Sorry, this movie sucks

Pretty Good

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Chuck Norris fans and martial art film fans in general will love The Octagon. He seems to be going for a record number of casualties in dispensing bad guys in this one.As seems to be usual for occidental actors in these films Norris was adopted by a ninja master who raised him as his own and after his blood kin disgraced him in competition with young Norris kicked him out.Now the ninja school is being used to train mercenaries and terrorists and the rules there are mighty strict. Counter terrorism honcho Lee Van Cleef wants to put them out of business. But Norris has to have and gets a personal reason for getting the job done.A little bit of Eugene O'Neill's self analysis and introspection dialog is done by Norris in voice overs. Believe me it worked a lot better in Strange Interlude.Enough action for any martial arts fan here.

Previously to this film, the only other Chuck Norris movie that I'd viewed from this period had been AN EYE FOR AN EYE. This was a fast-paced action movie, with lots of martial arts and even the added bonus of having Christopher Lee as a villain. I automatically assumed this film was a typical early '80s Chuck Norris movie, and that others from the period would be the same. As I had enjoyed it a lot, I immediately bought this two-for-one tape containing THE OCTAGONand A FORCE OF ONE. I sat down, looking forward to a fun night's viewing...and the rest is outlined below. I can only hope that A FORCE OF ONE is more enjoyable.THE OCTAGON is a very dumb, poorly-made action movie. Among the worst I've ever watched, at least up until the action climax. I consider myself as having a high tolerance for rubbish of this variety, but even I have to draw a line somewhere. Maybe it's just the transfer I have, but THE OCTAGON suffers from poor picture quality (so it's difficult to see what's going on) and terrible sound volume. You know, when you can't hear what they're saying but when you turn it up a loud action scene comes on blaring out and you have to turn it down again.The confusing plot starts off with a murder occurring for no apparent reason, with Norris conveniently hanging around to fight off the assailants. The screen is 90% black here, so it's impossible to make out much of what's going on. We learn about a secret training centre in the woods, run by an old Chinese guy and another man who really, really wants to be Bruce Lee. One guy who tries to leave dies when a shuriken is thrown through his neck. This doesn't have much to do with the rest of the plot, though.Unfortunately for us, Norris meets and falls in with a female.. reporter? I can't even remember who or what she is as she serves no purpose. Also hanging around is a barely-used Lee Van Cleef, complete with an earring, who runs a squad of vigilante killers. Van Cleef doesn't even appear in many of this film's action sequences, and his role is a completely extraneous one. Eventually, after what seems like an eternity, Norris goes undercover to infiltrate the ninjas. He then travels to their base and takes all of them on, causing a revolt at the same time.Well what this movie has is cheap-looking sets, stupid music, and poor acting from the entire cast. Van Cleef looks to be slumming it, Carlson is clumsy and irritating as the female lead, and Norris is his usual wooden self (never thought I'd see an actor who makes Steven Seagal look animated). A character (Norris' partner) who has been hiding around in the background for the entire movie suddenly decides to take justice into his own hands at the end and gets slaughtered. The action throughout the film is fairly typical, nothing to get excited about. It's not even that violent. It's worth watching out for one hilarious scene which has a ninja killer abseiling down a brick wall getting shot and falling to the bottom. The way they filmed it makes it a priceless moment and had me in stitches.Now, the only worthwhile part of this movie is the last twenty minutes, so if you have the misfortune to rent or buy this, fast-forward until here. The ending sees Norris infiltrating the enemy base and fighting a hundred or so ninjas. It's great, it really is. One guy gets kicked in a fire but still tries to fight Norris, burning all the while. They all use these fancy weapons but none of them are a match for Norris' deadly hands and feet. Eventually he has to fight the Bruce Lee-wannabe leader, who just happens to be his estranged brother too. You can guess what happens. In these last twenty minutes, the body count is quite high and there's a lot of action, death, and explosions to enjoy. Sadly these cannot make up for the monumental dullness that the rest of the film has to offer. Avoid it like the plague.

