nightbird720
Scott Glenn, Toshiro Mifune, Atsuo Nakamura, the list goes on, it's like a whos who of eighties martial arts movies. This movie starts of fast and is a pretty decent ride right up until the end. The first time I saw it it was called "The Sword of the Ninja" and I was about 13 years old but the fact that there were no black clad "ninja" in it didn't disappoint me at all. To top it all off the choreography was done by none other than Steven Seagal before he made it big as an actor and it shows. The end fight in the office building is quite brutal and bloody for an eighties film. Actually, there is quite a bit of gore throughout this movie. I think the final showdown/sword fight between Scott Glen and Atsuo Nakamura is one of the most realistic and well choreographed Japanese sword fights I have ever seen. Nakamura is clearly an expert who "underestimates" the gaijin opponent and Glenn is the American who will do anything including using a stapler to stay alive. I wish this would come out on DVD
el-fast
This film is a Martial-Arts classic!It has all the ingredients of a good martial arts movie in it... yet they turn them into something else. I cannot fathom the reason why it only received 5.5/10. It's outrageous!--==## SPOILERS ##==-- Let's have a look at the film. A low life boxing sparring partner of a champion is frustrated. His technique is a lot better than the skill of the champ, yet he needs to be the mere sparring partner, reasons enough to cut the crap at one time and to beat the champ up and resign.Het gets sucked into the quarrel of two Japanese brothers, one modern, the other traditional Japanese. Here he learns traditional aiki-style martial arts.Yeah... you think you see it coming! The American learns Japanese MA in a three weeks intensive course and beats every Japanese up without effort! And... NOPE he doesn't! He gets beaten up until the very end of the movie! He needs to get himself a gun in order to survive and win... and even then he gets beaten up.Furthermore the movie is especially about the culture shock between Americans and Japanese. You can see clearly how the Japanese know the American ways a LOT better than vice versa. --==## SPOILER END##==--In short: this is one of my all time favorite MA movies and it will always be, no matter what flashy MA movies are released nowadays. I prefer The Challenge above Crouching Pussycat, Hidden Lizard ANYTIME!
Raegan Butcher
I must confess to a particular fondness for thetwo films of John Frankenheimer's that he himself didn't seem to have much affection for: Prophecy(about mutant bears in the woods of Maine) and his one, The Challenge. I remember seeing this in theaters back in '82 and really digging it. The script by John Sayles moves along at a nice clip and Scott Glenn is well cast and well used ( for once) as the down on his luck American boxer who finds himself involved in an age old blood feud between two opposing ways of life in Japan; there is an interesting tension between the good guys and the bad guys: East/West as well as Modern/Traditional. (Clever fellow, that Mr Sayles.)The major character arc for Scott Glenn's American pug is not at all dissimilar to that later adopted by Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai. Not only does this film have one of the last major performances in a western film from that towering figure of Japanese cinema, Toshiro Mifune, but it boasts what remains one of the all-time classic modern sword fights in the climactic showdown in a giant gleaming glass and steel Japanese office building. Scott Glenn and Atsuo Nakamura slash each other to ribbons with samurai swords then resort to stapling each other's faces and shocking each other with severed computer cables during the final battle and it is choreographed, shot and edited, with a snappy sense of kineticism. Bravo to all involved.
garyb513
Not the greatest film ever, but certainly entertaining. I liked Scott Glenn in the role. This is one of those films that the hero has far less than perfect character. Glenn's character is so cynical that he cannot see the dignity and character of Mifune's character right away. His character is not the only one who did not get the Japanese warrior code Bushido. A large part of the movie is about cultural differences.Probably the battle scene at the end made a lot of people lower the score. It was very over the top, and Glenn's character survives by using unconventional tactics. To me, the scene is the the big payoff in the movie.
AD
