Bloodfight Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		2.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.0

Bloodfight Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 26, 2020

Note: This film is available as part of Bloodfight / Ironheart.

Bolo Yeung is 74 as this review is being written, and at least according to some online sources, he’s still alive and kicking (emphasis on that kicking part) enough to be making films as relatively recently as 2015 (or 2017 with regard to a United States release) for an outing known as The Whole World at Our Feet. That said, Yeung is probably best remembered for some martial arts infused entries from days of yore, having appeared in a number of still beloved films like Enter the Dragon, Drunken Master, and perhaps most memorably (at least for relatively younger fans), Bloodsport (note that the link points to another double feature Blu-ray that also offered Timecop). In one of those all too obvious “coincidences”, Yeung followed up his turn in Bloodsport with the similarly named Bloodfight, which offers Yeung in what amounts to a glorified cameo. Three years after Bloodfight came out, Yeung had a bit more of a featured role in Ironheart, a film which caught my personal eye since it was shot in my hometown of Portland, Oregon.

There are frequently kind of unfortunate aspects to some foreign films where whoever did the dubbing simply might not have had a full grasp on either the native language of the film or even perhaps what the film is supposed to be about, but after watching Bloodfight, I almost had to (jokingly) wonder if this film’s editing department were from some country other than the bulk of the production crew, since this film is almost deliberately boneheaded in both its overall structure as well as its narrative flow. While the film utilizes the hoary strategy of starting at the end and then spending the bulk of the rest of the running time in a flashback which finally gets things back to the beginning (which was the end), the film seems to have been stitched together in an almost random manner a lot of the time.

The film begins (ends?) in Hong Kong in 1989 during a tournament celebrating free form martial arts combat. Masahiro Kai (Yasuaki Kurata) is a once famous sensei who won the tournament a decade previously, but who is among the combatants this time, too, for reasons the extended flashback make clear. The tournament is a wild melee and the announcer makes it evident that combatants may in fact fight to the death. The previous year’s champion is the so-called “Vietnamese Cobra”, Chang Lee (Bolo Yeung), who of course turns out to be the main villain of the piece, even if the character is not really focused on all that much.

Suffice it to say that the bulk of the film documents Masahiro’s fitful attempts to reenter the world of martial arts, ultimately finding an acolyte who is younger and probably more able to withstand the slings and arrows and/or fists and feet that a fight will entail. Also suffice it to say that even after training from Masahiro, this student doesn’t exactly triumph over Chang Lee, leading back to the ending (beginning?) which finds Masahiro and Chang Lee duking it out.

The film is very oddly structured in terms of how much time it gives various plot elements, but it does at least give a rather visceral accounting of a wild and woolly martial arts tournament where bets are placed and audiences cheer almost gladatorial combat styles. And in fact it may well be the film's overall depiction of the surrounding culture rather than the actual story at hand where things are most interesting.

Bloodfight Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Bloodfight is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of the MVD Rewind Collection, an imprint of MVD Visual, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is a problematic looking presentation on occasion, starting with some really bad wobble during the credits that may make some prone to swallow a dose or two of Dramamine. There's abundant damage on display, but kind of interestingly it tends to show up in fits and starts with some moments of rather bad scratches and other nicks and blemishes giving way to relatively problem free moments. The biggest issue here for some may be the color timing, which is often skewed toward a kind of sickly green-yellow tone, something that can make things like flesh tones look positively unnatural. All of this said, detail levels can be fairly good in close-ups, though less appealing in even midrange shots, let along wide framings. Things often look very washed out and at certain moments whites tend to bloom. There are certainly at least passing moments here that I'd rate at 3 to maybe even 3.5 levels, but the overall impression left of this is one of noticeable damage that is also kind of fuzzy and weirdly hued.

Bloodfight Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Bloodfight features an LPCM 2.0 Mono track that is a bit boxy sounding but which delivers dialogue, effects and music with decent fidelity and clarity. There are some rather thick accents throughout the film which may make the optional English subtitles appealing for some listeners. I noticed no real signs of any major age related wear and tear other than the general thinness of the sound.

Bloodfight Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailers includes Bloodfight (480p; 1:58), along with Ironheart and a number of other releases from the MVD Rewind Collection.

Bloodfight Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Calling Bloodfight a "Bolo Yeung film" may be a bit of a stretch, since the star is unquestionably Yasuaki Kurata, and Yeung is really only featured as a kind of "sidebar villain". The film is very oddly structured, at least for a tale that boils down to a revenge scenario. Technical merits are iffy on the video side of things, but audio sounds generally fine if somewhat boxy, for those who are considering a purchase.