Granted it's been 20+ years since I've seen this film but I still laugh to myself from time to time at the random memory of that scene ending with a kid (who gets no screen time otherwise) running into the room whining about his dream. And the scene just ends. It doesn't mean anything or go anywhere. It's as though the child actor ran into the shot when he wasn't supposed to and the dubbing people put something in his mouth to make it make sense. It's one of those moments of bizarre ineptitude that make this film stick and fester in the subconscious like a brain tumor, even years on end.
The rest of the movie is nothing more than a straight-forward KARATE KID knockoff. Hadn't De Angelis already produced AND directed no less than 6 KARATE WARRIOR films in a row? You'd think he'd have been sick to death of the formula at this point but he just kept cranking them out. I guess a job's a job? Italian films, particularly these early 90's ones shot in Miami, just kept getting worse and worse. Between this an THE FIRST ACTION HERO, 1994's highlight reel read for them of a pedigree barely above student films and on a tier below Hallmark TV movies.
Sarah Brooks, though pretty, exhibits zero acting talent or athleticism as a rollerblader who gets lackadaisically raped by a bunch of motorcycle creeps. She then learns martial arts to get back at them I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE-style, but the final battle is anything but satisfying or impressive. There's barely even any cheesy laughs, but lots of flacid editing that cuts around any true martial arts mastery rather than celebrate it. The film handles the heavy theme of innocence lost with the finesse of a bull operating on a brain cancer patient with his hooves in a china shop. Worth watching only for the truly dire child acting with unconvincing dubbing desperately attempting to cover it up!
