The Collectors

This movie was fun to watch for personal reasons. For one, my taekwondo teacher plays an extra and it was a kick to see him beaten so easily in the movie. For such a low budget film it was surprisingly well done. And while I found much of the fight choreography a bit contrived, there are still quite a few innovative stand-up sequences to be seen, featuring some of the biggest names in the Utah martial arts community in various styles including taekwondo, capoeira, muay thai, karate and jujuitsu.

The story revolves around former kickboxer Logan Despain, a bitter young man, paralyzed from the waist down. After trying out a virtual reality type fighting game, Logan finds himself pitted against an onslaught of kung-fu brawlers including "the collectors" themselves. (think about a cross between Agent Smith from "the Matrix" and Vin Diesel times two)

While the movie is consistently action packed, it takes a number of well placed time outs (in the form of flashbacks) to tell a heartfelt story with a moral. Aside from stylized martial arts violence, there is virtually no offensive material to be found in the film. The DVD includes commentaries, out-takes and promos for various martial arts schools. Like I said, it's low budget and laughable at times, but it was fun to watch and never boring.