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    		•

    FILMS

    No Retreat, No Surrender (1985)
  • Starring Kurt McKinley, Jean Claude Van Damme, Tim Baker, Pete Cunningham, Tai Chung Kim

  • Directed by Corey Yuen

  • Guest review written by Stuart Bowen

    • As I've confessed before, I'm a big fan of martial-arts movies. Bad martial-arts movies. And I recently succumbed to the urge to watch one of the worst guilty pleasures ever. No Retreat, No Surrender. Notable mostly as Jean Claude Van Damme's American film debut.

    But before I get to Van Damme, I should probably mention a couple of the other cast members. There's Kurt McKinley (playing Jason Stillwell), who's taekwondo background is obvious. He's clearly a skilled martial artist, but not awe inspiring. Then there's Tim Baker, a traditional karateka who plays McKinley's father (Tom Stillwell). You can see more of Baker in Don "The Dragon" Wilson's magnum opus Bloodfist 2. [insert sarcastic eye rolling here: I think Wilson is kinda awful]

    What I'd forgotten until this last viewing was that Pete "Sugarfoot" Cunningham stars as well. An accomplished kickboxer and karateka, Cunningham plays a fighter from a rival school. He's called upon (read: duped) into pummeling McKinley early in the film. Technically, that puts him in the adversary category. But it's obvious that his character has serious misgivings about what he's doing. And he was lied to in the first place, so Cunningham's character is pretty sympathetic.

    OK, not surprisingly, I've gotten ahead of myself. You want a synopsis? You got it:

    Tom Stillwell runs a karate dojo. His Bruce Lee-obsessed son Jason is a student at the school. One evening, after class, Stillwell is visited by a stereotypical organized crime type and his two flunkies: A rival karateka and Ivan the Russian (Van Damme). Apparently, Stillwell has refused to sell his dojo to the mafia guy's boss. So they've come round to teach him a lesson. The enemy karateka attacks Stillwell, who manages to defeat him. Then Ivan cripples Stillwell and fends off Jason's counterattacks effortlessly.

    Why do the mafia want a karate dojo? No idea. It doesn't make any sense until you realize that No Retreat, No Surrender is really just an old-school kung fu movie (directed by Corey Yuen, who also directed The Transporter and Jet Li's The One) dressed in modern clothes. And in old-school kung fu movies, people attacked rival kung fu schools simply because they were rival kung fu schools. It doesn't make any more sense for realizing this. But at least there's a precedent for it.

    Fast forward a few ... weeks? Months? Who knows. The Stillwells have relocated to Seattle (where Bruce Lee is buried, folks). Tom walks with a cane now. And he's understandably pretty bitter. Jason is as enthusiastic as ever though, and he quickly turns the garage into his own dojo, replete with Bruce Lee posters, mook jong, and heavy bags.

    It doesn't take long for Jason to befriend RJ, the wise-cracking, break-dancing kid from down the street. Nor for both of them to run afoul of ... some horribly obese local bully.

    Jason gets in a dust-up with the bully and company. It comes back on him, though, when he visits the local karate dojo. The bully is a student there. He tells the instructor Dean (played by genre regular Dale Jacoby) that Jason beat him up for no reason and that he's been bad mouthing Seattle karate since he rolled into town. (You know. Because people actually do that.)

    Dean responds by ordering Frank (Cunningham) to pummel Jason in kumite. Frank, thinking he's defending the honor of Seattle karate, willingly does so. Until he recognizes how hopelessly outclassed Jason is. Then Frank begins to have second thoughts. Unfortunately Dean's calling the shots here, and Jason gets smacked around like a seal pup for his trouble.

    Somewhere in this mix, Jason's girlfriend, Kelly Reilly, shows up. Apparently she lives in Seattle (which he didn't seem to realize). And she's the younger sister of Ian Reilly, a world-famous kickboxer and proprietor of the dojo mentioned above (which Jason also doesn't seem to realize). And she's being courted by Dean as well (which Jason does realize when Dean beats the monkeys out of him at a pool party).

    All of this leads us to the crux of the film. Jason, beaten, dejected, and spurned by his embittered father, calls upon the spirit of Bruce Lee. "Sensei Lee" oddly enough actually responds. He teaches Jason jeet kune do and then disappears into the ether when Jason manages to pull off a certain somersault kick move on the speedbag. (Apparently, that's the pinnacle of jeet kune do.) Another throwback to the old-school kung fu movie: The main character's training is complete when he manages to (once) perform a special maneuver which is guaranteed to come into play later on.

    Fast forward to later on. There's a big kickboxing match between Ian Reilly's school (represented by Reilly himself, Dean, and Frank) and those same gangster types from ... New York I think. They apparently want Reilly's school, as well.

    Reilly, Dean, and Frank are no match for the New York fighter Ivan the Russian. So Jason Stillwell is forced to step up, avenge his father, save his girlfriend's brother, and tap a keg of whupass in the name of Bruce Lee.

    What more can I say about this movie? It's bad. It's awful. But I love it all the same. It combines all the worst tropes of the kung fu genre and the mid-'80s into one frenetic, nonsensical ride.

    Grab some popcorn, some friends, and a sense of humor. You won't be disappointed.

    "Don't think. FEEEEL!"