User reviews

A former cop named... no, not Joe Smith or Jim Jones, but... Tiger Sharp (Michael Sopkiw), retires to the country side. He meets some local rednecks led by Tom (George Eastman) and doesn't like the way they are hunting animals, just to sell some parts to China for medicine production. When they kill his pet, he beats them up, and that's just the beginning of their troubles. Tiger Sharp is joined by Connie (Valentina Forte), a daughter he hasn't seen or cared about for many years, but when the rednecks kill her, Tiger Sharp gets out a very big gun with a great selection of powerful ammo to blast all the bad guys to kingdom come, one man against a whole army...

The sources of inspiration are obvious, "First Blood" meets "Deliverance" - "Blastfighter" was even shot at some of the same locations. But it's all created with good craftsmanship for the fans who like the genre. Sopkiw, who starred only in 4 pictures before he retired from the movies, is a cool action hero here. Flawless (violent) entertainment provided by director Lamberto Bava.

The always fun to watch Michael Sopkiw stars in this highly enjoyable action yarn. In it he plays an ex police officer who having just been released from an eight year prison sentence, now seeks the solitude of the great outdoors. However, with a film title such as Blastfighter, you can bet your bum that solitude is a luxury that our hero won't be attaining.

Sure enough he finds himself in a heated dispute with some local rednecks who repeatedly antagonise him after he attempts to interfere with their cruel deer poaching activities. This initial antagonising eventually escalates to attempted murder and later on, the actual murder of one of our hero's friends plus our hero's estranged daughter's boyfriend (whoa, that was quite a mouthful!)

Matters reach a dramatic peek when the daughter herself is also killed thus finally sending our hero over the edge..... It is at this point that in true Rambo style he takes drastic action and basically kills every one of the scumbags! To aid him with this joyous task our man utilises a rather nifty shotgun that fires multiple projectiles such as explosives, smoke grenades, darts etc. (COOL!!!)

The climax of the picture has our hero up against the legendary George Eastman who plays the BIG brother of the head redneck.

What can I say, this is a really satisfying movie with some stunning location shooting and in addition, plenty of shooting of the ammunition kind!

Sopkiw gives probably his best performance and makes for a very sympathetic hero. It's such a shame that he retired as an actor after only four films.

If there is one criticism I would level at the film however, then it is that although the special weapon our hero carries is supposedly the main draw of this film (as regards the advertising at least) it is only actually used proper in the final 15 or so minutes of the running time. In addition, despite a fair number of cool explosions, these final scenes are not handled as spectacularly as perhaps one might have hoped for (although the scene where our hero blows off a mans arm at point blank range is pretty awesome!)

Still, as a whole, as I previously said, this is solidly entertaining stuff and I wholeheartedly recommend it to all serious action fans.

....Now where can I get one of those guns from?

Next to DEMONS this is probably director Lamberto Bava's best film. Having just been released from prison for a crime he didn't commit, leading man Michael Sopkiw just wants peace and quiet in the wilderness. But wouldn't you know it, as soon as he pulls into the town trouble arises in the forms of lowlifes with manners and tact all but absent. They give Michael static and while he tries not to fight back you just know that something is going to make him snap and get even with these small town hooligans and their sadistic ways.(Check out Michael's super tricked out futuristic(?) rifle. This is just a very entertaining film to watch, especially with friends. The soundtrack is amazing as well containing a driving instrumental and a warbles country & western tune.

I saw this one for the first time back in 1989 at the age of twelve. What a rush it was and love at first sight so to say. Blastfighter manage to serve us really good actionscenes for its time and keeps the excitement all the way to end credits. Michael Sopkiw got potential to be something more than he became, but as we all know, the moviebusiness can be very tough. Blastfighter remain a good b-action flick for many viewers, but for me a little more than that. This movie will be linked to nice childhood memories and for me it is a true action classic.

saw this movie way back in 1987 when I was in Greece. I thought it was a great revenge action movie. Sopkiw did a neat job as Tiger Sharp. Quite surprising why he hasn't featured in any movies after that !! Change of profession ?? Sopkiw as Tiger Sharp returns from Jail after 8 years after killing his wife's murderer. He tries to lead a quiet life when he stumbles upon a group of deer poachers who kill deers for a Kingpin from Hongkong who use the kill to prepare oriental drugs. This kingpin turns out to be Sharp's friend. This anger's him more. To make things worse, his daughter is killed by the poachers and Sharp goes berserk and pulls out the gun from under the porch given to him by his friend and quenches his revenge by killing them all !! A great revenge stories. I am sure the Indians will love this movie.

