Kill or Be Killed
Kill or Be Killed
PG | 01 May 1980 (USA)
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Two former ranking figures of the Axis powers (the evil General Von Rudloff and Japanese master Miyagi) schedule a deadly martial arts tournament in Von Rudloff's desert castle. They race to assemble the top competitors from around the world, with the rebellious Steve Hunt being the most sought after.

Reviews
Joanna Mccarty

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

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Sameer Callahan

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

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Edwin

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

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Skyler

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

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PeterMitchell-506-564364

I was expecting another Kill And Kill Again. What I got was a slower and much less punchy vehicle. At times, there seems to be hardly any activity at all. The story too, goes off the beaten track a little like when Ryan and his love take off through the desert on their wind sailor, singing jubilantly, eating up too much screen time. The opening music theme, which I absolutely loved, and it's locale scene, a long exterior shot of a big fortress in the desert, as I frankly recall, is the first thing that clicks in my mind when I think about Kill Or Be Killed. With this film I was short changed afraid. There's much less action where you're kept waiting, especially from the start, where it came between long intervals. A slightly younger looking Ryan, with shorter, neater hair, who was in fact only 18 when he made this, plays another Steve character, who's drawn back into a fight in another big arena, where participants fight with weapons of choice. Ryan, a Chard Hayward sounding actor, does have a certain charisma, but not good acting status, where he's surrounded by a few antic characters, that midget guy a hoot. These characters at least add something to this disappointing actioner. After seeing Ryan's other flick, this had me on quite a come down, it had me moping. If you've seen this, and wasn't satisfied, and you've haven't seen the other kill movie, it's vitally imperative you do, as it may just bring your spirits up, for this 'Kill is so over ridden by, it's follow up.

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zardoz-13

"Funeral for an Assassin" director Ivan Hall's low-budget, chop-socky saga "Kill or Be Killed" with James Ryan and Norman Coombes emerges as a tolerably entertaining, juvenile kung-fu actioneer set in dusty South Africa with a tournament plot reminiscent of Robert Clouse's "Enter the Dragon." The numerous karate fights in this frantically paced epic rate a slash and a gash below those vintage Bruce Lee chop'em-ups. Nevertheless, "Kill or Be Killed" passes muster just barely because it clones surefire scenes and gimmicks from better kung-fu movies. Aside from its "Enter the Dragon" premise, "Kill or Be Killed" differs from most movies for its treatment of short people because midget actor Daniel DuPlessis is treated with greater respect than usual for somebody of his abbreviated statue and doesn't serve primarily as a source of comic relief. You might almost be tempted to say that scenarist C.F. Beyer-Boshoff and Hall were imitating the James Bond movie "The Man with the Golden Gun" where a midget, Hervé Villechaize, played the villain's errand boy. Villechaize later co-starred with Ricardo Montalban in "Fantasy Island" where he played a similar role. "Kill or Be Killed" was initially released in 1977 so Boshoff and Hall had probably modeled their dwarf after the Bond dwarf. Again, rarely are dwarfs used for anything but circus movies and strictly as comic relief. Although DuPlessis looks ridiculous in one scene where he croons lovingly to an idiotic hand puppet, he has the third largest role in "Kill or Be Killed" so he isn't your run of the mill midget character.The filmmakers rely on the time-honored plot where opposing teams of kung-fu fighters battle each other in a fight-to-the-death tournament. Baron von Rudloff (Norman Coombes of "The Mangler") is an insane, ex-Nazi captain seeking revenge again Japanese diamond merchant Miyagi (Raymond Ho-Tong) for a war-time injustice perpetrated against him. During the war, the Axis arranged a martial arts tournament, and Miyagi bribed von Rudloff's men with diamonds to throw the match. Rudloff resigned in disgrace. Beyers-Boshoff's script is fraught with loopholes and improbabilities. First, why wait 30 years for another match. Second, chances are in real life the Baron would have been killed by the Gestapo for besmirching the Third Reich with defeat at the hands of the Asian. Moreover, those Nazis that accepted the pay-offs would surely have been executed for their treachery, too. Nevertheless, this is a B-movie thriller, still it seems mighty contrived. Anyway, von Rudloff throws down the gauntlet and Miyagi accepts the challenge. If the Japanese merchant wins, he gets more precious gems, but if he loses, then he must reveal his duplicity to the world at large.Baron von Rudloff's right-hand man is Chico (Daniel DuPlessis) and the aristocrat trusts him more than anybody else. When Miyagi consents to the tournament, von Rudloff dispatches Chico to round up some more championship martial arts experts. The Baron already has assembled an army, paid them well, fed them well, and keeps them in the lap of luxury at his vast castle fortress in the middle of the desert, except one, Steve Hunt (James Ryan of "Kickboxer 5") isn't happy with all the waiting for something to happen. Furthermore, he is more than a little surprised that he would meet a beautiful babe, Olga (Charlotte Michelle) at von Rudloff's training center. Steve wants to marry her. As soon as von Rudloff returns, he cuts Olga and another fighter from his team. Steve isn't overjoyed by this revelation and they try to escape. The Baron recaptures Olga while Steve winds up on Miyagi's team. The middle part of "Kill or Be Killed" involves the search for kung-fu fighters. Chico finds men for the Baron or discovers too late that Miyagi has beaten him to the punch.Ivan Hall does a fine job with the fight scenes and covers them sufficiently with several cameras so we see them from a variety of angles. James Ryan is as nimble as Jackie Chan and plays the same underdog character that Chan does, but he lacks Chan's sense of humor. The Baron is a strict, disciplined man, but he is also a poor villain. He relies on other people to perform his tasks and relieves in the loss of honor from World War II. Since the movie was so financially strapped, Hall turns to pictures of Nazi combatants and Hitler for von Rudloff's reverie. The Baron is more scheming and impotent than intimidating and mad. We are never told why the Baron built a castle in the desert. For that matter, we are never told what prompted Steve to enlist in the Baron's program. Eventually, Chico turns against the Baron and helps the star-crossed lovers. Instead, Hall and Beyers-Boshoff concentrate on the gathering and training of the karate fighters on both sides.Parents will be happy to know that the script eschews sex for violence. Even the violence is toned down. The worse thing that you will do is flinch every time that one combatant socks another with a loud WHACK on the soundtrack. While there are some acrobatics, the combatants never engage in fights as fantastic as the Bruce Lee battles in "Fists of Fury." Mind you, blood is kept to a minimum. Hall directs all this nonsense at breakneck pace. The relatively bloodless brawls are swift but vicious. There is an amusing scene when our fleeing lovers strip down a Volkswagen Beetle and turn it into a sail powered conveyance. The opening credits sequence recalls similar opening credits from the James Bond movie "From Russia, Will Love." In "From Russia, With Love," the credits were projected on the body of a dancer. Here, the credits are projected onto James Ryan's lean, sinewy body while he demonstrates various martial arts moves. "Kill or Be Killed" contains a bang-up finale. Altogether, this kung-fu thriller qualifies as just average. Nevertheless, the success of "Kill or Be Killed" prompted the production of a sequel called "Kill and Kill Again."

