Lion Fist (2026)

We got some new Gary Daniels! That's the main reason we're here, when there's new Gary Daniels out there we need to make it happen, anything else after that is a bonus, so the question is how much bonus did we get? In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof Action has covered this as well.

Lion Fist is about Joe (Mathis Landwehr), a schlub who did four years in prison for his drug-addicted wife after she was caught holding felony weight. If that wasn't schlubby enough, he finds out she's pregnant with his child, so he gives her all his money while he's serving his time, and when he gets out, she tells him she needs $50,000 for an operation because the son she won't let him see needs brain surgery. One night on his way home Joe finds some baddies picking on an old man named Wu (Yanlong Li), and it turns out he's not only a Kung Fu master, but his daughter, Mei (Julin Taubner), is hot and has a thing for Joe. They offer to train him for a tournament where he can win the money he needs. But wait, his ex's new boyfriend Butch (Brice Akuesson) is dealing drugs out of a local gym? Joe and Mei can't let that slide, can they? Will our hero find love, win the money, and stop the baddies from dealing drugs?

Where do we go with this one? The last 30-40 minutes is fantastic, the kind of throwback to the 90s tournament movie you want. Even when it's ridiculous, like when police detectives Gary Daniels and Kurt McKinney have the drug dealers at gunpoint, and then say "let's do this old school," which means they drop their guns and take out the baddies using their martial arts. I'm not sure why that was "old school," or why any police officers would do it, but it got us a too sweet fight with Daniels and McKinney, so I'll take it. The problem is, the first 45-50 minutes doesn't make a lot of sense, and the lack of sense only has a few fights here and there to mitigate it. Other than pursuing a relationship with Mei, who made it clear from their first meeting that she was into him, and I guess training in Kung Fu with her father, because who wouldn't want to train to be a Kung Fu master, nothing else that Joe does makes sense. Why is he trying to bring down the drug dealers? Why does he take it on faith that his ex who has been bilking him for drug money is telling the truth about this operation? None of this makes the last part of the film not worth it though, I thought it was a lot of fun, and with this being a free streamer on Tubi, I think it's worth checking out, I just don't want you to start it and be like "what the hell was Matt talking about?" Give it a chance, and you'll be rewarded.

This is now 63 films for Gary Daniels, which is exactly 15 behind Dolph for first all-time among actors, and 15 ahead of Cynthia Rothrock, who's third all-time for actors. He has a small part here as one of the detectives Joe and Mei go to with their drug ring suspicions, and later with proof as the two of them are running their own sting operation. I was worried that it would be an even smaller part when I heard he was in this, but he gets more screentime when they raid the gym where the drug deals are happening, and we even see a fight when he and Kurt McKinney decide to "do it old school," which, again, made no sense, but if it gets us a fight scene I'll take it. The question is, where do we go from here? He doesn't have a lot coming, and as far as things left to review, he has one more Christian movie, The Encounter: Paradise Lost, and another film he did in Thailand around that time, A Stranger in Paradise, which has been harder to find than it should be. Hopefully he'll get more things like this, made for us "old school" action fans who are just happy to see him for a bit--and maybe mix it up for a fight scene or two--because it was fun to see him here.

The lead was played by Mathis Landwehr, who we saw in Last Kumite, and also appeared in Ultimate Justice. His martial arts skills are fantastic, and that alone will get him to the church on time in these action films, but I think he really wanted to deliver this schlubby guy gains confidence and becomes a Kung Fu master kind of thing, which I could appreciate. He's a little bit younger than Scott Adkins, but he grew up watching all of these like Adkins, and gets it all the way we all get it, which is a huge plus for all of us as fans. It's something we need, because as much as Adkins is game, he can only make so many movies, so we need more people out there who can give us more content, and I think we can add Landwehr to names like Marko Zaror and Alain Moussi who can lead their share of action films along with Adkins. He does have some stuff in his back catalog that I can review as well, so we'll probably start seeing him more on the site, but for now, this is a fun performance that action fans will appreciate.

