Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Leofwine_draca Here's a cheap Japanese knock-off of the Van Damme "classic" BLOODSPORT, except made with only a fraction of the budget and skill. This boring, muddled film actually only contains about fifteen minutes of footage in the ring, as it were. The rest is taken up with a modern, realist drama charting the life and times of tough fight promoter Yasuaki Kurate as Kai, a middled-aged Japanese karate warrior who enjoys training new warriors to fight against the champ of the ring, Chang Lee.We get to watch Kai train, fight with his wife and lose her, become a hopeless drunk, and then finally enter the ring himself to take on Chang Lee. It's not as interesting as it sounds, and contains hardly any action – certainly not enough for a film with the promising title BLOODFIGHT. The on-the-street camera approach quickly becomes tiring, especially as there are no sympathetic actors to engage with along the way. Kurate does seem to be a halfway decent performer but his sullen, monosyllabic lead doesn't give him much opportunity to shine.The first half of the film is a pointless time-wasting exercise dealing with a moronic gang of street thugs, led by the insolent Stuart Smith (hilariously misspelt as Stuart Smita in the credits). You may remember Smith from the likes of NINJA HUNT and other ultra-cheap cut-and-paste ninja epics of the '80s; BLOODFIGHT appears to be his genre swansong but the film isn't any better than his earlier work. A young Simon Lam, possibly the most famous of the cast, doesn't fare any better with his heavy emoting. Lam later made a name for himself with gangster films and the heroic bloodshed genre but he's as bad here as the rest. Bolo Yeung is the only one to come out of it with some dignity, although he's just as much laughable here as he is scary.The film is poorly made throughout, shot in English (and in Hong Kong) with a script that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The fight sequences are typically poorly shot, aside from a few choice battles in the last half hour of the film. The only good thing in the whole movie is the last match between Kurate and Yeung, an impossibly long slug-fest to the death, which is, as the title suggests, pretty bloody. It's just a shame that the rest of the movie doesn't carry on in the same mould, instead alternating between mindless bizarre moments and stultifying boredom. Give this one a miss and check out the Van Damme film instead.

Don Bendell To say that this movie is a bit of a rip off of Bloodsport is an understatement -- Bolo Yeung's character even has the same name. The story has down-and-out fighter Kurata Yasuaki training Simon Yam for a "world martial arts tournament" (which of course takes place in some dingy basement), where he is beaten to a pulp by Bolo (who sports the worst-looking fake tattoos ever). Kurata starts boozing it up for a while, but then sees the light and begins training for the next tournament.If you can't guess how this movie ends, then please promptly smack yourself in the head. Really, the only reason to even consider watching this dreck is to see how Simon Yam fares with acting in English and doing kung fu. Sadly, as good of an actor as Simon is, his work here makes some of Steven Segal's look Shakespearenan by comparison. The final fight between Kurata and Bolo is admittedly pretty decent, but it's too little, too late. Don't waste your time with this stinker.

gridoon The only possible source of entertainment in a movie like "Bloodfight" is the fighting, but even that is spoiled here by terrible direction, bad camera angles and sloppy editing. The plot rambles on for about an hour, then turns into a tenth-rate "Rocky". The Oriental actors, burdened with someone's idiotic decision that they should all speak exclusively in English (in a misconceived attempt to help the film break more easily into the American market, perhaps?), recite their lines robotically, without any feeling. On the other hand, the white actors, who can speak English more fluently, can't act (only Cristina Lawson comes close to doing both of those things simultaneously). "Bloodfight" is only for those who'll watch Bolo Yeung in any film, no matter how atrocious it may be. (*)

jaredyoung As far as low-budget, poorly made martial arts movies go, this one isn't bad...it has every element of the classical martial arts movie: an underground tournament, an aging sensei, an eager young student, an evil villain who kills said student so that the sensei has to overcome his alcoholism and seek revenge...If you like acting, this isn't the movie for you. If you like cheesy fights and training montages, check it out.