User reviews

What can you say? 'Blood and Bone' is a pleasant martial arts/drama surprise that handles us a pretty enjoyable ride during it's 90 minutes and a Michael Jai White in top form.

Directed by the one who wrote the infamous failure that was 'Dragon Ball Evolution', Ben Ramsey, the movie tells us the story of Isaiah Bone, an ex-con that takes the world of underground fighting by storm, in order to keep a promise to his late friend in prison.

With an interesting plot that explores the martial arts world combined with the underground fighting game and a 'surprise effect' sustained until the last twenty minutes of the film, Ramsey achieves to maintain the spectator on his chair until the end of the movie, mixing action and drama.

The fighting scenes are awesome, and not only Michael Jai White knows how to act, knows how to fight: he kicks ass (and also Van Damme's and Segal's ass too).

This is one of the best low budget action movies you can possibly watch in your life and if you're a martial arts fan then this will serve you well. It has excellent underground fighting matches that will blow you away. Michael Jai White rocks, and he IS the movie.

7/10.

"Blood and Bone" is one of the best low budget martial arts films I have ever seen. This was a perfect movie to showcase the talent of the very underrated Michael Jai White. Great fight scenes throughout that are really shot well. None of that shaky camera stuff where you can't tell what is going on. I just happened to watch this movie after watching the movie "Fighting" and I have to say that "Bone" is ten times better. The fight scenes, the music, and even the acting is better. "Fighting" had very little fighting and the little it had wasn't that great. The camera was too close to the actors and too shaky to tell what was going on. They could have been playing poker for all I know. "Bone" should have been released in theaters instead of "Fighting". If you are a fan of martial arts films and like fight scenes where you can see all the moves, check this one out.

Isaiah Bone (Michael Jai White) is released from prison and immediately enters the world of underground fighting. With the help of Asian manager Pinball (the super annoying Dante Basco), Bone wins several fights easily and attracts the attention of local crime kingpin James (Eamonn Walker). James is suitably impressed and wants Bone to fight for Mr. McVeigh (Julian Sands). Of course, the avid chess player/head smasher Bone has been planning all of these moves carefully as he has his own agenda.

With a three word title, cliché story and style that sends me back to the early Steven Seagal flicks, BLOOD AND BONE is about the best early 90s action flick made in 2009. The plot is straight up Van Damme territory (it actually resembles Jean Claude's LIONHEART quite a bit) and the film more than delivers in the action department. Jai White, an incredibly talented martial artist, is given lots of time to show off his moves. Thankfully, director Ben Ramsey allows for some long takes that really highlight his flow. The final battle against "Pretty Boy" Price (BLOODFIST 2050's equally talented Matt Mullins) is probably the film's highlight. Acting wise, Jai White is very good as the stoic Bone. The film's top acting honors, however, go to Eamonn Walker as the gangster who loves his dogs and refuses to curse. He is a real revelation. Julian Sands puts in about 10 minutes as the stereotypical "evil white guy" and he has quickly morphed into mid-to-late 90s Malcolm McDowall. The supporting cast is rounded out with lots of MMA fighters including Maurice Smith, Gina Carano, "The Beast" Bob Sapp and Kimbo Slice, who will surely get a nod for Best Supporting Actor for his turn as jail house thug J.C.. It is really a shame to see Michael Jai White only getting a chance to shine in lead roles in low budget action flicks. Ryan Reynolds gets big films, but this guy can't?

I have a great gift in the ability to enjoy exploitation cinema and genre films. When a movie like "Blood and Bones" comes along, I am able to watch and hopefully enjoy it for what it is.

"Bone and Blood" stars Michael Jai White. White, one may remember, played the titular character in self proclaimed bad boy Todd McFarland's kid friendly send-up of the demonic "Spawn." White branched out to TV and voice acting after the nearly career killing clownish "Spawn" movie failed to generate much positive buzz. White, however, is an accomplished martial artist primarily in the Kyokushin style – a brutal full contact form of karate (though he also dabbles in Wushu which is much more screen friendly) – and film loves high impact martial artists. So White has been given another chance as a leading man with this movie, the upcoming fantastically buzzed about blaxploitation tribute "Black Dynamite," and a rumored involvement in Robert Rodriguez's developing mess, "Predators."