Having watched "Blastfighter", I can now proudly say for myself that I've seen the entire repertoire of lead actor Michael Sopkiw. Not that this is such an exhausting or praiseworthy accomplishment, as this peculiar macho star only ever appeared in four movies, but they are nevertheless rare and offbeat highlights in the category of shameless early 80's Italian exploitation cinema. Sopkiw's career was quite bizarre, because he only played four leading roles and then completely disappeared from the film industry, but the movies he did are forever printed in my head and all still rank high in my list of personal guilty pleasures. "After the Fall of New York" and "Massacre in Dinosaur Valley" are his two most superior achievements, whereas the double feature he shot with director Lamberto Bava is putrid but tremendously amusing cheese-material! "Monster Shark" is a daft and utterly retarded "Jaws" rip-off and this "Blastfighter" is an outrageously inane travesty of the Sylvester Stallone vehicle "Rambo". This is an incredibly askew and misfire of an action flick; hilariously entertaining for all the wrong reasons. The screenplay is incoherent and full of holes big enough to rush a reasonably large bobsled through, the inept dialogs make you go "WTF?" every couple of minutes and the overuse of typically 80's syrupy chansons is mildly infuriating. We open with Sopkiw's character – awesomely named Tiger Sharp, ha – walking out of prison after doing his eight years of time for murdering his wife's murderer. Why his wife died or in what sort of scandal Tiger got involved eight years ago we never find out. We just knew he was a cop in the Bronx and now he returns to his hillbilly-infested hometown somewhere in Arizona. At least I think it's in Arizona, because that annoying theme song repeatedly sings something about "Sunset across the Arizonian border". Anyway, Tiger promptly gets into conflict with a bunch of redneck lumberjacks led by the crazed brother of Tiger's former best friend Tom. George "Anthropophagous" Eastman depicts Tom and I truly, madly, deeply adore this guy! Tiger then receives a visit from his teenage daughter Connie (although it takes an awful long time before he realizes she's his offspring) and it looks as if he finally found some peace and quiet in his chaotic existence. But the vendetta with the rednecks escalates, and Tiger is unwillingly forced again to dust off his multifunctional machine gun. Watching "Blastfighter" is an indescribable experience and I only address myself towards fans of Italian exploitation cinema, because all the other 'normal' movie lovers are likely to label this as the worst movie ever made. Don't get me wrong, it IS one of the worst movies ever made but also amateurishly charming, irresistibly cheesy and the ideal piece of junk to watch together with friends. Every slightest aspect about this movie is unintentionally zany, like the wannabe sentimental moments with the Bambi deer, the "Deliverance" homage near the beginning, the continuously straight-faced acting performances, the exaggerated showcasing of hillbilly clichés, the copious amount of action sequences that look identical to "Rambo", the seemingly unceasing number of hostile lumberjacks that our hero is up against, the demented father/daughter interactions and the totally bonkers final confrontation with Tom. Michael Sopkiw is a handsome (kind of resembling Franco Nero) and reasonably talented actor and he probably deserved better than to star in trash like this. I can't possibly afford to grant a positive rating to "Blastfighter", but rest assured it's an entertaining and highly recommended film!

(I revise my rating from 4 to 6--I looked at this movie again four years later on Blu-ray, and whether I was in a better mood or the upgraded print quality made a difference, it seemed much more fun than before in an admittedly derivative, trashy way.)

Other commenters here have compared this to "Rambo," and it did come out early in the cycle of cheap Rambo imitations. But it's at least as much like "Walking Tall," in that the upstanding ornery cop (or ex-cop in this case) moves to a small hick town and immediately runs afoul of the good-old-boy louts running amuck there. His long-lost daughter shows up uninvited, and when the bullies kill one of her friends, they spend the rest of the movie's second more "Rambo"-like half stalking father and daughter through the surrounding wilderness in order to eliminate the remaining witnesses.

This is fairly well-paced but not as much fun as you might hope. The dubbed dialogue is sort of funny-it's the usual bad Italian approximation of what Americans sound like, read by actors sporting very hokey "redneck" accents-but the film is an adequate, earnest "B" rather than luridly ridiculous and entertaining in the mode of many later "Rambo" knockoffs or 80s Italian exploitation films in general. Nor is the action or violence very memorable.

My favorite exploitation actor George Eastman aka Luigi Montefiori turns up playing the main villain's sympathetic older brother, a much more low-key role than usual for him and not a very interesting one. Michael Sopkiw, the U. S. actor who was never able to parlay his stardom in these early-80s Italian movies into an American career, is handsome (here with a big Marlboro Man 'stache) and agreeable-enough as usual.

