That was an excellent one.

Absolutely Fantastic

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Not because of similar plots, but because of the similar way that a) it's clearly for teens and b)I really don't understand what the plot is, I was reminded of the movie City Limits. There's a ninja Fight Club thing going on, and I can see them ninja-ing in the dark to the detriment of their studies and health, but I haven't a clue why they are. There's a drug dealer and some other daytime sports scenes with a coach who gives me a creepy peek-at-the-boys-in-the-shower vibe (though I don't think that's part of the plot), a chronically angry "good teacher," a made-for-TV drug dealer, and a guy in a wheelchair ... but these details don't all add up to anything that makes sense. I have a suspicion that the director said to his buddy, "Hey, we have access to a bar, a school, and an abandoned factory next month. Let's make a movie!" and then tried to come up with a plot to fit those locations. I think they needed an extra month on that script.This gets a star for being a baby-faced Kidman's first role--and really, none of the actors are terrible, but 50% of my stars go to the music, a sort of no-particular-decade rock that I thought was pretty good. Had I been 16 and Australian in 1987, I would have wanted the soundtrack.

I just bought a DVD player, and this was one of the free movies thoughtfully supplied with it. Very interesting movie with a young 20 year old Nicole Kidman playing Robby's girlfriend Amy Gabriel who caught on to Steve early in the movie when she saw him and Guy exchanging money for drugs and it almost cost her life for finding that out. The real star in the movie is Tom Jennings who was both strong and sensitive, what ever happened to him?, in his part of Robby Madson. In the end Robby had to face the truth, as well as the fists and kicks, of the person he looked up to for so long. Robby battles Steve in the abandoned warehouse that he and Steve's students practice on their Ninja/Karate skills that Steve thought them at the end of the film. The movie is hard to follow due to the very dark photography in it making it very difficult to tell who's who in the very thrilling fight sequence between Robby and Steve at the conclusion of the film but if you give it a chance and overlook that you may very well like it.

***SPOILERS*** Futueristic movie about a number of Austrailien collage students playing Ninja games all night then attending karate/physical classes at 5:AM and by the time they go to their regular classes are too knocked out to really learn anything. Their karate instructor Steve Beck, Vince Martin,has a very strong grip on the students to the point of almost killing themselves in their Ninja night games to impress him. Steve's best student and his biggest admirer is young Robby Mason, Tom Jennings, who Steve is guiding to the champion karate/boxing finals.A very impressionable young man Robby lost his father at an early age and Steve was the perfect father-figure that he needed so badly at this time. One of Robby's teachers Sonia Spane, Joanne Samuel,is very concerned by her students, especially Robby, being so infatuated with Steve. Sonia knows some things about Steve, by being his former lover, that they don't and those thing can be fatal to both the students as well as Steve.A highly decorated war veteran Steve is the only survivor of his army unit and has developed very deep emotional as well as psychical scares to the point where he can show no human feelings other then anger and violence to hide the fact he was the only one to survive. Steve put all this violence and aggression into his karate/boxing classes and Sonia sees that those students who are so impressed by Steve are slowly turning into the violent and brutal person that Steve is. Steve also developed a drug habit in the army and is being supplied with his daily dose by local drug dealer and all around sleaze ball Guy Duncan, Craig Pearce, who also is blackmailing him. Sonia trying to get Robby away from Steve before he's caught up with Steve's secret life that can destroy him as well as Steve. As hard as she tries Sonia can't budge Robby away from his hero worshiping of Steve and it took an incident the night of the big karate/boxing Champiship that Robby was to participate in that finally open his eyes to just what kind of person Steve really is.Very interesting movie with a young 20 year old Nicole Kidman playing Robby's girlfriend Amy Gabriel who caught on to Steve early in the movie when she saw him and Guy exchanging money for drugs and it almost cost her life for finding that out. The real star in the movie is Tom Jennings who was both strong and sensitive, what ever happened to him?, in his part of Robby Madson. In the end Robby had to face the truth, as well as the fists and kicks, of the person he looked up to for so long. Robby battles Steve in the abandoned warehouse that he and Steve's students practice on their Ninja/Karate skills that Steve thought them at the end of the film. The movie is hard to follow due to the very dark photography in it making it very difficult to tell who's who in the very thrilling fight sequence between Robby and Steve at the conclusion of the film but if you give it a chance and overlook that you may very well like it.

Have you ever had one of those dreams where you seem to know everybody around and all the places you were at, but somehow it didn't match up? For instance, you're at the Raiders game with your grandmother and a drug dealer and you're singing Christmas carols. Doesn't quite go together very well.That is what this movie is like. I couldn't tell if the characters were at their school, martial arts gymnastics dojo or some big boiler room or if they were all the same place. At one point I got the distinct feeling that I was in the Cobra Kai dojo from the Karate Kid.The lack of any plot, it seems, makes this movie totally uninteresting in even the slightest manner.I do realize that this review doesn't make much sense, but that is because this movie makes no sense either. It's just hard to explain.I did, however, watch a young Nicole Kidman pretty closely. She looked so different and yet, still just as recognizable. She definitely has "It", even at such a young age. She is the only thing that kept this movie from being unwatchable.Even despite Kidman, I give this movie 3 stars out of 10. Not recommended at all.