Rounding out the rest of the names, we'll start with a couple you may not recognize. Our leading lady was played by Julin Täubner, whose only other credit was Mulan. You wouldn't know it from how great a job she does here. She also had a great fight scene, which rounded out her character, and made me think she and Landwehr would do great in a buddy cop movie, maybe like an Interpol thing set in Berlin. Then her father was played by Yanlong Li, and he also has a scant CV, yet did a great job as the Kung Fu master training Landwehr. One of his credits though was as craft services for A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop, which was Zhang Yimou's remake of Blood Simple and a movie I really enjoyed. Then on fight choreography we had one of the best in the business right now, Mike Möller, which of course elevates this whole thing. Great talent in the fights, but his choreography helps it all shine. Two names action fans would be excited to see were Keith Cooke and Kurt McKinney, both with smaller supporting parts, but bigger than cameos with some fights mixed in, so I think action fans seeing their names on the tin would be satisfied. Finally, Bolo Yeung's son David played the guy leading the drug cartel. He's broken out in the past couple years with a bunch of roles, including one in The Last Kumite, so it'll be interesting to see what happens as he does more stuff, because he was pretty good in this.

Finally, it's time to address the elephant, err lion in the room. That's right, lion's don't have fists. It was the second thing I thought when I saw the title for this, the first being the Kajagoogoo song "The Lion's Mouth," which was a song I discovered when my friend got a Kajagoogoo's greatest hits CD, and we were both wondering "what hits did they have beyond 'Too Shy'?" (To be fair, Limahl's "Neverending Story" was also added, I think the actual album title was "Kajagoogoo and Limahl's greatest hits.") Either way, the film does address this lion in the room on two occasions, where Landwehr tells Yanlong Li what we said above, that lion's don't have fists. The thing is, anyone who has cats knows that in the wild, cats having fists, and by extension opposable thumbs, probably wouldn't mean much; but in our homes, that would be a nightmare. Cats already are adept at getting into all kinds of shit, now imagine if they had thumbs on top of that? They'd be opening doors, unscrewing tops to dry food, opening beef jerky packages. I saw a video one time of people who had a raccoon as a pet, and how the raccoon would just tear their place a part, and they don't even have opposable thumbs, they just have hands that are more dexterous than a cat's. Cats with opposable thumbs would go from the great animal companions that they are to cute, furry, horrible roommates, so it's probably for the best that there are no lion fists, or any other feline fists for that matter.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can stream this free on Tubi here in the States. The story's a bit off the wall, and it takes some time to get going, but has a fantastic finish, and I think for "old school" action fans, this will do the trick.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38953026/

Death Bitch 2 (2026)

This was another screener request from Joe Williamson, and beyond the fact that the movies he sends us have a high hit rate, this one was even more intriguing because it features Ian Jacklin, someone who's no stranger to our site, so I was excited to see what he was up to as well. 

Death Bitch 2 takes place sometime after part one (which I did watch for this as well), and in it, our heroine, Alexis Walker (Linnea Swanson), is trying to move on with her life after avenging the deaths of her brother and mother. Two problems with that though. One, the crime boss she killed last time, Dante, he has a sister named Sabrina (Michelle Bauer) who wants revenge; and two, while Alexis is parking her car after meeting her friend April for drinks, when she comes back she finds her friend murdered after a mugging. So as much as she tries to get out, they keep pulling her back in! At the same time, the police are trying to curb this sudden crime wave started by Sabrina and her gang of ne'er-do-wells, and in the process Ian Jacklin's partner gets killed--someone must not have liked his Boston accent. Now he's teaming with Det. Douglas from the last movie (Doug Waugh) and his partner, Det. Matt Stone (Robert Allen Mukes), to get his revenge. 

This was a ton of fun. A great heroine to root for, great baddies to oppose her, and a lot of fun touches along the way, like the news report bumpers with August Kyss as reporter Kimberly Wells, and Dawna Lee Heising as the mayor's wife--who later gets himself caught with a sex worker. Two things I would say though: one, like the first film, we lose Alexis for large portions of the film as things focus more on the detectives, and I think some of those scenes of dialog with them go on a bit longer than they needed to; and two, and this isn't so much a knock, but as a sequel, it helps to see the first one first, which fortunately it is available on Fawesome and is only 87 minutes--and also a lot of fun like this one, so worth the effort, but I wanted to throw that out there too. The thing I loved about this the most was how filmmaker Ken "Ace" Brewer was able to take the basic premise of the original Death Wish, but not make it simply a remake with a female lead, but rather do new things with it. The Ian Jacklin piece for us 90s DTV action fans was great to see as well, and while he's now the grizzled veteran cop, he did an excellent job as that grizzled veteran cop who could still throw some nice punches and maybe an knee or two if you need it. This is getting released on November 12th, both on DVD and Blu-ray from the company's site, lividmedia.org, with a limited theatrical release as well, so check your area theater listings to see if it's playing near you! It's a lot of fun and worth checking out.

