Somebody Up There Likes Me (1996)
A young rebel falls for the sister of a local kickboxing champion. In order to stay out of jail, he is advised by his parole officer to begin training in the art of kickboxing. His romance with the girl blossoms but comes to a crashing halt when he is forced to face her brother in the ring. When the brother is accidentally killed, the romance ends and the young kickboxer participates in illegal street fights. When the kickboxer has a shot at the Golden Belt against the Japanese champ, he soon learns that this may be the final fight of his life. Written by Ninja01
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Pretty Good
Fresh and Exciting
It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.
The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.
I first watched this film many years ago on tape and actually been hunting it down for quite a while.Surpisingly being a kickboxer film, it does NOT glorify the Kick-boxing world, in my personal opinion it is more against. With the gruesome deaths and the images of boxers-past suffering from Parkinsons because of the sport does tend to put people off.Aaron Kwok is as usual very good acting but still playing the Hong Kong Heartthrob role and Sammo Hung being more of a cameo and less active role is a pleasant change.Some people may watch this film and call it a wannabe 'Rocky' or 'Raging Bull' but I say watch this film and see for yourself.
I bought the video cassette of this film because it was priced down and because"A JOHN WOO Production" was written all over the cover of the video. The box was entitled "THE TRIUMPH" which is the German title of the film (okay, it's not really German language, but anyway this is the name used in Germany and Switzerland). So I decided on buying the film because you really can't do much wrong for six or seven dollars (again, of course, dollars aren't the Swiss currency, but hey, I'm trying to make it easier for YOU to understand the situation).I didn't expect much but was quite sure that the film wouldn't totally disappoint me either. I was right. It wasn't disappointing at all, actually it was quite a nice way to spend two hours of your life when you don't know what else to do.The film is about a young man named Ken who is falling in love with the sister of Hong Kong kickboxing champion Bruce. Bruce is not very pleased to see his sister falling in love with Ken and beats him up pretty badly. Ken wants to challenge Bruce to get his revenge and because of that he also starts to practice. But during the fight Ken accidentally kills Bruce. He is now left by Gloria and when he finally reunites with her he is already heavily injured. He accepts one last fight against the Asian champion in honor of Bruce risking his life.The acting is not bad at all, actually it's better than you'd expect from this kind of movie. The choreography of the fight sequences is very well done and seems quite real without too many freaky (and therefore unrealistic) moves. The direction is quite good and sometimes highly energetic. The love story also included in this film never gets too sentimental. I was very happy to see that this movie never was unintentionally funny like most of the American counterparts.Overall an enjoyable film, not exceptional but a good Sunday afternoon film.My rating: 7/10