it, that basically sums up this movie, one has little interest in the plot what catches our attention are the fight scenes in the movie, they usually use real martial artists in this movies for their credit they accomplish more believable fighting scenes what makes this film so entertaining,in other hand the acting is not that great but who cares let's see some kicking and punching.

another remarkable thing in this film are the so cliché characters let's start with the protagonist starring Don 'The Dragon' Wilson as Jake Raye, Wilson was the star of all the nine Bloodfist movies, This is the best known of all, Jake Rayne is the archetype of the good guy in this films, clean cut nice guy who believes in the fundamentals of martial arts, always looking for justice/revenge, never starts a fight but always trouble is looking for him, basically random people will pick a fight with him and they will always go one at the time even if they are 50 they will let their friend get beat up so the next one can go and get kicked as well, we have his new found best friend Baby (Michael Shaner) a compulsive gambler and kick boxer if you ask why his called Baby its explained in the movie and trust me it is as bad as joke can get, he serves as comic relief and as the guy that always gets killed fighting the main villain because it's his friend, baby has a girlfriend called Angela that I won't talk about (nothing interesting to say about this character) but he has a sister Nancy (Riley Bowman...her first and last film ) that is the F.R.I. : forced romantic interest, in all B-grade American martial arts film is full of this lazy strategy to put T&A in the movie, then we have Kwong (Joe Mari Avellana),our ¨Mr. Miyagi¨ who knows the tournament inside out and offers to train Jake in the martial arts so he can compete in the tournament in hopes of finding his brother's killer. Then we have the competition usually there's not much story about them but they have some character trades such as Raton (Dutch kick boxing champion Rob Kaman), who listens to music to get his adrenaline pumping, like many of athlete's do but somehow listening to music makes him a super fighter just don't mix his music or he will get distracted and loose then there's Black Rose (Billy Blanks),Tae Bo creator plays a high-kicking powerhouse, he has his menacing stare that makes him look like a rapist more than a fighting stare and of cores his nickname has to include the word black and Chin Woo (Kris Aguilar), a monster fighter who uses his brute strength to take out/kill his opponents, if you see him fighting it actually looks like his killing them more than taking them out , but hey his the main villain he has to do villainies stuff like killing it common sense right, he looks like the Asian Mr. T , if you're asking if his the one that killed Jakes brother you have to find out and see in the end you probably won't care who did it you will be glad it's over . and that's all I have to say about Bloodfist its cheesy, action packed, with bad writing and horrible editing but it's entertaining from start to finish if you are hangover with a rainy day you should give it a go