"Saturday Night Special": Shootfighter: Fight to the Death (1993)

Shingo (Bolo Yeung) is world champion in shootfighting, a hard and dangerous martial art where only one man leaves the ring alive. In shootfighting, anything goes and anyone can sign up. But one thing is certain and that is that it's a fight to the death. Nick (Michael Bernardo) and Ruben (William Zabka) are Shingo's students and he hopes that one day they want to take over the title as champion when he withdraws. But Shingo has many enemies and one of them is Mr. Lee (Martin Kove). Lee tricks Nick and Ruben into enrolling in a fight before they are ready for it. Now they have to put their knowledge to the test in a fight to the death. Shootfighter: Fight to the Death is written by Pete Shaner, Judd Lynn, Larry Felix Jr, Robert Ginty (uncredited) and is directed by Patrick Allen. The acting is some suprisingly good, Martin Kove and Edward Albert are both good as villians. The camerawork and editing is good. The soundtrack is good. The pace is good, it never gets dull and there are plenty of fighting. The action, the fightchoreography is top notch. It´s very violent and brutal. Gory highlights include a character getting his larynx torn out, a very graphic arm breaking scene and more and it´s all practical make-up fx. There´s no T & A in this.
This review is based upon the Polish region all (Region 0) DVD release from Videoleader, it´s uncut and english audio is available.
Rating: 7 out of 7. I enjoyed this a lot! Shootfighter: Fight to the Death features some of the most brutal fightscenes I've seen in a martial arts movie, add to this the gore, that it´s well made and has some bad ass fightchoreography makes this is a winner in my book. Higly recommended if you´re into the martial arts genre.

/JL