Immortal Combat

Martial art action films used to be a must watch for me in the 90´s. I saw so many VHS films of different martial arts inspired films, some were pretty much action movies while other ones were more focused on fighting. There are so many classic films i could easily mention that would never be done today ( the world have changed, we can´t have macho male action scenes too often because someone might be offended ). You see back in the 90´s you could see big muscular men fighting saying terrible dialogue that would be seen vulgar in today´s society, especially talking about issues that matters to men. Im glad though i can still watch these wonderful martial arts films and just have a good time. Plot? Acting? Who needs that if you have big muscles and round kicks. There are several 90´s classics i can mention so lets just bring up one of the films you should check out. You should watch the 1992 martial arts action film American Samurai from 1992, directed by legendary director Sam Firstenberg that stars action legends David Bradley and Mark Dacascos. What made this film especially fun to watch was the so called illegal gladiator fighting matches underground, taking place in Istanbul, Turkey. The best part of this film is the underground fights themselves between different fighters. My favourite match is between the characters Haing Yi ( Dion Lam ), and Phan-Xu ( Antony Szeto ). I also love the fight between Phan-Xu and Mark Dacascos character Kenjiro Sanga. David Bradley proved himself once more why he was such a great maretial arts action actor as his character Andrew "Drew" Collins. The director Sam Firstenberg wasn´t happy with the theatrical version, so he finally released his Director´s Cut on his official Youtube channel, you can watch the film on the following link:

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I personally prefer the director´s cut since a couple of scenes were emoved that did not need to be there, and he added some other scenes instead where the plot is more focused on the arena fights. Definetely worth a watch if you enjoy martial art films from the 90´s. Fun fact, this was one of the final films produced by the legendary distribution company Cannon Pictures before they stopped releasing films. Speaking about martial arts. legendary low budget distribution company The Asylum had to get along the train of the Mortal Kombat II release, so they made a low budget film called Immortal Combat. Of course i had to watch this film, not just becuase i enjoy some of the films that The Asylum release, simply because i want to see them make a martial arts inspired film. Is this a must watch this summer or will Immortal Combat be one of the films that will quickly be forgotten, once you have watched it?

In a distant future, a group of historical warriors from history books such as Joan of Arc ( Eva Fournier ), Boudica ( Mila Orion ), Ghengis Khan ( Charlit Dae ), Cleopatra ( Roxanne G.C. Brooks ), Atilla The Hun ( Sasha Di Capri and many other warriors, havet travelled through a portal of time. They have been chosen to fight in a tournament gladiator game known as Crinsom Havoc, where only one can survive the whole tournament.

Let me begin by saying i like the concept of this film. Historical legendary personalities being sent into the future to fight each other, i do think this is a fun idea itself if you can make it work. So there are details i appreciate about the concept of Immortal Combat, but we have some real big issues here as well. First of all, why do they use several big scenes with so much AI? The Asylum used to make fun terrible CGI effects that may have looked terrible, but at least i had a good time with several films. I rather have terrible CGI effects instead of flat, dull AI scenes that doesn´t add any qualities to the film. If you are making a tournament battle/ fighting film, why not focus on the fight battle scenes using real people, even if you have to add certain CGI moments. For me personally the charm is lost when AI effects are brought in, it doesn´t leave the same impact if im being completely honest. Truthfully i will say that low budget CGI effects looks better than any AI effects, and that is my personal opinion. Some of the so called fight scenes are not well choeographed. They look pretty lame to me, as if they did not put much effort into the fighting scenes. This is supposed to be a fighting tournament, shouldn´t you try at least making the fighting scenes look cool at least, to please the martial arts action audience? So to the positive for a short while, i do think the costume design is pretty cool on certain characters. I know this film have a very limited budget so they have to use whatever they can, and i can accept that you have to be creative with what you have. The acting is not always as terrible as you might think, for being a film produced by The Asylum. Actress Dominique Swain ( who i reviewed in her TV film Seclusion, you can find the review in this blog ) as the character Aria is actually a charming character in this film. With attitude and a bitchy approach, and it matches the character personality quite well. Actor Samuel Selman does a wonderful over the top acting performance as warrior Shaka Zulu, which doesn´t mean he acts good, yet he is the most entertaining character of Immortal Combat . I have a feeling Immortal Combat will not be on the list of memorable The Asylum films, there are some fun parts but too many flaws can be found. Director Monroe Robertson ( director of Planetquake, a terrible yet fun watch if you like bad movies ) have a good idea behind Immortal Combat, but should have made this film more focused on the combat scenes instead of using AI effects. Not a film most people will remember, i suggest watch the director´s cut of American Samurai instead.

Rating: DD