Death Cage Opinions?

[Chen Zhen]

this film stars Robin Shou and its choreographed by Robert Tai. may also be directed by him, im not sure. i saw this image dvd at the store today, and my instincts are telling me NOT to buy it cuz itll be crap...but i figure i may as well consult the good ol KFfandom. so whats the verdict on this one, is it worth buying? even the packaging looks low budget..

[Big Mike Leeder]

Ah "Death Cage" or "Bloodfight 2" as it was called in the UK when VPD released it....

Very much a case of what could have been and should have been....

First starring role for Robin Shou, Joe Lewis getting his first HK/Taiwanese action role with I think both Robert Tai and Alexander Lou handling some of the action choreography

Supporting roles for Steve Tartalia(Spike's stuntdouble in "Buffy"), Wayne Archer, John Ladalski, Master Sken & Toby Russell himself

there's a few moments where the action seems to really kick into gear but as a whole film doesn't deliver on its potential

Has Image put any extras on the Disc? interviews, commentary anything?
Any idea what the image quality has been like on the Image martial arts releases?

[Markgway]

It's one of those films that's so shite it's actually worth watching for a laugh.

Hopefully it's not cut to bits like the UK tape.

[Chilly Bong]

I received the Image DVD the other day. No extras. Anamorphic widescreen, fairly decent picture quality.
Not sure if it's totally uncut as the editing is pretty poor but there's a lot more blood and violence than in the UK tape.

This isn't a good film by any stretch of the imagination but it does have it's moments.

Who knew Coca-Cola sponsored death matches.......

[Chen Zhen]

thanx guys, yall just saved me some money.

[Markgway]

Who knew Coca-Cola sponsored death matches.......

:rollin

The UK tape (of the film) is so heavily edited that the censored UK trailer has more violent footage!

Interestingly two English dubs seem to exist for the film.

In one Steve Tartaglia says "I'm gonna turn you into ghoulash" and in the other "I'm gonna turn you into burger" (which I personally think is funnier).

[WalkOn]

Embarrassingly bad!! I have a ton of respect for Robin Shou and especially Joe Lewis, but I would never recommend this to anyone. It was cheap, bad and poorly done. And to think Joe Lewis turned down the role of Return of the Dragon (Way of the Dragon) because he didn't want to be the bad "gweilo" and get beat up by his mentor, teacher, friend, Bruce Lee but went on years later and agreed to do play this role???? For what?? Shame on Joe Lewis!

[Big Mike Leeder]

Ah I used to love that when UK trailers would often manage to show clips that were edited from the movie for being too violent....the good old days in the UK when nunchucks had to be removed from everything, "Dragnet" with Tom Hanks & Dan Aykroyd having a bizarre slowed down fight scene because there was a few seconds of Stuart Quan letting loose with som nunchucks, that had to be removed!!!

If you ever get a chance, check out the Chinese version of "Death Cage", its quite widely available on a Ocean Shores VCD as the subtitles on that are insane as is the dubbing

What I am a little confused about is why Image has picked some of these films to launch their label with, as sadly "Death Cage" was shall we say "unofficially" released by various distribs....

A pity as well that they didn't try and get Robin for an interview, as he has never been reluctant to discuss the work he did in HK including this film and its good and bad points

Same for Joe Lewis, would have been nice to hear his thoughts on the film

Just wish someone had been able to give Joe the opportunity in his prime to work with HK action directors, that could have been something

Anyone know what else is on the Image release slate?

[Markgway]

Seems to be the Golden Sun catalogue which includes a lot of interesting modern-day action titles many never before on DVD. I must have Burning Ambition! There was a link somewhere......... >D

[Big Mike Leeder]

Now an official "Burning Ambition" DVD, I like the sound of that

But please some serious extras, Yukari Oshima interview, Frankie Chan interview at least....jeez I can arrange them if necessary, did the ones for HKL

[Markgway]

Mike,

Here's that link I was talking about:

www.goldensunfilm.com/ (http://www.goldensunfilm.com/)

[Chinatown Kid]

I remember seeing Death Cage on vhs years ago. The film looks incredibly cheap and Joe Lewis wasn't very impressive at all but I have to give him some slack for this because he was on up in years by the time this film was made. Robin Shou didn't look to bad in his fight scenes from what I remember although the fights were nothing impressive. I think Joe was a dummy for turning down the role Chuck Norris eventually played. It would have given him international exposure and he could have went on to have a screen career and notoriety like Norris if not moreso. I guess Lewis's ego just wouldn't allow him to lose to Bruce on screen. :\

[Chen Zhen]

one could argue that bruce had that same (if not bigger) ego, because (from what ive read) he turned down lots of tv appearances and other parts because he refused to lose to anybody on screen..

i could be wrong about that tho...:)

[Chinatown Kid]

I don't doubt it Chen because it's well known Bruce had quite an ego too. ;)

[theportlykicker]

His ego obviously didn't stop him from doing a flying kick off the edge of a building and falling to his death though!:lol

[WalkOn]

His ego obviously didn't stop him from doing a flying kick off the edge of a building and falling to his death though!

I guess Bruce dealt with that concept better than having James Garner whooping his butt!:lol

[Chinatown Kid]

LOL, I must say that was a very unbelievable demise for Bruce after showing such precision and grace in his kicks to suddenly be clumsy enough to do a flying kick and miss and go flying right off the building.

From what I understand, when Bruce appeared on the Batman tv show as Kato it was written in the original script for him to lose to Robin in a fight. Bruce raised such hell over this that they eventually made the fight end up as a draw. I have no doubt Bruce could have mopped the floor with Burt Ward(who claimed to have a Black Belt in Karate) if it was for real. :lol

[Killer Meteor]

From the DVD Talk review

"My disc arrived loose and scratchy, and ended up pixelating for a few minutes (around the one hour mark) on all the players I tried. Wether this was because of the disc being damaged or an encoding error, I do not know."

Can anyone confirm anything from their purchase?

[AlbertV]

Ah "Death Cage" or "Bloodfight 2" as it was called in the UK when VPD released it....

Very much a case of what could have been and should have been....

First starring role for Robin Shou, Joe Lewis getting his first HK/Taiwanese action role with I think both Robert Tai and Alexander Lou handling some of the action choreography

Supporting roles for Steve Tartalia(Spike's stuntdouble in "Buffy"), Wayne Archer, John Ladalski, Master Sken & Toby Russell himself

there's a few moments where the action seems to really kick into gear but as a whole film doesn't deliver on its potential

Has Image put any extras on the Disc? interviews, commentary anything?
Any idea what the image quality has been like on the Image martial arts releases?

Yeah the film had potential, but could have been so much better. Mark Long was also in the film as Robin's teacher. I bought it back when Xenon Entertainment were making the boot videos and to capitalize on Shou's success, they called it "Mortal Combat 2: The Death Cage".