When I was approached to review this DVD, I thought "Why not? I loved Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero--even enjoyed Fearless and Kung Fu Shuffle. I'm up for watching a kickass karate-chopping judo flip fest." I should have said I'm up for a GOOD kickass karate-chopping judo flip fest, but ah details, details...
Anyway, The Challenge is a German martial arts flick (aka Kampfansage - Der Letzte Schuler) starring--well, a bunch of people you've probably never heard of since they're all German. It is set in Berlin in the year 2045 after natural disasters and economic collapse have destroyed civilization. Vicious warlords rule the planet--without guns. There are no guns in 2045--a fact announced in the opening voiceover. Why you ask? Because everything is about hand-to-hand combat in 2045 and if people had guns, then they'd just pull an Indiana Jones and shoot their opponent as he was crouching in his martial arts attack stance--and what fun would that be?
Actually there is ONE gun which is deployed by Kleo, evil nymphomaniac sister of warlord Bosco (I'm guessing that means something TOTALLY different in German because being named after a chocolate syrup isn't a fearsome thing here in the USA), to assassinate the martial arts master who killed their father as well as his last student (hence the subtitle Der Letzte Schuler). The incestuous duo (that's right--incest, nymphomania, assassinations, torture--these are REAL bad guys!) steal the martial arts bible from the master and head back to their castle to build their ultimate and unstoppable army. Unfortunately for them, Jonas the student recovers from his wound and sets off to recover the book and put an end to their evil empire. Along the way he teams up with siblings Vincent and Marie (hereafter known as the NON-incestuous duo) and builds a little army of his own.
I watched this with the English dubbing mostly because I didn't want to use my brainpower reading subtitles. No doubt something is lost in the translation--although I doubt the dialogue was Oscar-worthy in any language--and the voices of the English speaking actors don't quite mesh with the characters on screen, thus heightening the cheese factor. So you have a Swiss cheese plot (because it's full of holes--get it?!!!), clunky dialogue, wooden acting--what do you expect for a movie made for about $400,000? That's less than half of Steven Seagal's paycheck--and unlike Seagal and his paycheck, this movie isn't a bloated mess. It's a mess, but not a bloated one. If you're a diehard martial arts fan, you do get plenty of that. The plot is mainly filler to set up the fight scenes with kickass choreography culminating with a rooftop battle between good (Jonas) and evil (Bosco).
If you loved the grace and poetry of Crouching Tiger or Hero, this isn't the movie for you. But if you can sit through a Bruce Lee chopsocky marathon and be hungry for more an hour later, then it might be worth it to add The Challenge to your Netflix list.
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