Anyway, it's an OK time-killer but nothing special. Lamberto Bava does a decent job, but his 80s giallos and "Demon" movies are more memorable.

Fans of the period will enjoy the disco-synthy score, though the fact that the film actually was shot in the U. S. (Georgia) makes it less obviously a European imitation of an American movie than most similar Italian enterprises around the same time. By the way, the irrelevant title was originally intended for a science-fiction movie that the funding fell through for. I guess some marketing materials had already been prepared, so to save costs they kept the title when the entire project was changed into this less-expensive rural action thriller.

Adequate cheese ball entertainment should prove to be somewhat interesting for any fan of Lamberto Bava, son of Italian filmmaking maestro Mario Bava. Lamberto filmed all exteriors Stateside, in this tale of ex-cop "Tiger" Sharp (Michael Sopkiw, "Massacre in Dinosaur Valley"). Tiger has just gotten out of prison for his revenge-killing of the man who murdered his wife. Now he's trying to live a normal life, but he will soon be approached by Connie (Valentina Forte, "Cut and Run"), the daughter that he hasn't seen in ages. He makes enemies out of a bunch of mentally challenged redneck hunters, especially Wally (Stefano Mingardo), brother of Tigers' friend Tom (Italian genre & exploitation icon George Eastman).

The title seems to suggest something at least slightly futuristic, but that is not the case. This is more a tale of a private war in a woodsy setting; ultimately, the finale strongly echoes "First Blood". The only thing remotely futuristic is the title weapon, something that definitely earns the adjective "badass". It can fire just about anything, it seems. But it doesn't come into play until the final 10 minutes of the movie.

"Blastfighter" is rough going for a while - it's a loud, sometimes chaotic, sometimes incoherent mess of a movie. It sort of improves as it goes along, and the characters become more engaging. The actors on screen are fine; also among them are future director Michele Soavi ("Stagefright", "Cemetery Man") and stuntman / actor Ottaviano Dell'Acqua ("Rats: Night of Terror"). Sopkiw is a decent B movie hero, handsome and rugged, and Eastman is always good value. But the people doing the dubbed-in American voices tend to be over the top, especially the gal doing Fortes' voice. It renders her character rather annoying.

Overall, it shows you an amusing enough time, with a fun electronic score by Fabio Frizzi ("Zombi 2"), and a particularly lively finish that features explosions aplenty.

Five out of 10.

Lamberto Bava's best film so far plays like a variation of Deliverance and First Blood. For the first half of the movie, it remains in doubt rather Sopkiw is going to strike back at a huge passel of harassing rednecks. The scriptwriters here seemed to know what we wanted and made the movie flow accordingly. You can watch the film, hate a character, say whether he lives or dies, and you'll be pretty much correct. All in all this film packs a whallop, with a good Claudio Simonetti score (same as the score in MASSACRE IN DINOSAR VALLEY). The characters likable enough (except Sopkiw's LOAD daughter) and the climax was suitably exciting and violent. Basically the two hicks in DELIVERANCE here are replaced with 500 hicks, 90% of whom die in violent explosive ways. A good movie, lots of goods, not much to complain about. There were a lot of references to EVIL DEAD, such as the fact that Sopkiw drove the same model car, lived in a similar wooden shack in the woods, and even was made up to look like Bruce Campbell! Find this movie if you can.

Italian Cinema from the 1970s onwards is littered with examples of rip-offs of big-budget Hollywood productions, from THE GODFATHER (1972) to THE EXORCIST (1973) and from JAWS (1975) to DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978); this one here is, believe it or not, a lamentable attempt at a FIRST BLOOD (1982) clone! To start things off, leading man Michael Sopkiw hardly has the adequate physique to survive some of the harder ordeals he goes through in this film and his character is made even less interesting than Stallone's John Rambo by having him a disgraced police officer with a teenage daughter who eventually tags on for the wild ride with her fiancée' and her father's pal!! What is this - shades of DELIVERANCE (1972), now? Incidentally, the backward kid in that film's celebrated "Duellin' Banjos" sequence also makes a cameo appearance here very early in the film (as does the camera equipment, twice, in a poorly-executed car chase towards the end)!

Anyway, predictably, Sopkiw is left all alone before long and he exacts a terrible revenge on his increasing horde of trigger-happy pursuers via his ultra-sophisticated multipurpose rifle which, unfortunately for the viewer, he only decides to use ten minutes before the end credits!! Euro-Cult staple George Eastman plays Sopkiw's old hunting buddy whose younger brother (along with his beer-guzzling cronies) is causing all the mayhem. What this film does have that makes it stand out ever so slightly is its unusual (for its time) pro-ecological stance since the trouble literally starts over the merciless mistreatment and exploitation of deers and the wildlife in general by the greedy, ignorant rednecks.

