Art of Submission

Submission, err, Red Canvas or Art of Submission released in 2009, or 2012, or, oh, forget it, all the same movie. This is a MMA action/drama movie centering around the plight of a young adult who wants to train to be a mixed martial arts star. Of course, he is in troubled times and the movie attempts to juggle the action with the drama but falls short on it. The tempo switching in this movie is often too random to hold the audiences attention, while debating if this is a tear-jerker, or just a beat 'em up flick. The fighting sequences at times are very well done, and other times, just plain silly. Ernie Reyes Jr. does a decent job acting as the main character, often being forced to shift gears from a apprehensive heavy to a sentimental person of the film quite quickly. Ving Rhames (big fan of) plodded through this movie, seemingly unconvinced of why he was there. I may have been a bit more sold on this movie had it not been the length of it. By the films finale, I just felt more or less like "get it over already" so I will. 3.9/10

Art of Submission is not only a great movie for UFC fans but contains many family relationships which the whole family can enjoy and relate too. The relationship between Johnny and his father unfolds, develops and grows through out the movie until the final scenes. An excellent performance by Mario Alonso (Johnny's mother). With the back drop of Las Vegas, under the superb directing of Ken Chamitoff and Adam Boster actors Ernie Reyes Junior, Sarah Downing, Ving Rhames and John Savage come together to make a heart warming story come to life. The struggle between failure and redemption through the venue of UFC is truly inspiring for parents and children of all ages. The excellent choreography of legendary martial arts Ernie Reyes makes for exciting fight scenes. A great film for the whole family. Thoroughly recommend.

I am rarely tempted to review a movie, but in this case I am willing to stick my neck out.

Although this movie had me watching until the end, it was with a good deal of frustration. I am a one-time martial artist and a keen fight spectator, and in my opinion, the fight scenes in this movie were not (for the most part) up to snuff. I'm not saying that the fighters were amateurs, it was the choreography that annoyed me. Many of the moves and techniques seemed to be used simply for the looks, and not for authenticity. Without going into specifics (I don't want to give away spoilers) the were a lot of very poor choices of hold/grapple/blow that you simply would not see in real competition. The very experienced Ernie Reyes Sr. dropped the ball on this one.

Another bug-bear was the music being that it was way too loud in some places, actually drowning out the dialogue, and inappropriate in other places.

Having said all that, I thought the acting was good for the most part, and in particular one scene featuring John Savage and Ki Reyes (Oscar), which had my partner tearing up.

In summary, I would not recommend this for anyone who just wants to see an MMA movie, and also not for the hard of hearing:) I'd rather rent 'Redbelt' or 'Never back down'.

This movie had great action scenes on par with any best selling film. The music and storyline were hard hitting and it was hard not to root for the underdog. Real life is hard and messy and that is portrayed here.

If you have really seen this movie you know that it has some excellent martial arts fighting. It's about time you see some real good triumph over evil.

Some of us know what it is to hit bottom before we can even consider looking up for help. Everyone needs some hope at the end of the day though.

Art of Submission is an absolutely brilliant MMA Martial Arts thriller which is just absolutely amazing and awesome. This film has some real In your face high powered MMA fighting that'll just blow your head off. The film has scenes with good looking and sexy girls in it, high powered MMA fighting, it also is a film which is tense, pretty violent and has lots more. The film also has some absolutely brilliant acting by Ving Rhames as Gene, Ernie Reyes Jr as Johnny Sanchez, Maria Conchita Alonso as Maria Sanchez, Sara Downing as Julia, John Savage as Harbin Rask, Gray Maynard as Torch and George Takei as the greedy Krang. The fight scenes were just absolutely awesome and I was amazed with Johnny Sanchezs strength and power all the way before the final fight against Torch. Johnny Sanchez was just absolutely amazing and I just loved watching him fight using his excellent strength and power. I don't know why this film was given such a low score of 4.4/10, it's completely unfair and should have been given a much higher score. When I first started watching the film and saw fight scenes and scenes with Johnny and Julia together, I was going to give this film an 8 which is very good, but as the film went on it got better and better, the fight scenes were absolutely brilliant, the unity and close chemistry amongst the Sanchez family was absolutely brilliant and I thought about it and decided i'm going to give this film 10/10 because it is an absolutely brilliant film. All the acting by the other actors such as the people who played the other members of the Sanchez family etc was also absolutely brilliant. Ving Rhames acting as Gene was absolutely awesome and I loved watching him act in this film and Ernie Reyes Jrs acting as Johnny Sanchez was also absolutely awesome and I also loved watching him in this film.