Let's start with our lead, Linnea Swanson, who is reprising her role from the first film. Unlike a lot of women action leads we see, she's not doing any martial arts here, it's more about her showing up with a gun and killing people, but despite being as far from Charles Bronson as you can imagine, she sells it in a Bronson-esque way. Whenever someone's getting mugged or assaulted, once we see her come around the corner, we know it's over for the baddies. Part of it too is having a writer and director like Brewer who has a clear, cohesive vision of what he wants to make, and casting someone like Swanson who can carry it off. For example, when Alexis is captured by Sabrina, it looks like Jacklin and the other cops are coming to save her. That damsel in distress element would've hurt the whole thing, but instead Alexis escapes and has a final showdown with Sabrina without any police involvement, which is what we needed. I'd be up for however many of these Death Bitch films Brewer wants to make with Swanson, as I said above, this was a ton of fun.

As far as Ian Jacklin, I think it's great just to see him back in a film like this. I wasn't sure how much of him we'd get, but he actually has a secondary plot arc with a woman who works behind the counter of a convenience store he goes to. The problem in a role like this is if we get more of him, we get less of Swanson as Alexis, which I wouldn't have wanted, and this wasn't his movie anyway, so I was okay with it, I was more happy to just see him in this and doing well. As far as the fights, he had a couple, and at this stage it's more about throwing punches with a few knees thrown in, but I'm okay with that too, we already had the movies where he proved his martial arts skills, so it was good to see that he could pull off the grizzled detective now--and still mix it up a bit if he needs to. It looks like he's found work in the vertical film market, which aren't films we'll cover here, but work is work and I wouldn't begrudge anyone getting paid; hopefully though we'll see some more stuff like this from him too.

Throughout both this film and the one before it, we have these news reports and interviews given to us by reporter Kimberly Wells, played by August Kyss, who we've seen on the site before in a few other horror screeners. While a lot of the moments are played for laughs, I think they also do a great job of--I don't know if "grounding the film" is the right idea, but they reinforce a truth that this film uses to underpin the more extreme and absurdist elements, and that is that many of us have no sympathy for people who make our streets less safe, and however they're dealt with is fine with us, which is what makes the Death Wish films work. I remember when Trump first deployed the National Guard to DC, someone posted a kid on an ATV riding down one of the streets and was like "look at that, there's your big crime!", which I get, but as extreme as it sounds, if Mayor Parker here in Philly called in the National Guard and they rounded up all the dirt bike riders and frog marched them through Center City, a lot of people would applaud it, and while I might not applaud it, I don't know if I'd be outraged either because those dirt bike guys are a dangerous nuisance. I get too that it's a slippery slope, but what makes this movie so much fun is it never gets fully slippery, which I think is what made the Death Wish films work so well too; but then Brewer used those news segments to touch on the deeper conversations, while we get to enjoy Alexis shooting all the baddies she can.

Finally, a joke that's carried through from the first film is Det. Douglas eating vegan donuts, and in this one his new partners eat them and think they taste horrible. I wanted to use this paragraph to defend this plant-based confection, because here in Philly we have a donut shop, Okie Dokie Donuts, that not only has all gluten free donuts, but also a great selection of vegan ones, and they're some of the best donuts I've ever eaten. They are more expensive, but they're also so rich that one is probably enough. Also Doughnut Plant in Grand Central Station in NYC makes great vegan donuts, I got a strawberry one there that was amazing. With that said, for all the things I loved about this film, the vegan donut slander was one I needed to push back on, because vegan donuts can taste great!

And with that, let's wrap this up. This will be available on DVD and Blu-ray on the Livid Media site (lividmedia.org) on November 12th, and possibly in a theater near you on the same day. This is a fun indie film that really worked for me, and is worth checking out, especially if you're looking to support more indie filmmakers.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt35390399

Dolph: Unbreakable (2025)

It's that time of year again, Dolph's birthday is upon us, and as such we need to do a movie in celebration of that. Originally I'd planned to do One Last Shot, which I saw a few weeks ago, but when I saw this was available for one of my $1 rentals on Xfinity, I figured it was a more fitting film to honor Mr. Lundgren making another trip around the sun.

Dolph: Unbreakable is a documentary covering Dolph's life from his tumultuous childhood with his abusive father, to his introduction into martial arts, which led to him meeting Grace Jones, through which he met Sylvester Stallone, and from there rose to stardom, only to fall off in the 90s and 2000s (the time we know him best for here), then come back with The Expendables. Throughout this, we're also looking in the present and his battle with cancer, that looked like it was going to take his life, if not for a second opinion from an oncology doctor in LA who prescribed him a different medication. We also get a series of interviews with people who worked with him, like Stallone, Van Damme, and even Arnold Schwarzenegger; and Dolph gets introspective and talks about his divorce and the demons he was dealing with from his childhood.

