Sci-Fighter

Despite the (wooden) family drama and the (half-baked) sci-fi elements, this is essentially a fighting movie, in the style of, say, "Mortal Kombat". The fights are acceptable, but nothing special. The film makes a noble attempt to include a variety of styles (grappling, streetfighting, weapons fighting, "monkey kung fu", etc.), but although all the participants are legitimate martial artists, the director and the choreographers don't get maximum performances out of them. Second and third-billed Cynthia Rothrock and Lorenzo Lamas have one fight each, and Lamas' part is pretty much a cameo; the real second lead after Don "The Dragon" Wilson is Dan Mayid who plays his son, and who is obviously a gifted athlete (and breakdancer!). A lot of cheesy digital effects and some picturesque locations complete the picture....oh, and Rebecca Chaney (The Scorpion) is HOT. Get this girl in more action movies as soon as possible. (**)

Ray Charles did a cracking Job on the choreography!

How does the head set let you perform questionable martial arts moves and dialogue when sat doing nothing???

This movie is kung fu crap.It's campy,corny,cheesy,and just appalling.Anyone who can enjoy the random,badly choreographed,slow paced,ridiculously amateur martial arts fight scenes is clearly off their rocker.The storyline screams bad and the plot barely progresses at all.The unbelievable cheesy storyline involves a martial arts student receiving a video game from his grampa in which he and his father get sucked into they then realize that in order to escape they need to beat all of the fighters in the game.Wasn't this on an episode of something like Kim Possible.Hard to believe but the film actually started out OK but after 15 minutes the film becomes a steaming pile of crap.The dialogue is like taking the dialogue from the Mortal Kombat Films,Power Rangers,3 Ninja's,and the English dubbed version of Japanese anime Naruto and creating a hybrid of them all.Don The Dragon Wilson sucks at acting just like the entire cast of this brutally corny film.Stay as far away as you possibly can from this direct to DVD piece of garbage rent something better instead don't waste your time.

Having knowing some of these people IRL and having taken karate, I really have to fault the director for this one being bad. All of these people are capable of putting better than blue-belt level fights and acting better. It was a nice treat seeing Danny Mayid do his form at the end, it's just a shame he couldn't come out of his shell anymore in his intro film. It looked like a safe, conservative karate movie where the insurance didn't cover the level of fights that people expect. I've seen better in karate class and on demo teams.

Sorry if I offended any of the actors with this, because this was clearly not their fault.

-James

Widowed father Jack Tanaka (Don 'the Dragon' Wilson) feels that his son Brad is drifting from him. After catching his son drinking one sip of beer at a party, he grounds him for a week. The grandfather makes a custom virtual reality game in hopes of bringing the father and son closer together again. But when Brad get stuck in the game Jack has to follow him in and save him. No, it's not a exceptionally good film, but what the hell were you thinking when you rented a film starring The Dragon? Hamlet? I didn't think so. If you like Don, you probably will like this one , all others steer clear.

My Grade: D+ (would be higher if it didn't have the Monkeyman in it)