Blood Warriors (1993) User Reviews

It's a disappointment.

[tarbosh22000 · 4/10 · 18 June 2015]

Wes Healey (Bradley) is an ex-Marine who travels to Indonesia while on the hunt for his old buddy Keith Stone (Zags). Healey wants answers about the death of a mutual friend, and while in this foreign land, he stays at the palatial estate of Keith's sister Karen (Campbell). However, it transpires that Keith is a megalomaniacal, unstable nutjob who has corralled some locals into becoming his own personal fighting force. He even demands they train in front of him while he watches them beat the living snot out of each other, for his own amusement, of course. When Healey rejects all the madness, Stone turns on him, and he has to save Karen and fight a bunch of goons. This, of course, leads to the final confrontation between Healey and Stone. And who exactly are the BLOOD WARRIORS here? Huh? What? Oh, we're supposed to review Blood Warriors. I'm sorry, our eyelids were getting heavy. You'd think - you'd REALLY think - a movie starring David Bradley and Frank Zagarino, directed by Firstenberg, would be a no-brainer winner. Well...not so much. It's almost like they came up with the title first, but worked backwards - in the wrong direction. Here's a conversation that probably happened: "I've got a great title for a movie!" "Oh, what is it?" "Blood Warriors." "Yeah, that is good! Now what happens?" "Eh, I don't know..." Basing our thoughts off of this supposition, we noticed that the whole movie's vibe is just off. It's like the rhythm of it all is wrong - it gets off on the wrong foot and struggles to recover for the rest of the running time.

Now that's not to say that there aren't a plethora of unintentionally funny moments. Blood Warriors is like watching a heart monitor for someone struggling to live: for a long period of time there's a flatline, but then out of nowhere a few spikes will shoot up, then it will go back down. The movie was co-written by Bradley, which may explain why he speaks in a tightly controlled rasp, wears a black cowboy hat that makes him look like country music star Clint Black, and can jump in slow motion off buildings and cars, and essentially slow down time and space at his will so he can fight nameless goons and shoot them. He also picks up a guitar at one point and begins serenading Karen. A crooning David Bradley. Now we've seen everything.

Everything about this movie screams "stereotypical stupid". From the funny/dumb action scenes on down, from the Prerequisite Torture (this time not of the hero, but of Karen), to the boat chase. Said boat chase features music on the soundtrack that can only be described as "90's Chase Rock." Anyone who's ever seen an action movie from this time period knows what we're talking about - generic rock with distorted guitars and squealing, wailing guitar solos. Naturally, it all caps off with the time-honored warehouse fight. But the whole outing is slow - Zagarino doesn't even show up until 50 minutes into the movie even though he's second-billed. Blood Warriors drags for much of the proceedings and should have been chopped by about 10 minutes or so. Then we'd have something.

Yes, there are some occasionally funny moments that pop up in Blood Warriors, but is that what we're watching these movies for? If you have some time on your hands and you don't mind waiting to have a few yuks, by all means go ahead, but on the whole it's a disappointment.

And yet another disappointment from David Bradley

[fernyperez · 2/10 · 5 August 2009]

Blood Warriors is the last David Bradley film I acquired and watched and what can I say, another huge disappointment. What a real pity because both the film cover and its trailer which can be found on Youtube make it look like some fast and furious martial arts-action movie. Boy what a huge disappointment. This dude entered a sort of double phase in his B-movie career which began in the late 80s and came to an end in 2001 with his final movie, the atrocious "Expect to Die". Half this phase is a considerable extension of pretty enjoyable martial arts action movies (as far as B-films and martial arts fans go) which included "American Samurai" the third, fourth and fifth installments of "American Ninja", two hilarious action Z-movie sequels called "Cyborg Cop" and the pretty good "Hard Justice" (great combination of action, fighting sequences and decent B-actors). However the other phase is probably, in my mind, comprised of quite possible the 3 or 4 worst movies I have EVER had to sit through on video. Even worse than a Spanish 3.30 Saturday movie (if you live in Spain, you'll know what I'm talking about). I seriously don't know how "Crisis", "Expect to Die" and "Total Reality" can be labelled as movies; I'm pretty sure David needed the money and the director needed a good laugh. My last only hope was "Blood Warriors" which I hadn't seen. Purchased it on eBay, watched it and nearly died of boredom before the final credits rolled. What a waste of another movie that could've made for a decent action and fighting flick. Frankly, this guy's best assett was his physical fighting due to several years training in Karate, Kung Fu and swordsmanship. But I repeat once again, if you have to sit thru 90 minutes of B-movie crap with no fights and a stupid, boring story, you may as well just turn the video off. Bradley plays another ex-soldier whose brother has gone all nuts, building a military base on some small island which is just a cover for performing nasty deeds. Bradly has to go, try and convince him to quit that lifestyle and then rescue his girlfriend before things start to heat up. What follows is the hilarious action sequences commented on previous reviews such as Bradley's 100 ft-jump, riding on a motorcycle without a single bullet hitting him, and performing weird flying kicks (what the heck happened to the guy's Karate knowledgement??). As a real fan of David Bradley (I really liked the guy in his first movies) I just think it is such a pity for the fella to have ended his career like that... real shame. One thing I'd really love to know is what heart condition did he exactly suffer from, and what he's doing nowadays. As for this particular movie, don't even bother with it, I mean if as a true Bradley fan (and that's saying a lot!).

