Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Story synopsis in one paragraph (may be a bit spoilery): A martial arts master owns a karate dojo in LA, he teaches kids, including his son. He gets a proposition from some shady crime business guys that they want their dojo, or at least him to cooperate with them, by signing a contract. He refuses and in turn he must be taught a lesson.. Van Damme breaks his leg. His son (the protagonist) wants revenge, but his father stops him. The father (dojo owner) being an honest man and feeling ashamed of his defeat in front of his students, but mostly scared about his family, decides that the best option is to leave his hometown. So the family (himself, his son and wife) move to Seattle. There both father and son make new acquaintances. Father finds job in a local bar. The son continues training and tries to join a new dojo, but due to some newly found enemies he's beaten and humiliated twice, once during a fight in the dojo and lastly on a party of a girl he started to like. He isolates himself, seeking an answer in Bruce Lee's grave in Seattle cemetery and after a while the ghost of Bruce Lee has apparently come to his aid. Training montages one after the other follow, weeks are passing by, things between father and son start to get better, especially after the son saves his father from a fist fight he had with some fellas from the bar. Then the original bad guy from LA comes in Seattle seeking the contract of that dojo as well and he's determined to take it. He meets the owner, who is the brother of our protagonist's crush and the Seattle Karate champion, and since he clearly refuses he threatens his sister. In the meantime, our protagonist has trained hard and has seemingly become tough and he kind of goes out with the love interest. Finally a Karate exchibition/tournament is held between Seattle's fighters (the best 3 of them) and Van Damme alone. Van Damme single-handedly takes em all out (he had a hard time with the 3d one - the champion - but he too falls), but all of a sudden our hero steps into the ring to save the day ultimately throwing Van Damme out. The result is he is congratulated as a hero and the movie ends in a "Rocky"-like fashion. The best thing in the movie are the good, meaty, fast-paced, authentic fight scenes throughout. Most actors seem to be capable of real fighting, or at least they must be athletes of some kind. Only one thing i noticed is that in some scenes Van Damme can be subtly seen to hold on to his kicks a bit though, as not to inflict full damage on the actor. But overall the fights are well choreographed and executed. And that's primarily what this film is all about, martial arts. The protagonist's black friend must be a dancer, or something similar. Also Van Damme here is in one of his first appearances in film ever. Note that this is not a Van Damme movie, Van Damme only appears for ~12 minutes tops. The movie is very similar to Karate Kid, but much inferior. Karate Kid could actually stand as a solid movie. This one, objectively as a movie, is terrible, but if you look at its spirit and what it wants to deliver, primarily entertainment and 80s energy, it does a decent job. Acting is so atrocious, it may even compete with porn movies. Van Damme keeps a wooden, hateful face throughout, which NEVER changes. All performances are very pretentious and they're trying to be. The bad guy desperately acts like the bad guy, the good guy acts honest and decent. There's no grey areas in the characters, there's no depth in them, mostly only black and white. Silly, funny comedy. The love interest is the only decent one. The father especially is literally shouting (instead of talking like a normal human being) throughtout the entire movie. His whole dialogue is shouting. He does it, as to appear more dramatic (80s B movie logic). His performance is so bad, it's actually hilarious, the guy is screaming, no joke. However the movie does possess a certain 80s charm who will definitely appeal to the fans of the genre. The omnipresent 80s montages to cheesy music (even break-dancing) during the training sessions. Aside from that sunny atmosphere, the occassional laugh and some mild romance. You can respect it for that. The final fight is so unrealistically funny bad, it's unbelievable and so hilarious you will laugh your ass off. You see this kid, who's got like zero muscles and Van Damme with muscles that could knock the kid's teeth out with a single punch. But instead, he brings into mind the teachings of Bruce Lee's ghost and coupled with his friend shouting from the audience "No Retreat No Surrender!" the kid becomes Rambo at an instant and hurtles J.C.V.D. out of the ring. You saw that coming, but of couse the plot is extremely predictable. This was really a chinese Hong-Kong movie, chinese director & writers, just filmed in USA. Without a doubt an 80s guilty pleasure movie! Rating: 4/10 - Failed - A guilty pleasure movie of mine though, for Van Damme, the fights, entertainment and 80s nostalgia.

If it hadn't been for Rifftrax, I would never have seen this steaming pile.Sexist, racist, obnoxious in it's portrayal of humans as walking stereotypes, and a story a five year old might have put together with about as much continuity and depth.It's sad to think people saw this mess as anything but a bad parody.I realize 80's tech doesn't compare to what we have now but it still looks and sounds like it was filmed and recorded using a potato.What 'story' there is, consists of the plot from any generic, low-budget, Kung-fu movie.The 'filler' between the laughably choreographed fights consists of training montages, an attempt at a music video, some terrible characters being terrible, and lots of pointless, awful dialogue.If you watch this movie without Rifftrax, you are wasting time that you will never get back. Don't do it. It's not worth it.

This film has long held a pride of place in my personal pantheon of classic '80s action flicks, alongside other luminaries such as "Bloodsport" and "Deadly Prey". In fact, i think a great night in with beers 'n' snacks with all three of these bad boys is long overdue - though i may well die from an overdose of pure unadulterated genius.Basic kung-fu revenge plot involves a young man called Jason (although for some reason for years i remembered him as being called "Dan"... i have no idea why, unless i'd somehow conflated this with "The Karate Kid". Which seems impossible, what with this being 5000 times better!) avenging the crippling of his karate sensei father (the appalling acting stylings of Tim Baker, take a bow!) at the hands - and indeed feet - of martial arts gangsters. The twist here is that the inevitable training montage in order to take vengeance is aided not only by bizarre break dancing Michael Jackson impersonator R.J., but by the ghost of Bruce Lee (played by Kim Tae Chung himself, the not very Bruce Lee Bruce Lee from "Game of Death")!!! After a gruelling training regime involving quality '80s music and some terrifying homoeroticism with R.J., Jason / Dan takes on the high-kicking, splits-performing Jean-Claude Van Damme himself. Though whether or not JCVD is playing 'Ivan Krezinsky the Russian' or 'Carl Brezdin' depends on whether you believe the dialogue or the credits!! Either way, Jason / Dan vs. Ivan/ Carl is a true clash of the titans that fans of hokey genius cannot afford to miss!!

This is my absolute favourite BAD movie. I love it.The plot is ludicrous, the acting atrocious and the score is straight out of a Z-grade '60's Western. Barack Obama looks more like Bruce Lee than Tai Chung Kim.But it's the dialogue that makes this movie great.Who can forget Van Damme's immortal line: "So, it is you!"?To be fair, Van Damme looks great and speaks little and there are some good fight scenes if you can stick it out.This movie is so bad that I own a copy and watch it at least once a year. Laugh out loud from beginning to end.A must-see. Preferably with a few friends and a bunch of beers.