Bloodfist VIII: Hard Way Out (1996)

Why so much hype?

Thanks for the memories!

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Rick Cowen is a shy maths teacher who is raising his son Chris after the death of his wife. Father & son aren't getting along too well but all that changes when a team of hit men make an attempt on their lives. To Chris' amazement, Rick single-handedly wipes out the assassins using some pretty impressive martial arts skills. Rick reveals that he is actually a former CIA agent who took early retirement after a mission he was on went wrong & a target was killed. Fleeing to Ireland, where Rick has some allies, the pair must dodge Italian assassins bent on killing them as revenge for their leader's death as well as the CIA station chief who wants them silenced as they have important information that would pose a threat to his impending promotion as director of the agency.The Bloodfist series has become one of the 1990s' most enduring el cheapo action franchises. Which is a bit on the astounding side as the original film was nothing more than a cheap knockoff of the Jean-Claude Van Damme classic BLOODSPORT only with real life martial arts champions cast as fighters. After the third film, which was the best film in the series & an underrated prison drama, the series turned into a generic action franchise.By the time of Bloodfist VIII: Trained to Kill (also known in some places as Bloodfist VIII: Hard Way Out), the series had largely lost its way. Despite a reasonably watchable seventh entry, the people of Los Angeles must have told Roger Corman that seven Bloodfist films was pushing it as far as it goes. Taking advantage of the Irish tax shelter program at the time, Corman decided to mount a sequel over there.Like the previous film (Bloodfist VII: Manhunt), Trained to Kill is just a routine actioner, nothing more than that. But like Manhunt, the film manages to infuse the already limited formula with some new ideas, some of which had been used in a slightly different format in previous Bloodfist films. The location of Ireland might be somewhat of a novelty but it works wonders for the film, along with some decent fight scenes, car chases, a healthy bodycount & some decent twists that make Trained to Kill the second best film in the entire series.Don "The Dragon" Wilson has come a fair way since the original Bloodfist, here managing to have a reasonable performance (although for some reason his introduction scene as a maths teacher gave me a bad case of the titters (suppressed laughter) given that he does not strike me as an ideal candidate for a high school teacher). That said, he still has the personality of an annoyed pit bull but he does his best in what he probably knew was going to be his last Bloodfist appearance, giving the role the old college try. As for the rest of the cast, John Patrick White looks far too old to be a convincing teenager while the series continues its time-honoured tradition of returnee actors with Jillian McWhirter returning to play the villainess in this one. The climactic fight on the fishing barge, which mixes martial arts, Uzi submachine guns & improvised bombs is an interesting climax although not nearly as brutal as some of the fights in previous films in the series.

It was around this time that Ireland started offering foreign filmmakers generous tax breaks for making movies in Ireland, which got a number of B movie filmmakers to film there, including Roger Corman. Since he was able to stretch his dollar further, this final entry in the "Bloodfist" series looks a little better than the previous few entries. The movie has some atmosphere, looking dark and moody, and the movie looks somewhat more expensive, with the climax of the movie taking place out in the ocean on a boat, which probably would have been too expensive for Corman if he made the movie stateside. Unfortunately, that's about all that's positive to say about the movie. The first part of the movie (set in the U.S.) tries to disguise the Ireland shooting locations, and it's pretty laughable. The movie is shot with the camera jammed up right at the actors most of the time, which makes it hard to see the surroundings. The action is pretty disappointing, with dull shootouts and unspectacular martial arts sequences (this entry in the series may have the least number of martial arts sequences than any other entry.) Mercifully, the series came to an end at this point.

Mild-mannered high school math teacher Rick Cowan (The Dragon) goes through his days teaching his pupils algebra and trying to relate to his 15 year old son, Chris, who is a student in the school where Rick teaches.After some Italian baddies gun down a guy in a convenience store and attack Rick at his home, the truth comes out that Rick is actually George MacCready, who worked in the CIA doing covert ops. Now that a hit team is out to kill him and his son, they first go to a safe house which isn't so safe. They then fly to Ireland to get more answers.Rick has to battle through the cops, the gangsters, find out who is double-crossing him, and save his son who has been kidnapped. Can he succeed? The Dragon is actually believable as a high school teacher. You gotta love his wooden, but fun delivery of his lines ("The socialists are tracking me down!"). He should have done more martial arts and less gun shooting. We want to see his rockin' moves on the bad guys, not just shoot guns. He does most of his fighting in a winter coat leading to the new term "coat-fighting".John Patrick White portrays the sassy white kid, Chris. He may ask a lot of questions, but he is pretty handy making an electrified boombox. A movie highlight is when the school bully touches Chris's radio and gets the shock of his life, as shown by the highly realistic blue lightning over his body.As this is a Roger Corman production and he likes to pinch pennies, he probably connected the shooting of this movie and his other Ireland production My Brother's War (1997). He wouldn't waste a trip to Ireland. Would he? Character names are movie references themselves. There's Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, Gianini (the main baddie who was "born in Corleone"),and even Michaelangelo. Film fans will notice these references.This is an enjoyable Dragon entry. The locations are different from the usual fare, the action sequences are lively, and The Dragon rarely fails to deliver what you want.Just remember, "I will always be employable, and you'll always be dead!" -McGrath (Evil Baddie from movie) For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

"Bloodfist VIII" is about as watchable as any "Part VIII" of a film series could ever hope to be. Not that it has to do anything with the previous entries anyway - is the name "Bloodfist" such a money maker that they couldn't simply release this as "Trained To Kill"? At first, this appears to be an acting stretch for Don Wilson - he is a math teacher with typical problems in his relationship with his teenage son. But don't worry, we soon find out that he is an ex-CIA agent, targeted for death by Italian hit men and even some of his former employers! The one new element here is the Irish setting for much of the action - and apparently someone thought we were too thick to get the fact that we're in Ireland, because there is this "folk" (I don't know how else to describe it) music score that keeps on playing throughout. At least the close-contact fight scenes are mostly good, with Wilson in top form. (**)