Sadly Over-hyped

Lack of good storyline.

The first must-see film of the year.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Now I'm not gonna give a breakdown of the plot as it's already been done by a few other reviewers. The story has potential, but Andre Lima, nor any of the other people in this movie should have been in it. The acting is down right awful. I think that this movie's acting quality and production value would make a production of Break the Barriers doing "Romeo and Juliet" look like the 90's blockbuster the "Titanic". Andre Lima is a great martial artist, but after seeing this movie it's like he crapped his pants on camera. As much as I respected him before now when I think of him, it's gonna be this... this horrible thing that crawled from the pits of Hades. The choreography was just blatantly ridiculous. Every single time I've seen someone try one those spinning leap kicks in a real fight thats not TKD they get their face/groin/leg/foot broken. I've also seen better shots taken in the Power Rangers. Please, do yourself a favor, this movie is just bad. Don't buy it, don't rent it, don't even look at it in the store. Just keep walking. It's not even so bad it's funny. It's just bad. If they cut the acting out of it and just showed the gym scenes and clips from the fight scenes and add some decent music. Lima TKD advertisement.

I just watched the film. I think for a low-budget movie is way more than I was expecting. I think Andre Lima did a great job as a main actor. He is not a professional actor and he put himself in this big challenger. People need to have heart and "balls" to be in front of a camera and do the best they can. The director Gerson Sanginitto did a great work directing Andre Lima with Gary Busey and Martin Kove. I think Mr. Sanginitto has a great future as Director. The little girl Jessica was awesome! She should have a bigger part next time.I want to congratulate this small production. I been around this industry for long time, I know how hard is to produce a film and make until the end and see the final product. A lot people never finish the end line.

I knew this was a low-budget independent, and I did keep an open mind before I watched it, but still it was disappointing and downright funny at times. Being a fan of martial arts as well as MMA, I have nothing but respect for Mr.Lima for coming out and making a movie on the genre. However I was misled by the cover; there was two fierce-looking fighters, one in a standing armbar, but this scene was not found in the movie at all. The acting was indeed mostly wooden, but Andre came out as a pretty likable guy.The biggest letdown was the lack of action scenes and slow pace. There were lots of scenes that I found pretty pointless, and some of the "fights" were downright hilarious. For example there was a decent sparring practice between Andre and an Asian grappler, everything went well as they showed good technique transitioning from submissions to submissions and escapes, but out of nowhere, the Asian guy does a front flip when being pushed off by Andre. This isn't Drunken Master or a Jackie Chan flick, such fancy moves as well as jumping spinning kicks are really unnecessary. Besides, mainstream Hollywood movies do it better anyways. The plot also has some serious issues, I didn't really understand it at all nor do I understand why Gary Busey took the role in this movie, he looked completely out of place. The ending was also pretty weird, I didn't get it at all but I did feel pretty relieved to finally see the credits.This movie isn't completely without positives though, there's just very little. Jennifer Chu was very fine, too bad she doesn't do more movies because her on-screen presence far exceeds other exotic-looking Asian actresses, such as Devon Aoki (i am going to kill myself if i have to hear her call Paul Walker "Bullet" again). *Some* of the fight scenes, which were all sparring and practice except the last one, were okay. Being a Taekwondo master, Andre Lima display some impressive kicking, but again most of it is flashy stuff that we see all the time in mainstream flicks. I also can't get over the fact that the movie looked an awful lot like an advertising campaign for Lima Taekwondo Schools, which was blatantly displayed at the beginning when they showed the kids training, as well as Andre's family members taking part in some of the roles, such as Jessica (Aycka Lima) who seems to be her daughter or niece. I have no problems with fighters and martial arts masters selling themselves in some way, as they do need to make a living just like anyone else, but I don't think Mr.Lima will be getting a call for an actor's role very soon. Taekwondo is fairly common, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is the art that's on the rise, and Andre doesn't display it enough in this movie. Beyond The Ring has nothing on classics like Bloodsport, because there is a serious lack of passion on Andre's part. When it comes to fighting, which is basically his entire life, he just seems like a robot despite executing his kicks with impressive technique. Andre Lima should stick to being an instructor, and possibly a martial arts director or stuntsman.

For starters, I have to say I sort of enjoyed this little number. The acting is as wooden as a tree, the story line is completely corny on all counts but yes for me it held a slight appeal. Think of the film 'kickboxer' and you are along the right lines although kickboxer is by far the better film. The star, Andre is obviously quite nimble at the old martial arts and this is shown numerous times throughout the film. As said above however, acting wise leaves a lot to be desired, a cross I would rate as somewhere in between Dolph Lundrun and Jean Claude Vandamn. I cant really say much more without ruining the plot. Just give it a go. It was OK if you like these sort of films.