My review was written in December 1985 after watching the film on Vestron video cassette.

"Blastfighter" is a routine action picture, filmed in Georgia in 1983 by Italian filmmakers. Unreleased theatrically, it is now available Stateside in home video format.

Yank actor Michael Sopkiw (of "After the Fall of New York") toplines as Tiger, a cop on the Atlanta police force just released from a lengthy prison term for killing the thug who murdered his wife and partner (but couldn't be proved guilty in court).

Returning to his small hometown in Georgia, Tige soon runs afoul of th young Good Ole Boys tere, who are mistreating animals -they hunt deer and other forest denizens but do not kill them, delivering them seriously wounded to a local Hong Kong-derived merchant who requires live animals to fabricate medicine and aphrodisiacs from their innards. Tiger tries to run the H. K. dude out of town and stop the cruelty to animals, but as a result the heavie kill his pet deer and terrorize him.

Matters deteriorate further when Tiger i hiking in the woods with his grownup daughter and two friends -the locals kill the friends and later shoot down his daughter, precipitating a fight-to-the-death climax. Film's title derives from a high-tech rifle Tiger uses in the final reel, which blasts out fireballs rather than conventional ammunition.

Cast is personable, especially Sopkiw and Valerie Blake as his attractive, feisty daughter, but the crudely postsynched dialog stamps this effort as an Italian import rather than an All-American picture. Dumb, inconclusive ending involving a shootout between Sopkiw and Italian thesp Geroger Eatman (duo previously teamed in "After the Fall of New York") is very disappointing.

Oddest touch here, perhaps a first, is a pseudonym used for the director's credit. Lamberto Bava helmed the picture, but is credited as "John Old, Jr."; his late father Mario Bava occasionally used the Anglicized name John Old with the fake moniker apparently handed down.

It's really a shame, came and went actor, Michael Sopkiw, didn't continue to make films. So cool, and bristling with hero masculinity, he had great screen charisma, and could act, it seems such a waste, if only being known for a string of small Italian exploitation, and shockploitation (if you include 'Masacre In Dinosaur Valley' ) efforts. Blastfighter, a tide dull, but on the whole, a decent made film, with a whole lot of action, just supports this fact, of Sopkiw's departure from the screen. Here's the avenging do right, an ex cop, just out of prison, for doing his wife's killer, and back in his content retreat in the mountains. His daughter shows up, wanting to connect with him, where at first, it's a mystery to who she is, as just crashing Sopkiw's pad. Against the illegal utilization of body parts frpm buthered deer, for capital gain, Sopkiw gets on the wrong side of a group of townfolk, involved in the bustling, lucrative enterprise, by crashing their scene, and one thing of course of leads to adnother. Blastfighter can be admired for it's decent film making, and isn't a half bad show, but is really nothing impressive. A 90 minute run. Felt a long time here. Sopkiw's best friend, also happens to be the brother of one of his hunting nemesis's, an angle which I liked. I wouldn't rush out to watch Blastfighter again, but an 80's actioner worth a look. Enough said.

I'm not really sure who is liking this movie? It plain bad, not the good kind of bad I was hoping for, just regular bad.

The acting is the best part.

The dialogue, wow lol, simply wow!

Some amusing action bits in the last 10 minutes save this from a 1.

Before there was "John Wick", there was "Blastfighter"? I mean, they killed his adopted doe, and the guy went on a murderous spree in the likeness of the John Wick character.

Jokes aside, then I had never actually seen, nor even heard about this 1984 movie "Blastfighter" from writers Lamberto Bava, Luca De Rita, Massimo De Rita, Morando Morandini Jr. And Dardano Sacchetti, prior to sitting down to watch it for the first time in 2023.

Now, I wasn't really impressed with what director Lamberto Bava delivered. Sure, the movie was watchable, but it was hardly a gem in the cinema history. So I hadn't been missing out on anything grand here by not having seen "Blastfighter" before now in 2023. The storyline in the movie was fair enough, and made the movie adequately watchable, though it wasn't a particularly outstanding movie experience.

The acting performances in the movie were fair enough. I mean, it wasn't a movie that was heavy on the thespian skills of the actors and actresses on the cast list, so you're not in for an evening of Shakespearian theater here. But then again, with a title such as "Blastfighter", would you assume that you were? I wasn't familiar with the cast.