White plays Bone, an ex-con with a heart of gold. After his release, Bone finds himself immediately drawn to the illegal street fighting scene where he hooks up with mouthy small time promoter Pinball (Dante Brasco). Bone's motivation is indistinct at first and that gives the first part of the movie a rushed feel. However there is a Reveal about half way through that explains Bone's motivations and helps tighten up the not-too-surprising storyline. Otherwise Bone is a bit of a mystery in that his crime, his time, and his history is left completely unexplained for the duration of the film.

Once Pinball realizes Bone's talent, he quickly concocts a scheme that will get Bone a shot at the local street fighting champ Hammerman (played with corny endearment by former MMA champ Bob Sapp) arranged through Hammerman's bigger-time promoter James (Eammon Walker – "Oz" jailhouse Muslim leader Kareem Said).

This comes at around the halfway point where the film shifts gears from a tournament style martial arts flick to more of a revenge flick. Bone's personal motivation is brought to the forefront and momentum leads to one final fight with, inexplicably, David Aldridge, of whom I know nothing about. I say inexplicably because the film is draped in cameos and roles by past and current MMA stars from various leagues. Aldridge has, literally, less than five minutes screen time and that role, it seems, could have been handled by one of the MMA guests.

The martial arts throughout the film look powerful and brutal but the choreography is not inspired. White is a gifted martial artist and it would be interesting to see him in the hands of a stellar fight choreography team. The fights were entertaining enough, though, due to what many a child of the 90s martial action films would called the Seagal Factor. The Seagal Factor is, simply, when the protagonist is such an incredible bad ass that he is never – not once – threatened in the film which leads to a kind of maniacal hand-rubbing glee. None of White's fights are competitive in "Bone and Blood," but they're still quite interesting due to the Seagal Factor.

From a tech standpoint the film has numerous flaws. There are many cues that are missed and mis-fired gestures that are stopped and started by the actors awaiting their cue in dialog scenes. The music is horrible. The score somehow alternates between syrupy sweet Bill Bixby Incredible Hulk piano music and NIN-like industrial riffs. The effect is jarring.

But this is not a movie to watch for its technical merits. It's a movie to watch for martial arts bad assery and in that way it works. It does not score high in finesse or creativity, but there is a certain primal element that White taps into that makes the movie a worthwhile popcorn flick.

It seems that "Black Dynamite" is a can't miss and working with Hollywood darling Rodriguez can't be bad for White's career, so White may finally be on his way to stardom. If not, Bone ended in a way that could easily lead to sequels of "The Equalizer" type story lines. Or maybe White will take off while Bone makes his way to the small screen. When's the last time we had a prime time martial arts series? I think Bone could work there.

I saw today Blood and Bone and I was surprised because it turned out being pretty good. I this saw because I've been a fan been a fan of Michael Jai White since Spawn. Anyways the movie is pretty low budget but who really cares when the fight scenes are really well done considering that I didn't see any wires. Storyline is good considering it's a fighting movie and Eamon Walker (Oz) comes out in the film which is cool because I never see him in anything the only other movie I've ever seen him in was Shopping with Jude Law on IFC. All in all a very good action film, Michael is a bad ass in the movie. And hopefully Michael Jai White gets some recognition and starts coming out in more movies.

