Recently, I have been re-watching the No Retreat no Surrender AKA Karate Tiger movies that I have in my collection. I decided to watch each one and see if I still enjoyed them like I used too.
I found out indeed I do still really enjoy all of the ones I managed to get through so far. This will be my review and very brief summary of the first film from 1986, with Kurt McKinney.
Released in 1986 the story goes like so. The father of the main hero teenager played by Kurt has his leg broken by a very young Van Damme. Wanting to teach his son the lesson not to always need to use his karate for defense moves to a new town.
There Kurt begins to be bullied by the people from the local dojo. After one experience that is extremely bad his father goes somewhat berserk and tells him he can no longer have his Karate stuff.
He goes somewhat nutty himself and runs to Bruce Lee's grave and prays for help. Bruce shows up that night and begins training him in his Jeet kun do. Meanwhile there is s big fighting Tournament coming to town.
The fight it turns out is with Van Damme and our hero pulverizes him using his new schools which brings up the ending credits with the theme song, "Hold onto the Vision."
It is not a high work of art, but, it is fun with lots of well done martial arts choreographed by Cory Yuen. You can find it on DVD and Blueray formats to buy online or maybe even locally. I give it two thumbs way up for feel good, good beats evil fun.
Born Again Christian; Biblical Fundamentalist, Received Text-KJV, Dispensational
