‘The Tournament’ preview – Adkins vs. Hu

By Mark Pollard | Published October 20, 2009

THE TOURNAMENT (2009)

A preview (with fight outcome spoiler) of THE TOURNAMENT has been posted on Youtube. It features Kelly Hu (MARTIAL LAW) and Scott Adkins (UNDISPUTED 2) beating the crap out of each other as assassins competing in a deadly competition.

The two-minute sequence, which includes the gruesome outcome some may not want to see as it potentially spoils the encounter, shows a deadly brawl between the two assassins in a church.

Lai Lai Zhen (Hu) struggles to protect a priest named Joseph Macavoy (Robert Carlyle) who has become an unwilling participant in a death match between the world’s top assassins after inadvertently swallowing a tracking device. The attacker is a Russian professional killer named Yuri Petrov (Adkins) with fists and feet of fury.

Adkins sports a different look in THE TOURNAMENT with his full beard but the faked Russian accent and acrobatic fighting moves are reminiscent of his MMA-styled fighting role in UNDISPUTED 2, which to date is his most notable film although I suspect that’s about to change with NINJA and UNDISPUTED 3 on the horizon.

Kelly Hu is looking good as usual. Although she has had prominent action roles on the MARTIAL LAW TV series and in feature films THE SCORPION KING and X2, this is her first significant action role in six years. Not to diminish her work in between, but by the looks of her in THE TOURNAMENT, Hu has been wasting her talents on voice acting.

The Weinstein Company released THE TOURNAMENT on DVD in the U.S. this week.

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  • cumpa
    Just saw the movie over the weekend and it was better then I thought it would be, the scene with Scott Adkins is about 3 or 4 minutes long but it's well woth it, there's also a scene with Kelly Hu fighting a black man that is even better then the Scott Adkins scene, there's also a scene at a strip bar that is rediculuos awsome, the movie is worth a buy for any action fan and by the way Vin Rhames is the man, I give the movie 41/2 out 5, action wise.
  • dannyshamon
    It is a very good film. See it for the action!
  • darrinkemp
    Well since I was only going to see this for Scott Adkins you have now saved me the touble. :D
  • reefer
    Not a bad little brawl. In fact, it's kinda edgy in terms of the relentlessness of a guy pounding on a girl. (Though there's never as much blood as you'd think you'd see in a real fight). I wonder how much Hu was doubled. Her back is to the camera a lot. That said, there's still a lot of good seamless action choreography here.
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