While "Blastfighter" was watchable, it is hardly a movie that warrants more than a single viewing. If you haven't already seen "Blastfighter", don't rush out and turn every stone looking for a hardcopy of it. Trust me, the movie just isn't that great.

My rating of "Blastfighter" lands on a four out of ten stars.

I am not usually a big fan of action movies. That is, American action movies. Being a fan of Italian horror films, I was attracted to this film because of the director, Lamberto Bava. This was fun movie to watch, and kinda funny to-

unintentionally. It was funny to see the Italian take on American rednecks from Georgia- did a pretty good job of it, but very much a caricature of rednecks. I don't want to spoil it, but there is a lot of over the top situations where the viewer will say, "they wouldn't do that!", or "that wouldn't ever happen!". But that is the joy of watching films, to see things that couldn't or wouldn't happen in real life.

This is almost a cliché' for a action movie from the 80s. Explosions, big guns, and a sweaty dirty hero. I had to pick up a DVD-R from somebody, I don't believe that this is distributed by any company at the moment- in the US at least.

Lamberto Bava; a director often passed off as merely the trash-making son of one of cinema's finest directors, and Michael Sopkiw; a memorable actor that makes a big impression every time he's on screen; even though he unfortunately wasn't on screen all that often. The pairing of these two might have been considered a match made in heaven if only they didn't make the awful Devil Fish together earlier in the same year. Instead of ripping off Jaws, this time they've decided to rip off action films; particularly, it would seem, Rambo, and the result is better; albeit it still not without problems. The plot focuses on a former cop named Jake 'Tiger' Sharp (I can only hope that isn't a tribute to the Bava/Sopkiw Jaws rip-off), a former cop who went down for murdering his wife's murderer. He gets back into town and quickly strikes up a war with a dumb bunch of deer hunters whose hunting more closely resembles slaughter. It's not long before the relationship between the ex-cop and the hunters take a turn for the worse when a man is killed.

As is the case with the other three movies starring Michael Sopkiw; he is the best thing about the film. He stars alongside George Eastman and the two provide good examples of rugged action men. The problem with Sopkiw is, however, that it's really very hard to take him seriously; and that does impact on the movie more than just a little bit. As is often the case with cheap action movies; the dialogue here often verges on ridiculous, and while that suits the lead actor very well; it doesn't suit everyone in the film and sometimes it's downright cringe-worthy. The title is more than a little bit misleading too; from the title, I was expecting something more along the lines of futuristic shooting movie; so beware if that's what you're going in looking for! I can't say that the plot or any of the characters hold much weight and really I didn't care much about most of what goes on in the film; but the macho posturing and general fighting is at least entertaining and that's really all you can ask for in a movie like this. Overall, considering how rare this film is; I wouldn't say it's worth going out of your way for it, but it is at least worth a look.

They obviously ain't seen BLASTFIGHTER then cuz this is one kick ass flick we got here! Made the same year as his equally lightning-paced film DEMONS, and featuring the exact same Claudio Simonetti score used in MASSACRE IN DINOSAUR VALLEY (a film I highly recommend BTW), Blastfighter is a hot little piece of celluloid. Genre favorite Michael Sopkiw (AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK) is here as the hero who seeks revenge on the redneck bullies who killed his daughter and ruined his life. Also, Joe D'Amato reg George Eastman co-stars doin' what he does best: playing a bad guy. Here, he actually has speaking lines! There's lots of action, a good storyline with a fair amount of suspense and drama, and of course loads of gory violence toward the end. Now, after seeing this, is L. Bava really as bad as most say? I think not. You might be very well surprised.

Scenic locations and great action really make this italian entry into the Hicksploitation genre stand out. It's somewhat reminscent of Rambo: First Blood, but I actually like it better than that movie. Micheal Sopkiw really shows his talent as a versitile action star here. See it along with After the fall of New York and Massacre in Dinosaur Valley to really get a sense of Sopkiw's talents.

How many movies were inspired by the horror classic "the most dangerous game" ?Even such recent works as Gibson's "Apocalypto" were . This one is not worse than the others ,and if the two leads had shown more emotion ,had they "played" ,it could have been even endearing.As an action movie ,it's moderately entertaining ,with a hackneyed screenplay -just one thing "happens" which would not generally happen in this kind of superman flick-And it's after "it " happens that the movie has nothing more in store for the viewer.Well filmed in nice landscapes which recall " Deliverance" another movie "blastfighter" borrows from.And the same horrible cliché that claims that country people are savage uneducated brutes.

Well so far from what i've seen of him, i'd say yes. Earnest actionsploitation with a great setting, an engaging story and all those other things you want from the Italians. One of those few action films that actually lives up to it's promo art.