157 - No Retreat No Surrender (Jean-Claude Van Damme vs. Kurt McKinney, Pete “Sugarfoot” Cunningham. etc.) Also featuring Tong Lung, a.k.a., Kim Tae-Chung (Game of Death II) as “Bruce Lee’s ghost.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LIp4ioPjOY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9_kC8gGW78&feature=related
158 - No Retreat No Surrender 3: Blood Brothers (Loren Avedon & Keith Vitali vs. Mark Russo & Rion Hunter)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVooqbXQZZ0
#157 was Van Damme’s first U.S. film, and director Corey Yuen’s first American movie. Mostly notable because, although Van Damme’s best movie is JCVD, he was more entertaining here than in any of his later films. Plus the '80s cheesiness of the whole thing. Ditto on the '80s cheesiness for #158.
They probably shouldn’t have hired such a tall referee in #157. Van Damme is supposed to be a tank, but he and the other fighters are dwarfed next to the ref.
*On a side note, these were two of the movies made for the U.S. market by Hong Kong’s Seasonal Film Corp., which also released movies like American Shaolin, No Retreat No Surrender II: Rolling Thunder, King of the Kickboxers, etc., none of which got a major theatrical release like #157. They were the earliest efforts to bring HK “new wave” martial arts action films to the American market. In Asia, many stars, including Jackie Chan, Hwang Jang-Lee, John Liu, Wong Tao, Hiroyuki Sanada, Conan Lee, etc., either got a career boost/increased exposure, or their starts, in Seasonal Films, like:
Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow
The Secret Rivals
Ninja in the Dragon’s Den
etc., etc.
