Bloodfist IV: Die Trying

Rating:
Summary: He ain't called "The Dragon" for nothin'
Review: I just sort of stumbled onto the low-budgeted, popular kung-fu action series, BLOODFIST. Mind you, after Bloodfist II, these movies bare no connection to each other, so after Bloodfist II, it really doesn't matter what order you watch them in.
Bloodfist IV:Die Trying was the first one I saw, and let me tell you, it quite literally kicks [rear-end]. Don "The Dragon" Wilson isn't as bad of an actor as his reputation might suggest, and he makes a very impressive action star. Every last fight in all the Bloodfist movies is fantastic, and Die Trying is no exception. The best one here is withou a doubt the one in the room full of tear gas. I own the first four Bloodfist movies, and
Bloodfist VII:Manhunt, and I'm relentlessly hunting down Bloodfist V:Human Target and Bloodfist VI:Ground Zero on the internet, as well as some of Wilson's other flicks, like Blackbelt and The Capitol Conspiracy. Trust me, if you enjoy the high kickin' performances of Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Jean-Claude Van Damme, or if your'e familiar with legends like Bruce Lee, or his son Brandon Lee, Don "The Dragon" Wilson is right up your alley, and the Bloodfist series is a great place to start.

Rating:
Summary: Sharp improvement over part "III"
Review: Like the third film, part "IV" has no story connection to any of the other films in the series and this trend would continue throughout the rest of the films. Even though it has no connection, it actually turnes out to be one of the best in the series. The major difference here is that there is an actual plot to the story with twists, not just no brain action like in the first two films. Don "The Dragon" Wilson this time is a Repo Man that repossesses a car that contains nuclear triggers. Of course this is very bad and the owner in turn kidnapes his daugher. Dumb move on his part. The action is tremendous and Wilson's acting is starting to improve. Again, this is one of if not the best making it a sharp improvement over the cliche prision picture that called itself "Bloodfist III". This gets a 5 star rating on the B-Action chart.

Rating:
Summary: B-Grader with punch...
Review: Okay, Im not really a martial-arts fan, fans of this movie, and I know they exist, will split into 2 camps. Fans of martial arts in particular Don Wilson, and bewitched male fans of female martial arts star Catya Sassoon, now tragically the late Catya Sassoon. The storyline is formulaic, Wilson works as a repo-man tied to a car junk-yard, and uses his martial-arts prowess to deal with occasional difficult clients who dont want their car repossessed. One day, during a car repo, Wilson encounters a tough customer in the category, a guy twice Wilsons size who is also a formidable martial-artist, and a mob-henchman as it turns out. This is certainly a good fight,right here, the second of many in the movie, the fights, to me, are convincing, Wilson and his opponents are all 1st class fighters. Wilson wins this one , after taking many hits, but the BMW he repos contains something of great value to a very nasty ruthless criminal gang with big plans. Wilson returns to his workplace later after dropping off the BMW earlier, to find his workmates and boss dead or dying,the gang he crossed with this particular repo have dropped by, his young daughter is tracked down and kidnapped as collateral for the as-yet unrecovered mob property, and Wilson embarks on a bloody bare-knuckles oddysey to recover her, aided by a GOOD woman, Amanda Wyss.
Now, there is also a BAD woman,deliciously shaking-hands bad, Lisa, played by Catya Sassoon, a martial artist, and star of 'Angel Fist'. In that, she was good, well, in BloodFist4, she finds her calling, is a ruthless tough high-kicking switchblade-slashing killer who steams up the screen and steals the show if you are a good boy who dreams of bad ladies,let me tell you. Wilson clashes with her twice, once when she impersonates an agency baby-sitter, and again right at the end, where they stage the films final martial-arts fight.Shortly prior to this,she disposes of two redundant mob goons by suddenly drawing her switchblade and slashing them as she shows them to the door, smiling evilly as they crumple gasping in front of her.She enjoys her work. In this scene, she is in black costume with thigh-high stilletto-heeled boots, with switch-blade tucked into boot. Did I mention she has a killer body, no pun intended? Anyway, she jumps Wilson running through a doorway and heaps some one-sided punishment on him, lots of high-kicks with those boots, a nice head-kneeing to a staggered Wilson, and at the climax, a ball-busting booted groin-kick with Wilson pinned against the wall, then, drawing her switchblade for the coup-de-grace, the tide tragically? turns........
Catya had cult-figure potential, based on this movie, I would have loved a rewrite remake with A.) more Catya action B.) better lighting, the final fight Ive described takes place in dark-lit gloomy background and with her dark attire,you are robbed of some detail.
To sum up, the story-line is familiar, the acting and script very ordinary though Ive seen worse, the fights are brutal and well-staged/well fought, but evil Lisas scenes may have you wearing out the rewind/slomo of your vcr....and even have you rooting for the baddie-ess. I did.

