Yes, very much the Martial-arts movie, but fights/fighting is perhaps even above-average, I wouldn't particularly choose Don Wilson or any of his opponents like Daniels or the rest seen here even if I was looking for a fight, based on this, are brutal, dirty, brawlish and relatively believable, except perhaps how much punishment Wilson and Daniels heap on each other before there is a winner. The fight in the restaurant towards the end, between Wilson and the two thugs, was pretty real, you could almost believe that might happen with 3 good street-fighters or something..its no messing around direct sort of fighting compared to some movie martial-arts.
Director Sziller missed an opportunity with this, IMO, to further use and play-up the female villainess/fighter , the dare i say fabulous late Cat Sassoon, who battles Wilson twice during the movie: jumping him and heaping a beating on him in the movies last fight sequence, before Wilson turns it around just as hes about to be finished off with her trademark switchblade.
Now Catya Sassoons 'Lisa' would have to be one of the most evil//sadistic/sexy femme fatales villainess/henchwoman ever to appear on any screen,as far as actual hands-on violence villainesses go anyway, in this second clash with Wilson her 'outfit' speaks for itself, and shes the main reason many will watch or want to own this video, frankly, but we see FAR too little of her, despite the 40-second treat of this last fight,which she loses by KO in the end,sadly, although well ahead on points at the time, lol..the would-be devastating kick to Wilsons groin we could barely see,( black boot against a very dark background set, which WOULD have won the fight for her in the real world, surely!) even though patently obvious it was so good we were totally ripped-off even here.
Now Sassoon, who starred in 'AngelFist' as the main character, is sometimes talked about as not having genuine martial-arts ability, and I'm not an expert, couldn't say, I know she held some M.A. title in real-life,NA Forms/Weapons or something, but I guess there are lots of cereal-box M.A. titles, but that criticism is more for hard-core MA fans than for fans like me,(surely few would believe that in real-life Sassoon or any other female fighter could hold their own with Wilson or the the other men in the movie, but that is SO NOT the point !)to me, and many I'm sure, the unique key with Sassoon was her appearance, she was attractive, yes, with good figure, so are many others,maybe even some female fighters, but she has a particular one-off appearance and attitude with slicked-back hair as here that could have made her the #1 film villainess cult icon of this genre of cinema history, right here, in this film. Now, Sziller could have made his cult-mark with this film, by showcasing her more, more scenes, her 'doing' a few more people, including goodies, she kills in split-second two fellow bad-guys that have outlived their usefulness in one devastating scene , actually, but Sziller, apart from under-using her, also makes a dogs-breakfast of basic lighting in most of her scenes in the movie, the scene at the door with the other two bad-guys just mentioned is totally badly lit and filmed, and so is her final fight with Wilson, filmed in a gloomy room, with 'Lisas' unique spine-tingling dark looks and eye-goggling black outfit and boots making it sadly even more difficult to see her properly against background as she goes about punishing Wilson down the staircase, across the floor, and up against the wall, at the fight climax..which you want to see every detail of. I've got stills of this sequence, and its apparent in them how poor the direction and floor-management was, and how much this cost,the film and probably Sassoons own stardom.
Apparently Wilson remade the film himself, I'm not sure if he reprised her character and who played her,Sassoon was not in it, and if it was any improvement in lighting and filming at least, but it was a 'stinker' generally, apparently, was worse than this in film merit terms.. Sassoon lost her life tragically in 2001, we could and should have seen more of her, and we would have, if better-promoted through this film, which had the makings but not the execution.
Good bone-crunching brawling fight-scenes, though..Don't 'pick on' Don Wilson, would be my instinct and advice.