This was a really compelling film, and while for our purposes we may have wanted to get more of the DTV stuff--and even more on films like The Punisher and Showdown in Little Tokyo--the insight we get into who he is and what his life was like, even at the times he was making those movies, was worth the price of admission. We'd also heard stories about how he met Grace Jones, but to hear from him exactly how it all happened, that he was in Sydney for graduate school, and worked security for a club Grace Jones was at, and provided personal security for her as well, and then from there they went to New York. By the time he had the Fullbright Scholarship to MIT, he had been in these elite celebrity circles to such an extent that that he no longer wanted to pursue that scholarship, but he talked about how a Fullbright is such a big deal it was hard from him to turn it down. The other interviews were great as well, especially with Stallone and what it was like working with him, but also his daughters, who were candid and thoughtful in discussing their father and their relationship with him. If you're someone like me who celebrates Dolph's birthday, this is a perfect choice.

We're now at 78 movies for Dolph, and in some ways this may have been the perfect film for his 80th, because it is so personal and tells us so much about him, but once I saw it was available, I wanted to get it reviewed on here as soon as possible. The one thing that came through for me was his background as an international scholar, because you really see that in his interviews, and it's not easy to reconcile with both the action lead we know him as, but also the person he's describing who had issues with drugs and alcohol and partying. It's different from celebrities who go to school after they had some level of success and fame as an actor, etc., because they still retain that pre-education celebrity element in the way they carry themselves; Dolph's the opposite, he's a celebrity who carries himself as this highly educated individual. Even when he's doing his TED Talk on the abuse he suffered as a child, he doesn't sound like the usual TED Talker, if you think of that cadence a lot of them use, he's someone who had given talks before TED Talks were a thing. We always talk about him as this Fullbright Scholar before he got into acting, but to see it in action was another thing. Beyond that, I think the introspection he gives us, and his transition from the Viking warrior who wants to die in a blaze of glory, to now being the wise older Viking warrior, I think it's what you want from a movie like this, and was all great to see.

There was another reality though, and that is how this film treats the films we've celebrated him for on this site. We've always had a tongue in cheek relationship with the movies we cover--I mean, my desktop wallpaper is the screenshot of the nuclear launch screen from The Peacekeeper, with all the countries as targets listed, complete with Chile spelled "Chili." We all have fun with it, but we don't really think, "how would Dolph have felt making it?" And part of making it was being away from his family, which ultimately played a part in the end of his marriage. It's a reminder, the same way it was a reminder when I found out that Albert Pyun read my reviews, that there are human beings behind these productions, even in the big stars like Dolph. I don't think it means we can't have fun with them like we've always done, because I think that's part of the charm of these movies, and I also think part of the reason people come to the site; but, as I've grown throughout the nearly 20 years we've been doing the DTVC, it is possible to be more thoughtful about the people we're discussing, while still having the fun we've always had.

In our Randall Scandal documentary review, we established the rule for tagging people in documentaries, after we saw file footage of Steven Seagal. I decided then that file footage isn't enough for a tag, that people need to actively participate in the documentary, either as an interviewee, or at the very least a producer or another part of the crew. With that in mind, we could tag Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Couture, and Van Damme, because they were all interviewed specifically for the film. The biggest one was Stallone, who talked at length about Rocky IV and the other films they worked on together. Probably the most interesting tidbit was from Arnold, who told us he met Dolph while he was making Conan the Destroyer with Grace Jones, and said had he known Dolph wanted to act they would've cast him in that. And then I think biggest for our purposes, Van Damme getting a tag puts him at 38 movies, which means we're only two away from the 40 Club for him, and with Swelter and Welcome to the Jungle out there to be reviewed, it's only a matter of time now.

Finally, it's the Rocky Statue in Philadelphia, which is from the Creed II footage they used in the movie. That was in 2018, which means Dolph was here shooting that movie while I was living here! This was during that hiatus period I had, so I wasn't as plugged in and had no idea. Perhaps if I had, I may have shot down there to see if I could get a look at the shoot! A couple thing about this, you'll notice this statue is down away from the actual Art Museum steps. It was put here at that time because the people who ran the Art Museum thought it wasn't museum-y enough to have it at the top of the steps in front of the actual museum. Sometime later when the statue of Joe Frazier, an actual champ who existed and won championship fights in real life, was created, it was relegated to down near the Sports Complex area, a place people barely saw. When I was on the LAMBcast episode on sports movies, I talked about this, saying it was an example of Philadelphia being more like Boston, if you know what I mean. They have since corrected all of this, the Rocky Statue is at the top of the museum steps, and the Joe Frazier statue is here where the Rocky statue was once located, so if you're ever in Philly you can see both. And if you're looking for a cheesesteak after, go east and hit Shay's Steaks on Race Street, one of the best ones in the city.

