Simply Perfect

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

As with any movie adaptation based upon any much cherished cartoon (or for those choosing to be pernickety in this instance, anime) and/or comic book, one thing is guaranteed and that is a subsequent sharp divide between those fans who will embrace the new envisioning and those of a more purist persuasion who will generally loath it. Certainly, as a huge fan of the original animated series (and the subsequent animated movie) that this is inspired by I am initially sad to report that this isn't an entirely faithful adaption of its source material......in fact, quite far from it.......bad news there then. Having said this however, what we do have is an entirely admirable and indeed commendable attempt nonetheless for a great number of reasons.For a start, production values are absolutely top notch with some truly wonderful set designs, some great (and joyously gory!) special fx and a tremendous musical score. The combination of aforementioned aspects lends the film a truly epic feel - far, far greater than one could conceivably imagine given the relatively small budget this was made with. So to must I commend the casting; Gary Daniels especially has never looked better (and his moves have never looked finer) in the role of Kenshiro (even if perhaps he is far too softly spoken in the role). Costas Mandaylor gives a suitably cold performance as Shin and despite no former martial arts training looks rather good (thanks to the wonderful fight choreography of Winston Omega). Christopher Penn to is clearly having a ball with his character and hogs all the best lines in the film including such gems as, 'It's not easy being sleazy.'As said previously, this is anything but a faithful adaptation of the anime yet if one can overlook this fact and judge it on its own merits then it is a hugely entertaining effort with much going for it. My advice....give it a chance and you may well be (as I was) very pleasantly surprised.

I stayed up to watch this film thinking it was the incredible 1980's Japanese manga movie 'Hokuto no ken'. Little did I know there was a farcical 1990's low budget Hollywood version, and this indeed was it. This is surely the gayest film of all time, particularly in the final battle scene, in which one of the main protagonists is wearing a woman's blouse. It is all bronzed, shiny flesh and rippling muscles and plenty of 'smell the fart' acting. As I recall, the plot of the original version was quite hard to follow, but for this version it seems to have pretty much been given up on altogether. The best thing about this film is that it stars Downtown Julie Brown, who has the coolest name in showbiz.

I was really disappointed with this film. I saw it back in 1996 on the Sci-Fi channel and remembered it being not half-bad. Upon watching it again, I found it to lack many things. I never watched the Anime or read the comics because I am just not into that stuff, but, from what I have read about it, the Anime sounds like it wipes the floor with this poor production.Kenshiro is the hero of the story played by Gary Daniels for some reason. It's funny, I thought Kenshiro was suppose to be Asian, but whatever. Lord Shin, the lead bad guy also played by an American, kidnaps Kenshiro's girl Juliet and leaves Kenshiro for dead after brutally injuring him. What you think would be a classic good vs. evil story gets very boring as nothing happens until the end, and at that point you have already lost interest.I had thought this movie was going to be extremely violent due to the fact that the Anime is suppose to be viciously violent, but, this movie lacks any real action or violence, minus about 3 or 4 scenes. Instead, what we have is a movie that feels like the end of a really bad Trilogy that doesn't exist. Perhaps, if the movie were cast better and had a decent script it would have worked better. And Tony Randel as director was very disappointing considering this is the same guy that directed Hellraiser 2 (one of my all time favorite films).The only plus side of this movie was a pretty decent soundtrack and Chris Penn. The soundtrack was very good considering the movie was very boring. Chris Penn did a cool job with his character and was probably the only real highlight of the film.I guess I need to watch the Anime, even if I don't really like Anime. I would suggest staying away from this movie only if you really like Gary Daniels. 4/10

I'll start with quoting other reviews I've done. You have to enjoy this movie for what it is. It had horrible stage fighting, crappy special effects, and probably had plot holes that you could drive a bus through, but it actually was fairly entertaining.My only real beefs with the movie include:1) Shin is the Fist of the South star, and has mastered several forms of Nanto Seiken. Why, in his early fight with Ken, does he feel the need to Gas peddle him. Also, why does Ken occasionally gas peddle people.2) Rufio.3) When the actor formally know as Rufio (or Bat/Bart if you want to get technical) is pretty brutally killed, he not only makes a cheesy death speak like in Hook, but Ken says something to the effect of "because of you, the village is saved." Rufio didn't do anything. He just stood off with Bondage-face and got stabbed to death.4) Bondage-face (whoes name eludes my at the moment) was way cooler in the anime. There, his name is Jagi, and *POSSIBLE SPOILER* he turns Shin to evil, tarnishes Ken's decent name, and trash talks him a few times during their battle. And he wears a cool mask. *END SPOILER*. In this movie, he is one of Shin's random minions, and has a really lame death (the death is the same as the anime, but the fight with Julia was just dumb).5) Ken doesn't scream when he punches people. It's probably for the better though, for if he had screamed, it would have just made the movie worse.As I said, the movie is pretty good for what it is. Also, it must be noted that it is a B-movie, and thus will never be good.One thing of note though, is that the makers seemed to keep some of the shots from the anime (like when Ken and Shin jump kick each other). While these shots didn't remain intact, it is worth noting that they are there.