Fantastic!!!

[atf_madz · 1/10 · 13 March 2006]

This is one hell of a b-movie.... its one of those that are so bad it makes your laugh hurt.... i was in tears at the 40ft jump and roll. David Bradley is a legend... i have now ordered more of his movies in the vain attempt to laugh a bit more. The evil guy, Keith is amazing, he is so evil, he wants to screw his sister, and make a load of money with drugs in jakarta.... what i don't understand is that he goes to a lot of bother to annoy his old best mate when he was doing fine without him, he had plenty of money, but wanted West to join him. Its one of those really tough hard to bear movies, poor acting, poor dialogue, great entertainment. i rate this movie an awful lot... its a definite no brainer... but boy is the action funny, every henchman dying is funnier than the next!

View to a kill

[fmarkland32 · 1/10 · 19 June 2017]

David Bradley stars as an ex military tough guy who finds out his old war buddy is up to no good and falls for his buddy's sister, as friction between two war buddies starts over Bradley not wanting to join Zagarino's army of mercenaries, the film like a lot of these grade Z duds fails to develop any dramatic momentum and the lack of any action make this truly one of the most boring movies ever made. David Bradley wasn't as awful as his American Ninja 3 debut would indicate, but despite being a passable presence in other movies (Cyborg Cop, Lower Level, Hard Justice and Total Reality) Blood Warriors features Bradley in comatose mode as he sleepwalks through his part as he rescues the damsel in distress and fights Zagarino. Frank Zagarino fares slightly better as he at least has a marginally interesting look, but the movie gives him no real character and the film in general offers no support for our two action leads. The movie is also poorly made and dreary to look at. The first 15 minutes you find yourself looking for something-anything, to hold your interest and then you merely start thinking about something else to take your mind off it. 90s B.movies by and large are not as fun as their 80s counterparts and movies like this are a prime example as to why. There isn't even much to laugh at, except for when Bradley busts out a guitar and sings. It's all around a pretty dire film, and surprisingly so, considering that it came from the director of such cheeseball classics as American Ninja 1-2, Avenging Force and Revenge Of The Ninja.

1/2* Out of 4-(Awful)

Legendary

[kaluninja · 9/10 · 13 March 2006]

HAHA, this film is absolutely amazing and rightfully claims its place in the top 10 b-movie list and features a scene which will surely be inducted to the b-movie hall of fame. This involved David Bradley jumping off a 30ft house and cushioning the impact with a very mincy forward roll in super slow motion - he then proceeds to jump on to a table and then back off again (for no reason) and then completes his ruthless assault on the laws of physics by spreading his arms out and flying across the road and landing majestically onto the roof of a car. This routine would certainly receive a flawless 10.0 score from any reasonable judge of reasonable fortitude. More great action scenes involve the amazing flying kick, which covers an incredible amount of distance. This film adheres to a level of greatness of the highest order and I feel honoured to have seen it. If you enjoy watching films that are so bad they're amazingly good - then this is perfect. I Have already made room in my timetable to ensure that I can watch this gem again tomorrow!

A poor effort, even by David Bradley standards

[Wizard-8 · 2 October 2016]

The action genre in the 1980s/1990s introduced a number of real life martial artists turned actors, and most of them, let's face it, weren't good at acting. David Bradley was one of the worst, and "Blood Warriors" is one example of why he was uncharismatic and lacking adequate thespian skills. As it turns out, with this movie he carries more of the blame for the movie's failure, since he is also credited with co-writing the script. This may explain why he gets a sex scene with an attractive blonde as well as one scene where he picks up a guitar and sings (!) Strangely, Bradley and his co-writer wrote a story where he gets almost no opportunity to show off his martial arts skills until the end of the movie. And there are a lot of long and dull stretches where there is no action at all - for example, the first real action scene does not occur until more than twenty-five minutes has passed since the start of the movie. But as it turns out, none of the action is worth the wait. I found it hard to believe that the director was Sam Firstenberg, who had earlier directed solid action movies like the first two "American Ninja" movies as well as "Avenging Force". Firstenberg may have been hampered by the very low budget, though there are also signs that the production had a few problems (the abrupt ending is one of the big indicators of this.) The only things that prevent the movie from total decay are the nice Indonesian locations as well as a few unintended laughs.