Violent film plenty of killings and brutal bare-knuckled fighting in the slums . Exciting picture full of brawls by means of fierce bare-knuckled struggles staged in nauseam . In Los Angeles , in a world where street gangs collide with the law , an ex-con named Isahia Bone (Michael Jai White of Spawn and Universal soldier 2) takes the underground fighting world by storm in his quest to fulfill a promise to a dead convict . There will have place the ultimate fight - the one for power , pledge , vengeance , and honor. This thrilling movie deals with a tight-lipped fighter who introduces to the world of underground street fierce brawling . He's an expert on martial arts to survive and take different sides to fight and hooks up with small time promoter Pinball (Dante Brasco) . Bone attempts to come up with a way to get enough money to live , but there emerges a dangerous contender versus kingpin James (Eamonn Walker) who arranges the bare-knuckled bouts . Bone attracts the attention of local crime boss who is overtly impressed and wishes Bone to fight for Mr. McVeigh (Julian Sands) . Bone is soon fighting various contenders -ranging from bouncing wrestlers to Oriental fighters . Bone decides that he has something worth brawling for and sets everything on the line to vanquish in these no-holds-barred , bare-knuckle fights . Although Bone only wants to defeat opponents long enough to gain enough money , he is reluctant to let tricks in combats on the fighting . Every knock-out brings him closer to the existence he's always wished , but also carries him in a deadly cobweb he can't getaway . At the ending , the protagonist is forced to fight in a deadly confrontation .

This thrilling picture well written/produced by Michael Andrews contains violence , thought-provoking drama , thrills , and lots of brutal brawls plenty of punches , kicks, and knockouts . Acceptable performance from Michael Jai White as impulsive ex-con becoming a professional street-fighter and battling a variety of contenders . Jai is the complete show as one army man fighting a group of heinous nasties and as always he makes his own stunts like is well proved . Michael White holds Black belts in 7 styles of martial arts as Shotokan Karate, Tae Kwon Do, Okinawan Kobudo, Goju Ryu, Tang Soo Do and Wushu . He has 26 titles including U.S. Open, North American Open, and New England Grand Champion . Two females , the singer Nora Gaye , daughter of soul legend Marvin Gaye, and Michelle Belegrin give surprisingly good acting as landlady and mistreated woman respectively . Special mention to Eamonn Walker as cruel villain and brief appearance of Julian Sands as racist big-time promoter . Appropriate musical score fitting to action by Nicolas Pike and adequate cinematography by Roy Wagner . The picture belongs to sub-genre about street combats as ¨Lionheart¨ with Jean Claude Van Damme and whose maxim representation turns out to be the classic ¨Hard times¨ by Walter Hill with Charles Bronson and James Coburn ; furthermore , recent adaptation titled ¨Fighting ¨ by Dito Montiel with Channing Tatum and Luis Guzman . It's a colorful but strong entertainment that results to be well directed by Ben Ramsey . Ben is an expert screenwriter as ¨Big Hit¨ , ¨Dragonball¨ and occasionally director as ¨Love and bullet¨ and ¨Blood and Bone¨ his best film . Rating : 6,5 , good but very violent .

First, this is not one movie but two. The first is a standard drama about a mysterious stranger that comes out of nowhere to extract vengeance for .. whatever. No offence to the writing team, but we've seen this before. I think Van Damme alone has done this about a dozen times. It's not bad, mind you, but there is nothing in the drama portion of this film that would make you stand in line to see the movie. Which brings us to movie no 2, the fight movie. Now a martial arts is an entirely different kind of movie, and its success rests with two factors, the building of the suspense and the quality of the skills of the lead. Bruce Lee understood this perfectly and if you do your homework you will find that the film he was working on at the time of his death was about "structured" fights where each fight built on the next to a grand finale. The best fight films of our era -- the first Rockies, ONG BAK 1 (not the rest), and the early Van Dammes all understand this principle. Ever Warrior, a great fight film, gets it. (The Chinese don't and many Kung Fu films from China miss the boat). Now, if you are still with me, you probably suspect that BLOOD AND BONE has one of the best fight structures in film, therefore putting it as a contender for greatness. Which leaves the lead actor. To make this one of the best fight films ever, you would also need an actor who is not only credible but moves like the wind and gives the impression he could actually make the moves in real life ... if he had to. And that brings us to Jai White. Why this guy never become a fight legend, I don't know. Hell, Stallone is still fighting on the way to pick up his pension checks, so it can't be age. But he is the real deal, and this seems his best star performance. Actor plus well structured (pyramided) fights equal one of the best fight films of all time

I am not going a great rating, because this could have been better. Don't expect high end acting, because there is just two names worth mentioning - Michael and Eamonn Walker. The other cast of full of MMA fighters. So, just expect fight. It is there. Eammonn is very good as James. The movie's plot has lot of holes. They could have devoted more time to the relationship between Danny and Bone, but they didn't and the reasoning doesn't seem personal.