And with that, let's wrap this up. It looks like rent VOD is the way to go right now, but I think if you have the extra money, or have a coupon like I do, this is worth it, especially if you want to watch something for Dolph's birthday. 

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16114052

Marrow (2026)

This was a screener request from Scott Motisko, who you may remember sent us Brute 1976 with its infamous penis drill. This looked like it would probably be penis drill-free, which, depending on your tastes could be a mark in or against its favor. Either way, let's see how it did.

Marrow is about podcaster Jamie Foster (Jessica Dawn Willis), who does a True Crime podcast under the name "Distal Marrow" called "Embracing the Paradox." After years of success describing grizzly serial murders, she's feeling burnout, and does an episode on Bigfoot, which her fans hate, and the person running the podcast company she works for (Danielle Harris)--who also happens to be a close friend of her late mother--says she needs to come up with something big, otherwise her funding will be cut and she'll just being doing it as a hobby (like the rest of us). All hope seems to be lost, until a creepy caller comes to her with info on four other area True Crime podcasters who have gone missing. The content is compelling enough to get her back on top, but is she willing to give up her success to save these other victims?

This was definitely a great Halloween season watch, exploring themes not only around modern content creation, but also touching on our modern economy and what it means to have a job like being a podcaster--and what it could mean to lose it. All of this is spun in a horror movie context, that takes the "True Crime podcaster is embroiled in her own True Crime story" plot, and takes it to these extreme horror movie places where anything is possible. You could've taken this script and grounded it more and made it into a Lifetime thriller that would've been a ton of fun to watch and may have been more my speed, but I also appreciated the fact that doing it in this more horror context gave us something--I don't know if "elevated" is the right word, but at least something more serious horror fans could get behind. From there, we have a great lead in Jessica Dawn Willis, and supporting names we recognize like Danielle Harris, Michael Ironside, and Matthew Tompkins. With a VOD release date of November 3rd, this is a great way to extend your Halloween season a bit, and support indie film while you do it.

I figured we'd start with our lead in Jessica Dawn Willis, because a lot of this hinges on her. When we think of horror movie performances, we usually think of the big moments and how well the actor is able to sell them, but sometimes we don't consider all the smaller moments leading up those bigger ones that build the foundation, and that's where Willis really excels for me here. Things like the affected speech of the Millennial podcaster, where "no" almost sounds like "nyoh," that subtly comes and goes depending on who she's talking to and how much she wants to be "Distal Marrow" versus "Jamie Foster;" or the scenes where she's reacting to text messages and phone calls, if it's too much of this popular concept of the vacuous True Crime podcaster, we don't care what happens to her, so she gives us more of a down-to-earth relatable character so we get invested too. That's the thing people love about horror movies, the anarchy of it, how anyone can go at any time, and the only thing that turns that anarchic excitement into tension is having people we're invested in, and I think Willis did a great job of that at the moments we needed it, while being less sympathetic in the moments we needed that too, all building to the big moments at the end.

Part of the stereotype of the vacuous True Crime podcaster I think comes from a sense of envy that people have that someone has found a way to make money doing something fun and outside the drudgery of the 9-to-5 world. Yes, misogyny is also a part of it, especially with disdain for Millennial women True Crime podcasters, so I don't want to ignore that entirely; but in the current economy, where everything is more expensive while wages haven't grown at the same rate, and where companies can let people go at the drop of a hat, it's hard not to be jealous of someone who pops on a computer and not only makes a living talking about True Crime mysteries, but even becomes rich doing it. On a recent episode of Behind the Bastards that was talking about rage baiters on social media, host Robert Evans cited a study where the majority of people said they wanted to make a living as a content creator, and that's even among older participants. So if a lot of people want to make money as a podcaster, imagine what it's like for the people who are making a living as a podcaster? This is where Marrow makes its money for me, when Willis's character is threatened with being pulled from her podcast network, you can see the thought of having to go back to work with the rest of us schlubs motivating her, especially when the police come and ask for her help in their investigation and that threatens her new content. I'm not saying if the DTVC Podcast took off and I could quit my job that I would hinder a police investigation to keep myself from having to go back to a day job, but I can understand why someone would.

