Jimmy Boland, a Japanese-American serving time in a Los Angeles prison after being wrongfully convicted of a barroom brawl, is moved to the prison's toughest section after killing the prison's kingpin for revenge over the rape & murder of Jimmy's young friend. He is placed in the same cell as the prison's jailhouse lawyer Samuel Stark. At first, Jimmy wants to do his own time, but with two opposing groups after him as a star recruit, Jimmy begins to use his formidable fighting skills to stay alive – and in doing so embarrasses the prison's incompetent warden.
The Bloodfist series has become one of the 1990s' most prolific B-grade action franchises – which is somewhat surprising since the original Bloodfist was nothing more than a cheap rip-off of the early works of Jean-Claude Van Damme (think BLOODSPORT & you're halfway there). A cheap knock-off it might have been, but the original Bloodfist was surprisingly successful in its limited theatrical release, so much so that producer Roger Corman greenlit something like eight sequels to date.
I went into Bloodfist III: Forced to Fight expecting more of the same plot-less kickboxing mayhem that the first two films made a living off, only to be somewhat surprised. Forced to Fight doesn't feature much in the way of brutal hand-to-hand combat (unless you count the several bouts between Don "The Dragon" Wilson & his fellow inmates) but actually is the first film in the series to focus on the story. Granted, the story isn't terribly innovative & the character arcs are predictable, but the film wears its well-trodden concept as a badge of honour.
There were some things that I found extremely unusual in a film like this. Director Oley Sassone shakes things up in a passable fashion – the hero is wrongfully accused of a fatal brawl & is serving time for it (an indictment of racial profiling) who kills the prison's kingpin as revenge for the prisoner raping & killing one of the hero's friends, resulting in the prison being split along racial lines. There is even a riot at the film's climax. The most unusual thing is the inclusion of a child molester as one of the hero's friends – I found this to be quite repellent but at the same time intrigued by the screenwriters' bold move, probably an attempt to show that all prisoners are only human, no matter what crime they are accused of.
The film features some excellent performances. Wilson still has the acting range of a plank of wood but he is steadily improving. Here, he is given some rope to deliver more dialogue than he did in the previous three films he had made (the first two Bloodfist films & the cheapjack futuristic thriller FUTURE KICK). There is even a scene where he simply holds up his fist & remarks "This is my power." which is indicative of the career he has made for himself so far. Richard Roundtree is by far the best actor of the bunch, playing the jailhouse lawyer to good effect. Gregory McKinney & Rick Dean both are suitably slimy as the two opposing faction leaders in the prison & their eventual alliance is a sign that even in prison, allegiance is relative to human nature.
