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A KURATA PROMOTION FILM PRESENT!
BLOODFIGHT!!
Hello
and welcome to review two of three in the Great Martial Arts
Movies saga. Tonight's escapade into the unknown
(or rather, known) is a movie about fighting, blood and a
whole lot of lovin'*. So let's get right down to it shall
we?
The
beginning may make it look like this guy--
--stars
in the movie. In reality this opening shot was his longest
scene. What strikes me most is how much he looks like Mr.
Clean, except less bitch and more "I'm going to kick
you in the groin". Mr. Clean never kicked anyone
in the groin, per se, but rather did other, much nastier things
to various groins. If I were to describe such thngs here,
I would be sent straight to jail without collecting
$200.
This
is one of those movies that starts at the end of the movie,
where hussling and bussling 1989 Tokyo finds itself host to
the World Championship of Free Fighting. Then we see some
people of wide girth attempt to do some push-ups and lift
some weights, followed by five minutes of them kicking the
crap out of each other. At first we thought that all this
movie had to offer was inexplicable fighting scenes, sumo
wrestlers smothering their opponents with their crotches and
tall guys literally demanding someone, anyone to
"raise the roof" in not as many words (chiefly,
"up! up!"). I mean, the guy was kicking the friggin'
lights.
So
we're saying, "Okay, what will happen next in this story
that takes place in 1989?". The answer is absolutely
nothing. Next thing we knew we were flashing back, all
the way back to 1987 where we finally meet one of our
main characters, Masahiro Kai. He's a drunken, hasbeen trainer
with heart of gold. Wait, no, scratch that last part, he's
just a drunken hasbeen. If he actually does have one of those
fancy confounded "heart" contraptions, it's definitely
not made of gold. At this point, his wife/somebody walks into
the room where he's watching teevee and tells him bluntley
that he's drunk and has been. Has been where? Only
NBA great Magic Johnson knows the answer to that. Discouraged
by this, he gets up and leaves on a mystical journey. Then
we're introduced to these guys.
LOOK
CLOSELY FOR A HAPPY FUN MESSAGE!
This
gang of street toughs makes me sad inside. One, they are hideous
in all respects and should not have light reflecting off of
them. Two, they have obscenities written on the back of their
Jeep. Three, they have apparently hired Vanilla Ice to be
their token white guy/gang leader. See, here in los Americas
if we have a movie with an all white cast we'll be called
racists and nobody will buy our movie. If we cast a person
that is part of a minority everything is cool. That is, of
course, if your movie is not "KKK Hooray!".
If it is, then everything is most definately not cool.
By the same token, asian movies usually have a caucasian person.
This time it's Vanilla Ice (or someone that stole his sunglasses),
who's it going to be next time, Michael Jackson? It's anybodies
guess really.
The
gang's apparent motif is to yell insanely, take fruit from
unsuspecting shop keepers (at which point the shop keepers
run after them yelling the word "Money" repeatedly.
Put a beat to that and you've got yourself a rap song), and
attempt to beat people up. At the end of their introduction
sequence the guy that stole Vanilla Ice's shades, John O'Brien,
turns to the camera and a poses a very interesting question
to the audience, "What the fuck are you looking at?",
he says. Indeed, what were we looking at? So far
it hadn't made any sense at all.
We
also noticed that during the course of the film, John seems
to be a good guy one minute and a bad motherfucker the next.
Then we noticed that he was only badass (read: not so) whilst
wearing Vanilla Ice's shades. Also, the higher the collar
is on his totally rad jean jacket, the more badass he is.
In actuality he comes off as one of those guys that tries
too hard and ultimately fails, like Sonny of Sonny and Cher
fame. I mean, he died!
This
movie has had a lot of stuff in it already, so let's recap.
We saw Mr. Clean, then some fighting, then the gang made me
cry, then I paused the movie to drink my tears away, and now
I can't find the remote. Nope still not making any sense.
WHOA! AWESOME
GRAPHICS!
John
wants to become more badass than he thinks he already is.
Master Kai wants to regain his title of Kickass trainer guy.
Put these two together and you get East meets West!
