eat.sleep.geek.

When choosing new release DVD to rate and write about can be quite difficult, especially when the selection isn’t really all that hot. Sure the big release was X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but you all know my thoughts about it when I saw it in theaters, so that one was a pass. So what was there? Grace? Blood and Bone? The Strawberry Shortcake Movie: Sky’s the Limit? well when you are up to these choices you might just wanna throw your hat into the ring and wait for next week. As I began to look at the titles I was determined to review one of these and since The Strawberry Shortcake Movie didn’t suit the site I had to choose Blood and Bone or Grace? While I pondered the two I kept going back to Blood and Bone, something was telling me to get this one and soon a little voice popped into my head and said  “You liked Undisputed 2, why not go for Blood and Bone? it stars the same actor Michael Jai White and you know he’s gonna kick some ass” And so that was it, I had made my selection and the little voice inside had won now all I needed to do was grab a big class of Pepsi and some chips and I was all set.

In the Los Angeles underground fight club where money is made and backs are broken, a mysterious man who goes by the name of Bone wishes to take on the legendary Hammerman in a one on one street brawl. The problem is to get to Hammerman, Bone must prove his worth in the eyes of James and to do this he must rise in the ranks knocking out competitors. But the real target was never Hammerman, instead he has his sights set for James to fulfill a promise that he made, revenge for the wrongful prosecution and death of his fellow cell mate.

Michael Jai White (Spawn, The Dark Knight Returns) plays Isaiah Bone, sort of like a black Ryu from Street Fighter, calm, collected, a man who knows he’s the best fighter around. Eamonn Walker(Unbreakable, Lord of War) plays the cool, suave and very heartless leader of the armature underground fighting circuit as James. Dante Basco (Hook, Love Don’t Cost a Thing) plays Pinball, Bone’s manager who helps boast for him while he tries to reach the top to Hammerman. The big grueling terror known as Hammerman is played by Bob Sapp (Electra, Big Stan), a tower of a man and definitely someone you would not want to mess with. In the end we have the beautiful Nona Gaye (Ali, xXx:State of the Union) who takes Bone into her home while he goes out to finally seek justice on James.

Most of the time when you have a movie go straight to DVD you assume that the movie is going to be low budget and not very good. Well I can say that this movie didn’t seem to have a huge budget behind it, compared to huge blockbuster films but it reality it really didn’t need it. The story and some acting needs a bit of work, so don’t be expecting an Oscar award winning script here, the only reason one should ever watch a film like this is for the fighting. The great thing about the action scenes is that they are completely believable, no weird jump off the wall, glide through the air, spin on someones head moves, instead it’s all based around actual martial arts that anyone (who is well trained) can do. The more I watched the more I had a hankering to play me some DefJam 2: Fight For NY, it was if the creators of Blood and Bone took the game (minus the crazy super moves) and turned it into a movie. One really great thing I enjoyed about this movie were the cameos played by some of the top two fighters in the world of MMA, the very steamy Gina Carano, and the mountain of a man Kevin ‘Kimbo Slice’ Ferguson.

In the end, the movie really doesn’t bring anything really new to the table, in the way of martial art movies, but it does put everything together to make it enjoyable and fun to watch. I’m not a huge fan of sequels to movies, but I felt so drawn to the main character at the end of the movie that I would love to see him come back. If you haven’t seen Michael Jai White in action, trust me you won’t be disappointed with this one, just don’t watch Spawn.