Michael Jai must be cast in some big budget action movie... He's a next JCVD.

Make no mistake, this ain't undisputed 2. Undisputed 2 just felt right. But this ain't bad at all. Better than most action flicks. I would see this movie more many of the high end bull-crap movie these days.

When i started watching the movie i was very impressed by the martial abilities of the main character. He surely knows his martial arts, and knows them good. Got kinda hyped for the movie to be decent or at least tad above mediocre. But i was mistaken.

The fist positive thing i can say is that the main character is very likeable. But it's not well written at all. The other characters are not written well either.

The plot on first glance is pretty flat and cheesy , nothing impressive. Not a masterpiece or anything, but could have been a decent entertaining movie to watch. But after the first 20mins you start seeing more and more lame and pointless scenes with bad dialogues, that are there for no good reason.

Good thing about the movie is, as i said above - the main character knows how to fight in real. So we do have plenty of good scenes with good choreography and almost impactful fights. Almost like the moredn Asian movies.. almost. But the other half of the fighting scenes are badly cut and badly shot. They tried to mix both the almost impactful look of the asian fighting movies and the western lame cuttings. The end result is not very good. The scenes where he fights the camera look terrible. Such scenes we see in Rocky and similar movies, when he trains, but they look bad when it's POV of the loosing side lol.

Anyway, acting is also pretty stiff. That combined with bad dialogues makes this movie not-very-entertaining.

Ending fight makes no sense, where did these 2 swords come from lol, and 1 was supposed to be in the house of James. Did James just walk around with not one but TWO swords for no reason.

Anyway, aside of that last nitpicking, ending and whole plot were very predictable, but they didnt put much efford in the script to make it at least a little bit suspenseful. It was like when you use your level 99 character in the game to play on 1st level of the game - not a challenge whatsoever.

People seem to like and praise the movie, but besides superficially "entertaining "fighting movie, it doesnt deliver much more to that. It's not even good story.

This was easily one of my favorite martial-arts movies in the last 5 years or so. Michael Jai White plays the part perfectly, and his tough yet concerned persona is great. I honestly couldn't think of a better person to fill this role, and his beautiful martial arts style makes it all the better.

It does suffer from some lackluster acting jobs outside of White. I thought Dante Basco (Pinball) over acted quite a bit, and i don't think he was the best actor for the role.

Other than that the movie was terrific, and i would recommend it to any martial arts fan.

Michael Jai White is the only hope I have for the next great action hero. The man is a beast physically and his athleticism is amazing. He deserves better roles and bigger movies. Blood and Bone stands out from other STV martial arts/fighting films because it has some nice plot twists and well choreographed fight scenes. Plus you get your standard over-the-top bad guy, goofy sidekick, love interest, and some pretty good one liners. I was surprised by how much i enjoyed Blood And Bone. If you liked White in Undisputed 2, then you'll enjoy this flick. It kind of has a "Lionheart" vibe, but every street fighting movie does. Rent it.

The action is well choreographed and athletic, if a tad predictable. It is not a bad action film, however the only surprise in the plot-line is that there are no surprises. The opening and closing images, that play homage to Caradine classic martial arts heroic nomads, promise more than is delivered and alludes to an unwarranted, nay implausible sequel. The film is populated with archetypes and characatures with little to draw you in to a connection with them. Even the final fight, though demonstrating real skill, lacks any real grit or jeopardy. So it's a bit of a bubblegum movie, which is fine if you like bubblegum.

