Review of Blood Ring

Blood Ring (1991)
5/10
Decent BLOODSPORT wannabe
12 June 2011
Drunk kickboxing hustler Max Rivers (Dale "Apollo" Cook) finds himself up against a crime syndicate when his ex-girlfriend Susan (Andrea Lamatsch) asks for help in locating her missing boyfriend. After all, that is what drunk kickboxing ex-boyfriends are for. Seems said boyfriend was doing illegal underground fights for crime boss Don Carlio (Don Nakaya Neilsen) and got killed when he tried to run out. Naturally, this all leads to Max being forced to fight in the next tournament.

Believe it or not, this is my first "Apollo" Cook movie and, for a BLOODSPORT ripoff, it was pretty entertaining. Of course, most of that entertainment comes from the budget starved production and brain dead direction. For example, Max and Susan escape and he decides the best place to get sober and train is in the forest. He literally stops their truck and says, "This will be a good place." Later, his plan to get revenge on Carlio is to sneak into the illegal fights and sit in the crowd in a hat and sunglasses, where he is spotted immediately and forced to fight again. Cook is a former WKA kickboxing champ so he definitely has the fighting skills and he is okay as an actor. There was this one small bit I thought was pretty good where he was fighting a guy and would do all these different styles. Like he would say, "Bruce Lee!" and imitate him and then say, "How about a little Steven Seagal?" and do him. Anyway, it was funny because he named all these famous fighters and then ended it by kicking the guy in the head and says, "And now some "Apollo" Cook!" So his character referenced his real life self. Awesome. Love interest Lamatsch has one hell of an accent (German I think). Look for Filipino action staples Jim Gaines and Nick Nicholson in supporting roles.
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