A hilarious sticom about a wacky American in Communist China,
where ass kicks you and nothing is as it seems! Or you get
this movie. Sadly, we got this movie. After a few short hours
of training John, Kai realizes this guy's a dink. John then
goes to beat up two girls with his cronies. Not a good idea
when one of the girl's friends is Ryu Tenmei.
Ryu
is just a normal guy, but he knows how to hand asses back
to their respective owners when needed. Master Kai sees great
potential in Ryu and proposes that he become his new pupil
in a crazy french accent he just developed for unknown reasons.
French accents are scary normally, but when they come outta
nowhere? Forget it man. That's like those headcrabs in Half-Life,
except this time I couldn't unload 250 rounds into the TV.
Ryu respectfully declines and any normal sane person would
accept that and go on with life. Not Master Kai. No, Master
Kai makes it a point to stalk this young man until he finally
breaks under the pressure, although Ryu is determined not
to train. What's even creepier is the music they play during
the stalking sequence.
John,
now filled with jealous rage, attacks Ryu and his girl while
they were having a nice quiet stroll through the park, at
night, in the bad part of the park, with millions of dollars
strapped to their genitals. In this scene we fully come to
realize that John's cronies are nothing more than Chimps in
Power Ranger costumes. I just wish they'd all go away. John
claims he doesn't make the same mistake twice. At first I
thought he was talking about stealing Vanilla Ice's terrible
shades, but then I realized that he meant he doesn't fight
without weapons twice and brought weapons. He then proceed
to beat the shit out of Ryu. Ironically, this convinces Ryu
to study martial arts under the tootledge of Creepy Master
Kai.
IT IS A WACKY SITCOM! YOU SHOULD BE ROFLING!!!`19
In
a strange twist, Master Kai refuses to teach Ryu and the crazy
music ensues and the stalking begins anew. Although this time
Ryu is stalking Master Kai! LOL!!1`1`1`ROLF!! Oh my oh my.
In sitcom title-style reveals we see Ryu following Kai all
over town and for some reason, it works. Master Kai finally
agrees to train Ryu.
The
next good chunk of the movie is training and it's not very
interesting. I had played with the idea of boring you to death
describing, in minute detail, each training scene but had
that feeling that the townsfolk would be showing up at my
door with pitchforks destined for my ass. That's totally not
what I ordered.
DANCE!
EVERYBODY DANCE!
The
1987 World Championship of Free Fighting seems like a very
scary place, and I for one would not go. There's men in pink
speedos and women that could beat me up. Sounds like Mike's
kind of party. Ryu easlily defeats his first few opponents
with swift kicks to the chest, face and lower groin while
his girl watches on with a look of impending doom.
GAWD DAIMNEET!
In
Ryu's second match, he successfully kicks his oponent in the
head creating a large dent. Nathan and I were very confused
by this, but I think I have figure out how an injury like
this happened. You see, Mr. Dent Head here had given Ryu a
lot of headbutts to the face and crotch. Such activities can
only serve to soften one's skull. That, or his head was made
of egg shells and paper mache.
AW GEEZ, WHO 'RESONATED'? OH YEAH, IT WAS MEEEEE!!!
MWAHA!
This
dude is truly badass. Not fake badass like Vanilla Ice. Anyone
that has a tatoo of a snake on his forehead breaks
my badassometer. Ryu totally gets his ass kicked by this guy
and dies. This is where I gave up on this movie although
there is half an hour left. You don't just kill off your main
character. That is ass.
Master
Kai, after a heavy bout of drinking starts his own training
to lay down some smack, and does so two years later at the
1989 Championship of Free Fighting. I just wish they hadn't
filmed all two years of the training, that doesn't even seem
possible. Of course he has to go up against Snake and of course
he wins. TEH END~!`11`~
Actually,
I think the movie was about on par with the others on this
tape. Terrible. But at least it had some up points, much more
than I can say about the other two movies. I'm not at liberty
to go into what exactly those were here, you'll just have
to watch it yourself! Hahaha! The downside of the whole thing
is actually watching it. It's a long 90 minutes of training
and drinking. If you're a training enthusiast then by all
means you'll probably knock yourself silly. I, however, did
not.
FRANK
ZAGARINO HEAD RATING
 
*lovin'
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