Tuesday, June 30, 2020

No Retreat, No Surrender (1986)

Martial arts nonsense with the worst Bruce Lee ghost ever. Jason (Kurt McKinney) is a modestly skilled, but overly Bruce Lee obsessed, student at his Dad's (Tomothy D Baker) karate school in LA. When his Dad gets beaten up by gangsters, who include Jean-Claude van Damme, and they decamp to Seattle. There Jason and his friend RJ (JW Falls) gets beaten up by both local thugs and his bitter Dad.

Jason appeals to Bruce Lee at his grave (which is in Seattle of course) for help... and what do you know but the ghost of Bruce (Tai Chung Kim) turns up and starts to train him. Jason turns from being a light weight bum to a super martial artist. Sooner or later Jason will end up fighting van Damme of course...

Often pretty cheesy but with plenty of 1980s cool, even some break dancing. The action is pretty decent and often great. The ghost of Bruce looks nothing at all like the real man, unfortunately there are plenty of photos and posters of the real Bruce in the background of the ghost scenes! The training scenes are interesting though and overall this film is one of the better 1980s US martial arts films. A hit... like one of Bruce's fists.