The specific genre of podcast this film focuses on is True Crime, which is one my wife Jen will listen to, but I tend to stay away from. Because I don't listen to them much, I can't say if they treat their victims the way those ID Channel shows do, but that's one of the big reasons I stay away, I don't want to think about people dying in horrible ways, and I know at least those ID Channel shows don't focus enough on who the victims are and what they went through beyond the fact that friends and family say they "would light up the room," it's more about the investigative techniques used to find the killer--which we're taking their word for it that the cops are always right that they found the right person. Anyway, I think this film does a great job dealing with both of those realities. First, that these are grizzly murders Distal Marrow is discussing, and reading the details and seeing the images can take their toll; and second, that she is making her money off of that pain and suffering, which leaves her with a dilemma when push comes to shove and her show is at stake. She thought she had an offramp by shifting her show's focus to talking about Bigfoot, but when her audience rebelled, she had to sign that deal with the devil. It's one thing I like about horror, it can explore these kinds of conversations--like is True Crime exploitative, or a needed voice for the victims or wrongly accused--in an extreme way that can't be done in other genres, and this film does a great job working in that space.

Finally, in what is becoming a regular segment on the site, here's another cellphone screen. We have to start with "can we audio chat?" "Audio chat?" Isn't that just a phone call? I thought about it a bit, because a lot of times we come up with new terms for things because the connotations associated with the old ones have baggage. For example, the LLM generative AI industry uses "hallucination" instead of "error" when their LLMs output wrong results. "Hallucination" sounds better than "the thing fucks up a lot because it has limitation, so you should take the results with a grain of salt." In that sense, as someone who hates talking on the phone, maybe calling it an "audio chat" will make me more amendable to a phone call. The other thing is the first part of that sentence says "if I may ask..." and then just asks the question. What if you may not ask? It's too late, you've already asked it. It would be like me eating a bag of chips, and someone reaching in and grabbing some while saying "may I have some of these?" Unlike the "audio chat" thing though, this "may/can I ask" construction has been in English for a long time, and has no purpose other than I guess making us sound more polite, or maybe getting someone's attention before you come right out with the actual question.

And with that, let's wrap this up. This is coming out on VOD on November 3rd, and I think if you're looking for some new indie horror it's worth a look. And maybe November 3rd is the perfect date, because you can watch all your annual Halloween movies first, then after while you're still in a horror mode, you can catch something new. Also, spoiler alert, this doesn't feature a penis drill.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt34686688/

Outside the Wire (2021)

For our fourth and final DTVC Hall of Fame induction of 2026, it's stunt coordinator Hristov Diyan (who is tagged as Dian Hristov because that was the name he used to be credited under, so we'll have to update the tags eventually). For his induction post, I wanted something where he worked as stunt coordinator, and because this one is direct to Netflix, I thought it would work. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof Action has covered this as well.

Outside the Wire takes place in the near future, where Eastern Europe has erupted in civil war, and the US has been called in as peacekeepers. Drone pilot Harp (Damson Idris) is in hot water after disobeying a direct order that results in the deaths of two Marines. His punishment is to be sent to work with lone wolf Capt. Leo (Anthony Mackie) as he goes on a mission to deliver vaccines to sick civilians. He learns two things though: Leo is an android, and he's not just delivering vaccines, he's been sent in to prevent a baddie named Koval (Pilou Asbaek) from getting his hands on some nuclear launch codes for nuclear weapons based in the Ukraine. But if things were already not as they seemed, is there more Harp needs to uncover?

This isn't a bad deal, but I don't know where that gets you. I guess this could've come out in the late 90s, gotten a theatrical release, made eight figures at the box office, then maybe been rediscovered thirty years later and gotten an Arrow Films Blu-ray. The thing is, I don't think that's such a bad deal, and Netflix has been filling this gap in the market that the major studios don't want to touch anymore. Later I'll get into the fact that I think the problem is them filling the gap means these don't get a theatrical release, but at least for now I think taking this on its face, it's a decent sci-fi actioner that we used to see more in the theaters. A big piece of why this works is Anthony Mackie, he's a next-level screen presence that belongs in theatrical releases, but because of the reality of the market, we get him in a direct to Netflix film. The other big piece is Hristov Diyan's work as stunt coordinator and second unit director (for which he was uncredited). All of the action looked great, and again, it's the kind of stuff that belongs on the big screen. As with most Netflix movies, the runtime is a bit long, but almost 9 minutes of that is credit padding, so it's more like a 105-minute movie, which isn't quite as bad. If you have Netflix and are looking for something to watch, this is worth checking out.

