Fist of Glory (1991) User Reviews

Enter Saigon's "Awesome Arena Of Blood"!

[tarbosh22000 · 5/10 · 3 August 2010]

"Welcome To The Apocalypse." In this period piece set towards the end of the Vietnam war, Jake "Johnny" Reynolds (Cook) and his team are deep in the jungle fighting the VC in an unauthorized mission. During some generic Vietnam action that lasts over thirty minutes but somehow manages to completely sidestep anything resembling character development, there are constant firefights and explosions. Grass and dirt continually blow up, and it makes Eye Of the Eagle III (1989), Crossfire (1988) and Firehawk (1993) seem like episodes of Masterpiece Theatre. It gets quite brain-numbing.

Three months later, while on some temporary R&R, Jake decides to hit the town in Vietnam. He realizes his buddy "Mad Dog" Lee has been brainwashed, hooked on heroin and forced to fight in underground punchfighting matches, dubbed "Saigon's Awesome Arena of Blood". There are no rules and you must fight to the death. Concerned for his friend, Jake infiltrates the operation. He even hires a foreign trainer to help him. After nursing Lee back to health, they set out for revenge against the entire town.

In Apollo's first-ever movie role, he's as wooden and surly as ever. He has a funny haircut, and, like American Kickboxer 2 (1993), wears a pink shirt. Maybe it's in his contract.

The film boasts some decent stunts, and when the VC are shot they are a bit "flippier" than usual. They spin around a few extra times in this one. One soldier is even blown up and flies through the air in a sitting position. Just imagine Magik's immortal "sit-down dance" from Body Rock. (1984) Sure, there are constant blow-ups, but for what? Fist of Glory could have used a bit more character development and a few less unnecessary explosions. The punchfighting is a bit weak compared to some of the others in the meathead genre. However, in one match, the man Jake is fighting has "secret chilis". He has some hot peppers in a corner of the ring, and when Jake isn't looking, he eats them and then spits in his face. That was pretty novel.

In one of the battle scenes, only for a few seconds, we see a POV of Lee's machine gun. It seems it is attached to the camera. It is like a first-person shooter, which was very different in 1991. It also doesn't wear out its welcome. We enjoyed that.

Fist of Glory (whatever that means, the title doesn't make much sense) is fairly interesting because it is a hybrid Vietnam/Punchfighter, and because it is the first appearance of Dale "Apollo" Cook.

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what the hell?

[joe262 · 1/10 · 2 June 2002]

What the hell is this movie supposed to be? The first thirty minutes were of soldiers fighting in Vietnam. It featured some of the worst action sequences ever. People died before explosions went off, every NVA soldier was willing to drop his gun, and participate in some karate fighting, and like the Japanese in bad WWII movies, the Vietmanese soldiers had American weapons and vehicles. Aside from the crap action, the setting sucked as well. It was extremely obvious the movie was filmed in a forest on the northern seaboard.

The next forty minutes were just plain crap. A soldier returns to Vietnam, to visit an old friend still their. The remainder of the movie has some dumb plot about drug dealers and guns.

This movie was terrible. The acting, setting, plot, characters, and everything else sucked. Don't bother even looking at the box. It you saw it and thought it was an underrated Vietnam action movie, slap yourself.

-15/10

"You'll never succeed - you've failed already"

[The_Phantom_Projectionist · 3/10 · 22 December 2015]

Dale "Apollo" Cook may be considered among the best kickboxers of America, but he's also among the worst action heroes of the 90s to have a substantial solo career. For whatever complex reasons contributing to the overall quality of a star's output, Cook repeatedly starred in disappointing kick flicks, most of them shot in the Philippines. Among the most disappointing of these is FIST OF GLORY – a kickboxing picture masquerading as a war film, and Cook's first movie ever. In short, it stinks.

The story: A soldier serving in Vietnam (Cook) enters a deadly underground fighting circuit to free his drug-addled comrade (Maurice Smith).

Along with the VHS cover, the film's opening 28 minutes would have you believe that this is a typical war movie, as it's comprised of Cook leading a team of soldiers through a jungle before engaging in a massive firefight. Afterwards, the story abruptly changes to Cook looking for Maurice Smith, who plays the heroin-addicted champ of the aforementioned fight circuit. I could accept the sudden genre change if the filmmakers made it worth my while, but it turns out that the latter portion of the film is just as bad as the former. FIST OF GLORY is boring, beginning with characters that are difficult to invest in and a consistently tiresome tone. Like so many movies shot in the Philippines, it's produced without flair and is tedious in its colorlessness. It's hard to care about anything going on here, including the action scenes.

The one thing the action content has going for it is amplitude: boasting 14 full-length fight scenes and at least two major firefights, you'll never have to wait long to see someone get punched or gunned down. There are a couple moments of inspiration, including the vengeful final shootout and the film's best match, which plagiarizes BLOODSPORT in the form of a burly crowd favorite (Cris Aguilar) who temporarily blinds Dale. However, as a majority, the shootouts last way longer than anyone can be interested in. The brawls feature no fighters worth caring about, as well as choreography so bland and lackluster that it makes the matches of Jean-Claude Van Damme seem as creative as Jackie Chan's.

FIST OF GLORY floats on a slow tide of mediocrity - never sinking so low as to achieve a rock-bottom rating but never rising beyond its very meager standards. In the future, Cook would show some improvement (primarily through the efforts of more talented costars), but his freshman vehicle is worth ignoring. Leave it be, folks.