Xtreme Biker

After a long time waiting I finally got to see my karate instructor Master Dan Mayid in his first martial arts movie! If I did not know better I would think his fighting scences were for real. It has a cool story and X-treme Fighter is now my favorite martial arts movie and Master Mayid is now my favorite movie star! If you buy this movie you will love it too! I hope there will be an X-treme Fighter 2!

As a fan of DTV cinema, it’s hard for me to find a film that has next to no redeeming value…but goshdarnit, I do believe I’ve found one. I watched “Xtreme Fighter” with low expectations, but for a movie whose selling point is twenty-five hand-to-hand fight scenes, the fourteenth collaboration between kickboxer-turned-actor Don Wilson and action handyman Art Camacho fell short of even my squat hopes. It’s definitely one of the worst martial arts flicks I have ever seen. Following its release, Wilson would endure only two more low-budget roles before retirement; co-star Cynthia Rothrock went on indefinite hiatus at once, since you really can’t go much lower than this. Both have reason to be disappointed, sure, but at least their film careers had a better run than those of the poor souls who will be known for making up the supporting cast of this blunder of a movie.

The story: Jack Tanaka (Wilson, 

Bloodfist

 series) is the single parent of his rebellious and troubled son Brad(Daneya Mayid). When grandfather/FBI scientist James (Aki Aleong, 

Farewell to the King

) tries to bridge the gap between them by introducing them to a revolutionary virtual reality fighting game, a virus traps Brad’s mind in the game; the only option Jack has to save his son is to enter the game and beat all of the opponents and the virus (Christine Rodriguez, “WMAC Masters”).

When it comes to the abundant fights, I could write this entire review by detailing how bad each encounter was, but I’ll save space by only mentioning the few times the action didn’t suck entirely. Undoubtedly, the film’s highlight is Daneya Mayid, whose acrobatic prowess shows so much promise, especially in his first fight with Chris Casamassa (

Mortal Kombat

). Wilson, on the other hand, seems to cue bad camerawork and ignores any and all sense of rhythm or pacing for his lifeless bouts. The wrestling match he has with grappling champion Gokor Chivichyan (

Bloodsport 2

) was pleasantly out-of-the-ordinary, Eric Lee (

Weapons of Death

) shows him up impressively in a weapons-based match, and there’s a nod given to his UFC aspirations by fighting ‘king of the cage’ champ Brad Verret, but in the end, few things are less worth watching than his fights. Momentary coolness occurs when Don and Lorenzo Lamas (“Renegade”) fight alongside eachother, but like the rest of the fights, their team-up too short, too poorly choreographed, and too incompetently shot to merit more than a seconds’ interest. Some wire-fu takes place when Cynthia Rothrock (

Above the Law

) takes to the screen, but this may very well be the worst work she’s ever done, too.

The only aspect of the acting that surprised me is that even the usually-adamant Aki Aleong seems to go out of his way to look like an amateur. The production values are inferior to anything you’ve ever seen on “Power Rangers”. The CGI is both abysmal and unnecessary, the camerawork is that of a low-end TV drama, and the virtual reality console itself is a dolled-up Nintendo Gamecube. Concerning the script, I couldn’t care less about the fate of any of the bland and boring characters. The very nature of the virus is weird, since it goes from being a simple bug to wanting to destroy the world in the blink of an eye; it doesn’t even mention how it’s going to do this. Cynthia Rothrock’s character is the only kinda-sorta interesting aspect of the film, since she’s Don’s aspiring sweetie in the real world but in the game she’s…well, don’t worry about it; it doesn’t save the movie, either.

On the bright side, the DVD does have fairly decent special features, including a very insightful commentary track by Wilson and Cynthia. If you’re into the band 

Powder

 and bad rap metal, then you’ll be happy of how much you hear of both. Nevertheless, this is simply the most disappointing film of Don’s I’ve ever lacked the pleasure of watching. This is a film that literally does everything it aspires to do wrong – even in B-movies this is a rarity. Steer clear, one and all.

I wasn’t overly impressed with the movie, the main character was iffy at best, there was no real chemistry between anyone. THe fight scenes were no where near the quality I would expect. And being a Lamas fan I was very disappointed that his entire role in the movie was less than 20 minutes. Not a very happy camper.

good action movie