A pretty good karate flick. This was probably Michael Jai White at his peck physical form. That one jump kick is insane. The movie is not the best action movie ever made but it is a good watch. The end could have used more juice.

From the Michael Jai White straight-to-DVD collection is "Blood and Bone." I know that first sentence sounds like a diss, but that's not the intent. This movie is good and we need those small budget indie films to mix things up.

Michael Jai White plays Isaiah Bone, an ex-con who has hopped feet first into the underground street fighting scene. In prison he made short work of JC (Kimbo Slice) and his crew, and on the outside he does the same with the help of his street promoter Pinball (Donte Basco).

From the beginning it's clear that Bone has an agenda that involves a lightweight kingpin named James (Eamonn Walker). James is a hyperbolic gangster character. That means flashy cars, flashy clothes, goons, and a sardonic temperament. He's extra-vicious, extra-nasty, and extra-violent almost as if to make it patently clear who the bad guy is. But to hurt James, Bone has to go through the gauntlet of unworthy fighters to work his way into a position to do the most damage.

"Blood and Bone" is no worse than any other fighting movie out there that makes the big screen. It's not as good as "Undisputed 2," but it's decent and the soundtrack is righteous.

Michael Jai White simply rocks. He's the one great thing about this film. He's perfect as a tough guy in martial arts movies, and in this he almost takes it to another level. The fight scenes are superb, they're what makes this movie the great gem of a martial arts movie it is. In fact, that's the only reason why this movie should be watched. The rest of the movie is so-so. Some of the lines are poorly delivered, there's so much mumbling which makes it hard to understand what people are saying at times. Luckily there's lot of action all the way through, it's great, and frankly it's no use worrying about anything else. That is because the fight scenes is the only reason to watch such a movie in the first place. And believe me, they rock.

If you love fighting movies and Michael Jai White, well its impossible to hate this one.

When I first watched this movie I was very hyped and loved it instantly. You cannot consider yourself a fan of fighting, karate kind of movies and hate this one, is simply impossible.

Michael Jai White was perfect for this role, he is a massive dude, full of muscle and the fighting was amazing. Is clear that behind all this we had a great script and a great movie director.

... though not in the field of karate... ;)

I decided to write this comment because I'm very thrilled about "Blood and Bone" and decided to give it 10 stars. Not that I haven't seen better acting performances and scripts before but this movie is just the ideal of BRILLIANT Sunday-movie-entertainment.

I think we've all been waiting for a replacement for the old kick-ass- actors like jean-claude van damme and jet li. We have it now, his name is Michael Jai White and in this movie he is a mean mother-F, an ex-con with a big heart and an attitude.

This movie is NOT bad acting like many fighting movies and the script is simple but its working.

I HARDLY RECOMMEND this movie because of it's high rate of entertainment.

By my reckon the only people being disappointed about this movie is people who are more in to the Hugh-Grant-is-running-around-in-pyjama- and-is-in-love-with-a-girl kind of movies. Not that there is anything wrong with that. :)

I caught on to this movie as a couple of clips of it turned up in some youtube vids of UFC fighters reviewing movies - the fight scenes looked cool so I gave it a shot.

It's a pretty formulaic 'Avenging Angel' plot and lowish budget but the acting is fairly decent and you certainly can't fault the fight choreography. Michael Jai White pulls off some of the most incredible scenes I can recall ever seeing, almost more impressive that presumably everyone walked away uninjured from the set.

Casting Julian Sands as the whitest evil white guy stereotype complete with a white suit was brilliant. He just seems to pop up all over the place and I think has made B movies his career-long niche.

Every time Dante Basco appeared on camera I just kept thinking "Rufio, Rufio, Ru-fi-OOOO!".

Definitely worth a watch if you're into martial arts flicks.

I started watching this mobie and the flrst scene looks really professional but the rest of the movie seems like a joke. The fight scenes are really good and realistic but the acting and script is utter garbage