FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Console best movie i've ever seen.

Howlin Wolf I'm not here to criticise the movie for being bad (I was expecting it to be bad before I watched it) These are just a few observations about how it compares to the general template of a standard martial arts movie:The film isn't exactly bursting with great performances, but the head of the family (played by Timothy D Baker) really takes the cake... Some of the worst acting I've ever seen! (which actually makes McKinney look bad when he appears, too, and that's not fair... I mean he's certainly no great shakes, but compared to his screen father, he's near genius level!)For a film where the main conflict is supposed to be about fighting, the film certainly spends an awful lot of time going out of its way NOT to show any fighting... This was a disappointment to me, because it's surely the primary reason why any combat fan would watch a martial arts film. Did we really need to see so much of the black kid dancing and cruising the 80's club scene, like he's on some audition for another Saturday Night Fever sequel?! It felt seriously out of place to me, and only left me wishing that the film would hurry up and get back to the main mechanics of a traditional revenge/self-improvement story.It's a little contrived when the gangster villains manage to turn up at the Martial Arts School, too - but whatever; it's just to set up the main fight, and I guess it doesn't matter in this kind of film how stretched your plot point is, as long as you get your message across.When the film knuckles down and gets to it's bread and butter of either fighting or training, that's when it's at its best. The Bruce Lee 'stand in' might be a cheesy element, but at least it's affectionate, rather than overtly manipulative.... and some of the fighting and general martial arts skills here are actually quite impressive... Great direction of those aspects, by the renowned Corey Yuen!The only reason I was watching in the first place was to see Van Damme, and he gives it his all, in his minimal role... There's a palpable physicality to his presence that shows the other performers how things should be done. Come the time when he head-butts the fat school bully who's had a change of heart, I was howling with laughter, so the film deserves bonus entertainment points, for that alone!It's not a good film at all, but it's still worth seeing if you're into this kind of stuff, just for a tiny glimpse of Van Damme in peak athletic condition, strutting his stuff... It's not his film, so he doesn't have to carry it, or try too hard with his acting, he just does what he does best.

ThreeThumbsUp To say the acting in this movie was bad would be giving NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER a huge complement. It was just about the worst I have ever seen, and I don't think it's even close. If you want a few laughs, put this one on -- it's as bad as it gets. Interaction between characters was a joke. The fight scenes were slow and predictable and contained no serious action or authenticity. But the the downright awful acting takes the cake. Just over-the-top terrible. Unbelievable.Van Dam doesn't show up until the middle of the film and plays a bad guy...what?

tomgillespie2002 After the success of The Karate Kid (1984), the martial arts film became a staple of Western mainstream cinema. Of course, the West was first properly introduced to this Eastern form of action cinema in 1973 through Bruce Lee, but the trend in American action cinema really kicked off (pun intended) after 1984. (It was of course exacerbated by the 1980's visual and political fad for hard, large bodies in action films - Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Lundgren et al.) Hong Kong actor and director, Corey Yuen, takes elements from The Karate Kid, throws in (and hugely insults) Bruce Lee ideologies and techniques - through the spectre of the master, - and produces an incompetent film that fails in both of it's sub-genre tagging of an action film with drama.The film opens in a karate dojo in Los Angeles, where a "crime syndicate" intrude on a lesson which is held by Tom Stillwell (Timothy D. Baker). Who knows why this crime organisation would antagonise a karate establishment, but they drive the family, not only from their training space, but entire city: The Stillwell's move to Seattle - conveniently the resting place of Bruce Lee, as the young Jason Stillwell (Kurt McKinney) is a devoted fan. With the gift of a broken leg, procured from the syndicates henchman, Ivan (an obvious reference to the previous years Drago in Rocky IV (1985), both Russian hardbodies, and played here by "newcomer" Jean-Claude Van Damme), Tom's son, Jason, is free to train in the garage, and quickly makes friends with the neighbourhood black stereotype, R. J. (J. W. Fails) - introduced carrying a ghetto-blaster (very 1986 - and "black"). The both of them become the target for the local angry fat guy, who is again stereotypically introduced with a cake in his mouth - like his fatness didn't act as its own visual signifier.After being humiliated in a Seattle dojo, Jason faces his martial arts incompetence by imploring rather loudly at the grave of Bruce Lee. Not only does the film think it has the right to get a tenth rate actor to spew garbage dialogue at the concept of Lee, but the film makers film these scenes in front of his actual gravestone. Having cried in front of Lee's grave, his training with the spirit (the ghost) of Lee. This is insulting on so many levels, but Tai Chung Kim who plays Sensei Lee tries quasi-admirably under the circumstances. Nothing much really happens between the bookended crime syndicate scenes (they only appear in the first and last scenes of the film). There's the ubiquitous training montage; a disco involving break dancing; a pathetic and infantile love interest, and a minute amount of fighting - a really small amount.Jean-Claude Van Damme's Russian fighter and his criminal gang's leaders reappear at the end of the film to challenge the Seattle-based karate dojo to a fight in the ring. Van Damme's Ivan against all three. Of course he beats them easily. Luckily, Jason, newly trained by the ghost of Bruce Lee, is in the audience, and ready to fight him. No Retreat, No Surrender manages to insult and bore its viewers in a multitude of ways. Everything about the film is incompetent. The acting is appalling, there is little to no dramatic tension or narrative complexity, and the characters are simplistic stereotypes of action/martial arts cinema. The big threat of the film, that crime gang that I guess is supposed to offer the characters tension and cohesion, only appear at each end of the film. Even the one thing that this type of film is supposed to offer, fighting, only really occurs at the end (with a few rubbish bits from beginning to end), but this doesn't really present anything interesting choreographically, and is easily outdone in thrill and action, even by mediocre fight films such as Bloodsport (1988).www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

John Reid This isn't all that bad as far as really corny b grade 80's martial arts flicks go, tho yes, admittedly if not for the presence of van damme the whole thing would have no doubt got lost in the archivesThe acting was not great, cringe worthy was 'deans' performance, kelly was awful, heh the fat guy and the lead seemed to be the best actors there! van damme hardly spoke English then so that forgiven, hell he sure makes up for it tho in fight scenesI liked this (mostly for van damme) it takes me back to my childhood and it tries to be fun fun and engaging, the fight scenes are quite good, production values aside, it could have been better but they did what they could with what modest budget they obviously had and came out with a winnersolid 7/10