In a world of choices, for one man there is no choice , a hero named Scott James/Chuck Norris must face The Octagon . A martial artist expert (Chuck Norris who sports a bushy mustache in this fourth starring role in a cinema movie of action) must defeat a plan by ninjas to create a worldwide training camp for terrorists . Scott later becomes drawn closer to a vicious crime ring known as The Octagon ruled by Seikira (Yamashita) . Along the way Scott James is helped by Justine (Karen Carlson) , McCarn (Lee Van Cleef) and A. J. (Art Hindle) . At the end takes place a breathtaking combat in arena , an "octagonal training compound of the Ninja cult, a school for terrorists of all types" (the set had a 12' foot perimeter wall and was built north of Los Angeles at a location known as Indian Dunes and spanned the size of an American football field) . Action star Chuck Norris in this exciting picture filled with thrills , tension , suspense and violent as well as spectacular fights with high Body Count : 40 . The movie displays a plethora of martial arts fights , as Norris cleans up the nasty fighters by means of punches , kicks , bounds and leaps with struggles certainly slick . It's violent, frenetic and hectic and not particularly literary but worthy entry in Kung-Fu genre , although runs out energy surprisingly early . Average Norris-thriller , moving and tense at times with fine fight-work from Norris , Yamashita and Richard Norton . Impressive and fierce combats , as Chuck Norris kills eleven bad guys and beats up another twenty-one of them . The film belongs Norris's early period , during the 80s such as : ¨Code of silence¨ ,¨Delta Force¨ ,¨Silent rage¨ , ¨Forced vengeance¨, ¨Delta Force¨ I,II , ¨An eye for an eye¨ , among others with successful box office at cinemas and video-rentals . In the 90s and 2000s with exception of ¨Walker Texas Ranger¨, the Norris star has gone down . Fighting Stars Magazine ranked the climactic fight between Chuck Norris and Tadashi Yamashita as #13 on their list of the 25 greatest fight scenes of all time . A few years after this film was made and released, the word 'Octagon' later became in 1983 the name of a caged enclosure used by mixed martial arts matches and the Ultimate Fighting Championship . Nice production design , cost approximately US $200,000 to blow-up "The Octagon" major arena and fortress set. This was cheaper and more cost efficient than dismantling and disassembling the gigantic construction and taking it away to the dump . First major Ninja picture of the 1980s popular ninja movie cycle which was first released in the 1980 year before Enter the Ninja in 1981 , the 1967 You Only Live Twice and Sam Peckinpah's 1977 film The Killer elite had both previously featured ninja characters . Thrilling screenplay by Paul Aaron , in fact the movie's finale was re-written to make the climax of the film a much bigger pay-off . The movie featured three members of the Norris family in acting roles. These were Chuck Norris , Aaron Norris, and Chuck Norris' character of Scott James at eighteen years of age was portrayed by his real life son Mike Norris . Actor Richard Norton played dual roles in this movie , though he is completely mute and never speaks for the entire picture ; Norton portrayed both the characters of Longlegs and Seikura's enforcer Kyo . The motion picture was regularly directed by Erik Karson . This was debut theatrical feature film directed by Karson , an expert on thrillers and action movies . Action addicts will give this one a passing grade ,all others need not apply . If you're a previous Norris fans ,you'll appeal it but contains enough action and violence for enthusiastic of the Karate genre .

This is a good, all-around movie featuring Chuck Norris. I found the fighting sequences thrilling, the general storyline good, and the background provided about Ninjas just about the correct amount for a viewer to handle (not too much info, not too little). I also thought that the relationship development (what there was) to be fairly adequate for a movie of this genre between Norris & AJ and Norris & Lee Van Cleef. Like I said: In general, this is a good all-around martial-arts movie. I can't wait until this move comes out on DVD. I live in San Jose, and I actually saw Chuck Norris in person at an MMA (mixed martial arts) event in San Jose on March 10 (2006), and it would have been nice to have him sign my DVD disk of The Octagon if it had been available.