I discovered that this post is doing double duty, because it also serves as Hristov Diyan's entry into the 40 Club! He's the third stunt worker to earn that distinction, after Art Camacho and Cole S. McKay. Unlike those two who got their starts in the late 80s/early 90s, and did a lot of work making that era the Golden Age of DTV action, Diyan starts in 1999 with Bridge of Dragons, and he comes in during a transition period, where the big studios were getting into the DTV game, as were big screen names like Seagal and Van Damme, while at the same time the DTV market was shifting from Erotic Thrillers to actioners, many of which were being shot in Eastern Europe. If you look at his career in the 2000s, it's a lot of doubling for Dolph, Van Damme, and especially a Seagal who was increasingly doing less and less of his own action sequences. From there, as Nu Image becomes Millennium Films, and they start working in bigger things, like The Expendables and the [X] is Down films, he stepped up into bigger stunt roles, and as we can see from a movie like this, he's well up to the task. Like most stunt workers, he's someone who only appeared on my radar recently, but all that time he was a large part of making the movies we love the movies we love. Here's to you Hristov Diyan, you're one of the great ones.

Let's get into some Anthony Mackie here, because the energy shifts the moment he enters the movie. To me it highlights the raw deal he got with that Brave New World movie, because while Chris Evans's three Captain American films were three of the best MCU movies, from conception to execution, Brave New World was beset by production issues, and ended up being a sautéed in wrong sauce backdoor sequel to The Incredible Hulk, something no one was asking for. Mackie's performance in this film is a reminder that he deserved better. It's almost like he saw this role as his Denzel Washington in Training Day moment, but also knew enough about how this character differed from Washington's, and could take it in the different directions this movie needed. It's like I'm watching the movie and enjoying Mackie's performance in it, but also thinking how with all the things Kevin Feige and the MCU have gotten right--especially now with Spider-Man: Brand New Day blowing up for $2.5 billion this summer--the thing they need to fix is getting Mackie's Sam Wilson the Captain America movie worthy of his talent. 

The other three names in this that I recognized were Damson Idris, Emily Beecham, and Michael Kelly. They all did what you'd want them to do as bigger names, and from Netflix's standpoint, they work to put their films in this middle space between the major studio theatrical releases, and the kinds of DTV stuff I review on here. And as I talked about, they also fill a gap for actors looking for work who can't find the roles they once did with all the studio consolidation and fewer big screen productions and TV shows being made. It's a reason why I tend not to review them though, because with names and production values like this, they don't exactly embody the spirit of what I intended the site to be--in fact, the movie I was going to do was Re-Kill with Scott Adkins, but I couldn't find it anywhere, so this felt like the next best thing. When we started the site in 2007, there was no such thing as straight to streaming, Netflix Instant was just starting, and the idea that they would be producing their own content was far from our thoughts; then I went on hiatus, and when I came back, everything was straight to streaming, including me, I almost never watch a new movie on DVD anymore. I guess there's no guidebook on how to run a site about direct to video movies, so I'll figure it out as I go.

Finally, sticking with Netflix, earlier this year they were the front runners to acquire Warner Bros. and HBO Max's TV studios, and during that time the CEO of Netflix was talking about how people don't like going to the movies anymore, and the standard theatrical window before a film goes to streaming needed to shrink. Here we are now though, and David Ellison was able to use daddy's borrowing power to get enough money to acquire not only Warner and HBO Max, but all the cable TV assets Netflix didn't want too, and while that may have been the smart play for Netflix, they've been hemorrhaging subscribers while 2026 has been one of the biggest years for theatrical releases in years. I think a big part of that is the high price of other activities, like concerts, eating out, and sporting events; but also the big studios are putting out more things that more people want to see. That's where a movie like this is a good case, because before streaming this would've gone to the theaters, and is it possible that movies like this will get theatrical releases again? Even a month-long window would be better than nothing. That's if this current trend continues, but the pendulum could swing back toward streamers having more run again; or the fact that we're seeing so much consolidation may mean even with the theaters doing better, streamers are still the only options, but they aren't printing money anymore, then we end up with nothing, and a movie like this doesn't even see the light of day. It's scary to think about, but worth keeping in mind too as a consequence of the market shifting.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Netflix is the only way to go for this, so if you have a subscription and are looking for something to watch, this is worth a look. And congratulations again to Hristov Diyan on his induction into the Hall of Fame. It is greatly deserved.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10451914/

Demon Dancer: Sua/Nara (2026)

This was a late request from CriticBridge, and is also our second film from Attila Korosi, the other being Live and Die in East LA, which was our first CriticBridge film. If you remember that one showed promise, but also had some mistreatment of animals. Let's see how this one did. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof Action covered this one as well. 