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Bogmeister

MASTER PLAN: have the winning team in a deadly tournament. One of several martial arts action pictures that attempted to capture the flavor of the famous "Enter the Dragon" from '73, this one is an effort from South Africa. The villain's stronghold is a bit different, appearing as a white castle-like fortress in the middle of the desert from a distance. The villain himself, a Baron or general, is a slightly more perverse version of the "Dr.No" or Han mold of master villainy, having strange flashbacks to the glory days of Nazi Germany. He does wear the full regalia Nazi uniform at some points. His main ambition in life is to hold an illegal martial arts competition/tournament against his Japanese rival, an extension of their complicity in the 2nd World War (my army is better than your army). It sounds silly and it is, though the suggestion of madness and crazed machismo almost works. The central hero, Steve Chase (Ryan), resembles a white 'Bruce Lee' character, having a similarly lean, lithe physique, though obviously not on the same level of martial arts expertise. I thought he would be some secret government agent here but apparently not. He and his girlfriend have joined the Baron's team of fighters, but decide to quit (what did they think they were getting into?). Of course, it's not that easy. There's an odd sequence of them escaping through the desert using a wrecked car with a rigged sail - those desert winds can do wonders for travel, it seems.The plot kind of meanders in the 2nd half, as the hero joins the team of the villain's competitor and the girlfriend is held hostage by the villain in a cell, under threat of rape by the hero's rival. The most interesting character turns out to be Chico, a dwarf who is the villain's assistant; he's loyal to the Baron but is sympathetic to the plight of the hero. Much of the fighting utilizes the ballet-like capabilities of the hero, with a lot of leaping and slow motion. The sound FX are also amped up and exaggerated in an attempt to add more impact to the blows. There are a few good fights during the tournament towards the climax, but none really stand out. If one had to pick, I suppose the best involves the brutish muscle man-henchman of the Baron, introduced late in the story (he lifts the back of a car at one point). You wonder how the hero will take him out at the end, since the brute seems to shrug off most of the punches. The acting is very mediocre, descending into camp as far as the girlfriend, who tends to laugh for no reason, as if she's high on grass, though she is very cute. Some of the training scenes are also campy, especially all those guys running over or rolling down the desert sands. And, with such a title, there's surprisingly few actual killings. Ryan, as Steve Chase, returned as a traditional agent in the sequel "Kill and Kill Again." Hero:4 Villain:4 Femme Fatales:4 Henchmen:6 Fights:6 Stunts/Chases:4 Gadgets:2 Auto:3 Locations:5 Pace:5 overall:4+

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captainky

This movie along with Deathwish 3, Hell train, Commando Amazons and a few other gems are on my unintentionally funny top 10. Some highlights include the incredible plot. The story is of a former SS officer battling his WW2 Japanese equivalent to get revenge for a competition that was held before the war. In that competition the Japanese mastermind Miyagi bribed members of the German team to lose with Diamonds because, as Baron Von Rudolph says "THEY ALWAYS HAVE DIAMONDS!!". Poor Von Rudolph is disgraced and dishonourably discharged by the Fuhrer. 40 years later he is thirsty for revenge. As he recounts the story Von Rudolph quakes with emotion, German war music fills the air and there is not a dry eye in the house. Such is the premise of the competition. Some other highlights include a Dwarf and his doll and action star James Ryan IV dismantling a car with his bare hands to turn it into a sail car for the desert!! Oh yea the martial arts action isnt too bad either. A must rent for the b-movie enthusiast.

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