good back-story, and good acting

Excellent but underrated film

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Los Angeles in the year 2050 AD. Alex Danko, a soldier fleeing a battle, enters the city in order to connect with his brother Johnny. He arrives at Johnny's apartment only to find that he is dead, the victim of a brutal beating. With Johnny's girlfriend Nadia (who works as a stripper in a local bar) & her fighter brother Randy, Alex encounters Detective Marino, who claims that Johnny was killed by a fighter in the Pit, an underground freestyle fighting ring. With Marino's help, Alex enters the Pit as a contestant in order to flush the killer out. But as he fights his way through some of the most brutal fighters the world has ever seen, he begins to suspect that Marino might have some secret information on his brother's death.The Bloodfist series was a minor franchise that existed between 1989 & 1996, spawning eight films in total. The first two films were martial arts showcases that used their casting of real-life martial arts champions as a gimmick to make money, which the original Bloodfist did so well at during its brief limited theatrical run, causing producer Roger Corman to greenlight a staggering seven sequels over the next seven years. But the series slowly morphed from a martial arts showcase to a prison drama with the third film & after that into a generic action series. The only thing all eight films had in common was that they were headlined by Don "The Dragon" Wilson, a champion kickboxer who used the series to make a name for himself as a minor B-grade action hero.I don't quite understand how on Earth Bloodfist 2050 was greenlit, but somehow it came about. The film was helmed by Cirio H. Santiago, a prolific exploitation director who hailed from the Philippines. Santiago, who used the pseudonym "Leonard Hermes" on this film's credits, decided to mount a remake of the original Bloodfist but had even less of a budget than the other films (this would also be the last film Santiago would make before dying shortly after). Indeed a good portion of the film, mainly the opening scenes & several shots throughout the film, consists of stock footage taken from other films. Some of the stock footage doesn't even make sense when seen as part of the film – at times it is hard to decipher what is going on.Bloodfist 2050 is one of the worst martial arts thrillers I have seen in quite some time, although it is not entirely terrible. Matt Mullins takes over from Don "The Dragon" Wilson in the hero role & does a pretty good job with it. Not to mention that his skills are nothing short of astounding – he takes on gangbangers & thugs with an energy that Wilson couldn't quite match in his eight film appearances in the series proper. Watching Mullins beat the crap out of the thugs & other fighters is a pleasant experience & makes the film rank slightly higher than some of the older Bloodfist films.But on the other hand, the film is inept to a level I have not seen in any professional films for a long time. The stock footage is used without any thought put into it. The CGI shot of the ruins of Los Angeles is nothing short of atrocious & the plot is actually a recycled version of the original Bloodfist – once you realise that, the entire film's storyline can be guessed within the first ten minutes. The film was obviously shot in the Philippines, with Manila doing a remarkably poor job of standing in for a post-apocalyptic LA. The other bugbear I had with the film was the numerous filler shots of Beverly Lynne doing various striptease routines – this was quite annoying since it had nothing to do with the plot & ran for several minutes each time (ironically the film only ran to about 78 minutes in total). Mullins' fighting moves are probably the only reason you should check this out for but on every other front it is dead in the water.

Oh my this movie rocked! It has everything. Mad Max meets Blade Runner meets Cage. The only thing missing from this movie are mutants, or vampires... or any kind of monster actually. But every other thing you can think of, this movie has:It literary starts with a bang! Random people are running back and forth on the screen while they burn and blow up. Followed by amusing sped up footage which makes for a car chase scene. Then comes tits.Some rather slow fights scenes follow where, though some of the moves are kinda cool, the characters are still 1 meter apart, and obviously misses, to absurdly excessive sound effects. More tits follow.A laughable low-fi cgi clip which is shown about 7 times during the movie. More tits.Crazy overuse of stock footage which doesn't fit in at all. Followed by tits. Suddenly a sex scene comes along. Followed by yet new tits.Which brings it to the most obvious plot twist in movie history?All done with horrible sound production, editing seemingly by a 3 year old, no acting whatsoever, directing? what directing?This movie is at the very top of the "so bad it's good" genre. And possibly the largest combination of tits and explosions ever put on screen?

This in-name-only sequel to the beloved Don "The Dragon" Wilson series is a classic Concorde-New Horizons early 90s production - it just happens that it was made in 2005. Alex Danko (five time world martial arts champion Matt Mullins) arrives in futuristic LA to find his brother dead. Like all good brothers, he vows to find the killer and enters "The Pit," an arena where martial arts combatants are pitted against one another. Director Ciro Santiago (using the pseudonym Leonard Hermes) really jumps into the Concorde archives with this one. The film is literally spot the stock footage from past productions. For example, Maria Ford pops up as a stripper, but I'm pretty sure she has no idea she is in this. Yet he somehow makes it work. What is glaring are the bits where the male and female leads hairstyles change dramatically. Mullins is a very acrobatic and talented martial artist. Beverly Lynne, as his love interest, provides plenty of strip scenes. The real surprise is TV vet Joe Sabatino as Det. Marino aka Slick. He is quite good and it is surprising to see him in such a cheapjack production.

Bloodfist 2050 reminds me of the low budget action movies Jean-Claude Van Damme used to make in the late 1980s before he moved to Hollywood and became a total loser. In case of any confusion, I mean that as a compliment. Just like those films, Bloodfist 2050 makes no pretence about its meagre plot or wooden acting, choosing instead to focus its resources on squeezing as much action into the film as possible. The result is one of the most honest and enjoyable straight-to-video (actually, straight-to-TV) action films that I have seen in a while.The plot is really beside the point but to summarise: Alex visits his brother Johnny, a pit fighter, only to find out that he has been murdered. Alex decides to pursue the murderer with the help of Slick, a police detective. Slick suggests that a pit fighter may be responsible, so naturally he trains Alex to become a fighting machine and enter an upcoming tournament. The same plot has served hundreds of action films over the years, and with good reason - It's the perfect vehicle for almost non-stop violence. The only real twist here is the fact that the movie is set in the future, hence the "2050".Bloodfist 2050 really doesn't disappoint when it comes to action. From the car chase that begins the movie, to confrontations with street thugs and pit fighters, the action flows constantly. The fights are mostly brutal and the acrobatic skill of the various participants is put to good use. The violence is really only broken up by stripping routines and a sex scene. In fact, the film is surprisingly sleazy. I was not surprised to learn that some of the cast earn their livings making soft core adult movies.The performances are uniformly bad but they serve their purpose. Matt Mullins makes a decent action hero. He may have the charisma of rotting vegetables but he looks the part and is obviously a skilled martial artist. As the stripper love-interest, Beverly Lynne exposes her breasts competently enough. Joe Sabatino also does reasonably well as Slick, particularly in the film's latter stages.If you like mindless violence interspersed with gratuitous nudity, then Bloodfist 2050 comes highly recommended.