You just have to love Roger Corman. In the business for over fifty years, he's successfully followed trends, cashed-in on them, and made himself some decent loot. He's been quoted as saying that almost every movie his companies have produced went on to make a profit. It doesn't really matter than a lot of said films are pretty crappy.

Intended as a cash-in on the previous year's Bloodsport and marking the first starring role for karate champion Don "The Dragon" Wilson, Bloodfist is a standard martial arts actioner that is pretty hard to distinguish from others of its ilk. However, it does contain multiple real life fighters in secondary roles (a fact that is proven by the "martial arts cred" listed under their names in the opening titles) and manages to prove that even established figures from the sport can't rise above junky fight choreography.

After his half-brother wins a big tournament and ends-up beaten to death in an alley, Jake (Wilson) decides he needs to go to Manila and track down the killer. Upon showing up in the poverty stricken country he finds himself having to deal with pickpockets as well as the guards at a local karate temple called the "Red Fist". Let's just say it's not a very welcoming country to a half-Asian American.

He's befriended by a fellow fighter called Baby (Michael Shaner) and learns of an underground competition, which he signs-up for in hopes that he'll be able to avenge the death. This being a karate flick we soon have to bear witness to the typical training sequence montage as Jake learns how to be a better fighter and survive the matches from kindly old local, Kwong (Joe Mari Avellana). But then, my friends, the high kicking action soon begins!

And since, for this type of movie anyway, they're really unimportant to the story, I guess I forgot to mention that Riley Bowman is on hand as Jake's love interest, Nancy, in order to give us an underdeveloped sub-plot most of the viewers this movie is aimed at won't give a rat's ass about.

Under the direction of Terence H. Winkless (who gave us the decent giant bug flick The Nest as well as the underrated Lord Of The Flies knock-off Summer Camp Nightmare) Bloodfist just doesn`t get its, umm, footing. The acting by the unprofessional cast is mostly lousy (especially Shaner who almost sounds dubbed), there's an unintentionally funny slow motion "dancercise" routine (slo-mo will also play a big, bad, part in the movie's final showdown), and some of the dialogue in Robert King's script is hilariously bad ("he grew up in Vietnam, he is a victim of napalm, he takes revenge on the world by often killing opponents"), but the weakest thing about Bloodfist has to be how poorly done the fights are. Winkless obviously knows nothing about staging them and even speeds up the action at times - but that still doesn't mean these ho-hum face-offs don't mildly stave off the dullness that's set in by the forty-five minute mark.

So we've established that this is a pretty crappy, mostly skippable, B-level chop socky that's only notable for being the springboard for Wilson to star in numerous, forgettable, action flicks (Ring Of Fire, Blackbelt), the fact that Tae Bo creator Billy Blanks shows-up as the "Black Rose" sporting a big mullet, and the wonderment that this junker managed to spawn seven sequels. Otherwise, you're better off with either of the next two entries in the series or (if you're smart) any Chuck Norris flick from the 80's. (Chris Hartley, 5/27/07)

Directed By: Terence H. Winkless.
Written By: Robert King.

Starring: Don Wilson, Rob Kaman, Billy Blanks, Kris Aguilar.