Friday 10 May 2013

DVD review: Deadly Game of Death (Video 2005)


 Duwarn Iverson (Marco Johnson) is a young martial artist trying to avoid the pitfalls of growing up in the inner city. The Boss (Willie Johnson) is ca wealthy drug dealer who gets his entertainment and kicks by having fighters participate in his illegal fight circuit where the only outcome is victory or death. After hearing about Duwarn’s reputation of being one of today’s top and upcoming fighters, the son of one his previous workers that he had to destroy, The Boss staged a special fight similar to that of his hero, Bruce Lee, which would be in his own words "the completed version of the ‘Game of Death’". Duwarn, who was unaware of his invitation to fight, continues to struggle with the normal pressure of an urban teen, under the custody of his adopted guardian, The Professor (Olivia Lee) who was also the instructor of Duwarn’s father. She is the "Mother Theresa" of the inner city, helping kids to avoid the normal pitfalls of such an environment. Unaware of this invitation, The Professor and her adopted daughter, Jade (Jessie Anderson) are suddenly kidnapped by the Boss’s main henchmen led by Lady Whirlwind (Kimber Johnson). Duwarn is now faced with no option but to rescue them, and when his plot fails, he is sent to an intensive martial arts training program with several of The Professor’s younger students to prepare for the upcoming tower fights. Deadly Game of Death is directed by Willie Johnson. The acting is horrendous but to be fair it is pretty obvious that none of the cast got their roles for their acting skills. It´s badly shot and edited, in fact some of the camerawork and editing is so atrociously bad that it ranks among the worst I´ve seen ever. There´s a ton of unintentional comedy in this besides some intentional comic relief. The soundtrack is horrible, it consist of some really bad hip hop. Filmmaker Willie Johnson sure do love slow motion and uses it repeatedly during the fight scenes and even in some scenes when it´s uncalled for. The pace is fast, even if there are several noticeable attempts at padding out the running time,  and then all of a sudden the flick ends. The running time is 48 minutes (not approx 85 minutes as stated on the DVD box cover) excluding end credits, blooper reels and so on. The fight choreography is uneven but some of it is actually pretty good, there are a lot of fight scenes in this, and there is heavy use of exaggerated sound effects as people get punched and kicked. There´s no gore in this. There´s no T & A in this.
This review is based upon the region all (Region 0)  released by Rising Sun Studios.
Rating: 0½ out of 7. OMFG this is so bad!! Deadly Game of Death is a prime example of inept filmmaking, the makers of this should focus on martial arts and leave the filmmaking to others.
Now I need an aspirin as got a freakin headache after having been exposed to that god damn soundtrack...

/JL

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