Rating:
Summary: Great demonstration of a great woman
Review: What can I say? Let's have a look

Rating:
Summary: C-grade storyScript, A-grade M.A. fighting& Culty villainess
Review: Yes, very much the Martial-arts movie, but fights/fighting is perhaps even above-average, I wouldn't particularly choose Don Wilson or any of his opponents like Daniels or the rest seen here even if I was looking for a fight, based on this, are brutal, dirty, brawlish and relatively believable, except perhaps how much punishment Wilson and Daniels heap on each other before there is a winner. The fight in the restaurant towards the end, between Wilson and the two thugs, was pretty real, you could almost believe that might happen with 3 good street-fighters or something..its no messing around direct sort of fighting compared to some movie martial-arts.

Director Sziller missed an opportunity with this, IMO, to further use and play-up the female villainess/fighter , the dare i say fabulous late Cat Sassoon, who battles Wilson twice during the movie: jumping him and heaping a beating on him in the movies last fight sequence, before Wilson turns it around just as hes about to be finished off with her trademark switchblade.

Now Catya Sassoons 'Lisa' would have to be one of the most evil//sadistic/sexy femme fatales villainess/henchwoman ever to appear on any screen,as far as actual hands-on violence villainesses go anyway, in this second clash with Wilson her 'outfit' speaks for itself, and shes the main reason many will watch or want to own this video, frankly, but we see FAR too little of her, despite the 40-second treat of this last fight,which she loses by KO in the end,sadly, although well ahead on points at the time, lol..the would-be devastating kick to Wilsons groin we could barely see,( black boot against a very dark background set, which WOULD have won the fight for her in the real world, surely!) even though patently obvious it was so good we were totally ripped-off even here.

Now Sassoon, who starred in 'AngelFist' as the main character, is sometimes talked about as not having genuine martial-arts ability, and I'm not an expert, couldn't say, I know she held some M.A. title in real-life,NA Forms/Weapons or something, but I guess there are lots of cereal-box M.A. titles, but that criticism is more for hard-core MA fans than for fans like me,(surely few would believe that in real-life Sassoon or any other female fighter could hold their own with Wilson or the the other men in the movie, but that is SO NOT the point !)to me, and many I'm sure, the unique key with Sassoon was her appearance, she was attractive, yes, with good figure, so are many others,maybe even some female fighters, but she has a particular one-off appearance and attitude with slicked-back hair as here that could have made her the #1 film villainess cult icon of this genre of cinema history, right here, in this film. Now, Sziller could have made his cult-mark with this film, by showcasing her more, more scenes, her 'doing' a few more people, including goodies, she kills in split-second two fellow bad-guys that have outlived their usefulness in one devastating scene , actually, but Sziller, apart from under-using her, also makes a dogs-breakfast of basic lighting in most of her scenes in the movie, the scene at the door with the other two bad-guys just mentioned is totally badly lit and filmed, and so is her final fight with Wilson, filmed in a gloomy room, with 'Lisas' unique spine-tingling dark looks and eye-goggling black outfit and boots making it sadly even more difficult to see her properly against background as she goes about punishing Wilson down the staircase, across the floor, and up against the wall, at the fight climax..which you want to see every detail of. I've got stills of this sequence, and its apparent in them how poor the direction and floor-management was, and how much this cost,the film and probably Sassoons own stardom.

Apparently Wilson remade the film himself, I'm not sure if he reprised her character and who played her,Sassoon was not in it, and if it was any improvement in lighting and filming at least, but it was a 'stinker' generally, apparently, was worse than this in film merit terms.. Sassoon lost her life tragically in 2001, we could and should have seen more of her, and we would have, if better-promoted through this film, which had the makings but not the execution.

Good bone-crunching brawling fight-scenes, though..Don't 'pick on' Don Wilson, would be my instinct and advice.