Blood Fight/Ironheart (MVD Rewind Collection) Blu-ray Review

I put together this review back in January of this year and I never posted it for whatever reason. So, I am posting it for all of to read.

Studio: MVD Visual

Release Date: 1989 (video) (Bloodfight)

1992 (video) (Ironheart)

August 11th, 2020 (blu-ray)
Run Time: 1 hour 36 mins (Bloodfight)

1 hour 32 minutes 34 seconds (Ironheart)
Region Code: A
Picture: 1080p (1.78:1 aspect ratio) (Bloodfight)

1080p (1.85:1 aspect ratio) (Ironheart)
Sound: English LPCM 2.0 (both films)
Subtitles: English
Slipcover: Yes
Digital Copy: No
Starring: Yasuaki Kurata, Simon Yam, Meg Lam, Anzu Lawson, and Bolo Yeung (Bloodfight)

Britton K. Lee, Bolo Yeung, Richard Norton, and Karman Kruschke (Ironheart)

Written by Yoshiaki Kashigawa (Bloodfight)

Lawrence Riggins (Ironheart)

Directed by Shuji Goto (Bloodfight)

Robert Clouse (Ironheart)

Rating: Not Rated (martial arts violence) (Bloodfight)

R (violence and some sexuality) (Ironheart)

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Poster(s)

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Film Review

BLOODFIGHT is a snoozer. That and Bolo is hardly in it. He is the main villain, but he is only at the beginning and at the end. For the rest of the film, we follow some shmuck who wants as he trains to get his revenge on Bolo for killing his student. I didn't care what was going on in the film. None of the actors (except for Bolo) were interesting and they were poorly acted by actors who were probably very green. The fight scenes are standard and contain no excitement at all. I just didn't care about anything that was happening here. Do not watch this film unless you love wasting your time.

IRON HEART is the clear winner here. The film has a clear cut goal of what it wants to be, presents this to us in a way we can understand, and gives us what we came for: martial arts action. Bolo is in the film way more than he was in BLOODFIGHT, but he plays the bad guy's right-hand man instead of being the big baddie. I thought the action was cut way too fast with the audience not getting used to one cut before giving us three other ones. The film was directed by Robert Clouse, who directed ENTER THE DRAGON. You would think that he would know how to construct an action, but he doesn't. You can tell that everything was captured right, but the editing kills any momentum. Still, the film is entertaining and it is so much better than BLOODFIGHT was.

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Video/Audio

BLOODFIGHT looks pretty bad. There is damage throughout the film and the colors are all off. The picture is washed out and everything looks so dirty. There is a decent amount of detail in close-ups, but anything further away drives down the detail. The film has clearly not been cared for. The 2.0 track is good with dialogue sounding pretty good for the most part.

IRONHEART fares much better. Detail is higher on the scale and colors look much better. Skin tones look better, but they seem muted at times. There is also far less damage here, although it does show up from time to time. The 2.0 track is also a winner here. Dialogue sounds great and the songs used throughout also sound great.

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Extras

In terms of extras, there's a trailer for each film (which is ALWAYS welcome) as well as trailers for some of the other films in the MVD Rewind Collection.

Bloodfight

Ironheart

Mikey

My Samurai

Showdown

Split Second

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This double feature of martial arts films from THE VIDEO STORE DAYS is a welcome addition to MVD Rewind Collection even if BLOODFIGHT isn't a good film. IRON HEART for than makes up for BLOODFIGHT's numerous failings. This set is worth picking up if just to relive some of those Video Store memories.

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