Demon Dancer: Sua/Nara follows Sua (Jiyeon Han), a ballet dancer who we first meet as she's tied to a table and getting her fingers cut off. Luckily the man hurting her removes the tape from her mouth so she can summon the demon inside her, Nara, (Anita Korosi), and all is well. After fighting her way through some other demons, she and Nara relax in an elevator, and we find out how they ended up there. Sua's husband, whom she accidentally hit with her car, and may have been stalking her when they met, gets possessed by a demon, and she wants to find out who did it. So Nara possesses her, and after some training and some flashbacks and dreams, plus a cat that is kept for inordinate amounts of time in a small carrier, Sua is finally ready to take on the demons that cursed her husband. Is she up to the task?

I'll say! This is definitely a step up from Korosi's previous film. We have a great lead in Jiyeon Han, Anita Korosi was great as well as Nara, and then stunt coordinator Gui-Duck Kwon gives us some next-level stuff, especially in the opening and closing scenes. There are some issues though. Like with Anita Korosi, while she does great, there are some moments where it feels like it's not her playing her part. Part of it might be the make-up, but also, the voice is not hers, it's someone who's a native English speaker with an American accent. Was it AI? Nowadays you can't be sure. Same with some of the special effects. In one, Korosi is holding Jiyeon Han, but then when the effect makes her disappear, her hand stays behind on Jiyeon Han's face. There are some other inconsistencies like that, again, in the age of AI can be concerning, which you don't want to be concerned with when so much else in the film looks great. Finally, that poor cat who spends most of his time in a tiny cat carrier, also gets strangled by one of the baddies. It's a quick scene, but no cat should be treated like that ever. If you can use special effects to make other things in this film, use the effects to make a damn cat, it's not that hard. Cat mistreatment aside, this is an even better effort for Korosi than his previous film, we had two great leads and some fantastic martial arts, so it's worth checking out once it's available.

The best place to start is with the first lead, Jiyeon Han, because the whole thing hinges on her. There's a lot of stuff that she needs to sell in this, like the idea that when demons possess your soul they take it in the form of a hard boiled egg, but I did buy it from her. Beyond that, it was a very physically demanding role, sometimes she needed to do actual ballet, sometimes she needed to do ballet as if she was possessed by a demon, and again, I bought it every time. The power and grace she exuded is something you can't find everywhere, so to have it and see it in this film is fantastic. From here we have the other lead character, Nara, played by Anita Korosi, who is also doing a great job selling us on everything. We have to believe she's a demon, especially in the scenes when she's in her human form. It was a much bigger part than the one she had in Live and Die in East LA, and she was more than up to it. And then she and Jiyeon Han had really great chemistry that brought the whole thing together. The martial arts action, which we'll talk about in the next paragraph, was fantastic, but if we didn't buy these two in their roles, it wouldn't have mattered.

That was pretty sweet martial arts action though. Unlike Live and Die in East LA, where we had names like Robert LaSardo to sell the film, Korosi went a different route here, and instead of using a known actor in a small part, he went with a known stunt coordinator in Gui-Duck Kwon, and while I'm not sure if that name brings people in like having LaSardo on the tin does, it was money well-spent in terms of the finished product. According to the IMDb trivia, Korosi first heard of Gui-Duck Kwon when Chad Stahelski mentioned him on Joe Rogan's podcast, then went to Korea to convince him to be in his film. The bet paid off, because the film looks the part, and from there Korosi just needs people like me to get the word out because the cover doesn't have a name to sell it, which is easy enough--as long as they're not a cat lover like me, when the action's there the action sites are ready to sing its praises in the review. Going back to that opening sequence, if you stuck around after the fingers being chopped off, you were treated to something that rivals many big budget productions, it looked that great, and Jiyeon Han was there to pull it all off. Kudos to Korosi for bringing Gui-Duck Kwon on for this, the end result was worth it.

We do have to address the cat in the room, because after the last Korosi film, I was a little nervous when I saw he had a live cat enter the picture. I also should point out that this may be a more me issue than him, because I sampled some of the other reviews of this, and no one else seemed to have a problem with it. One made a comment on Jiyeon Han's English, which I thought was fine for what we were doing, so maybe it's a tomato/tomato thing, some people have trouble with cats being mistreated, others it's lead actors speaking English as a second language. And maybe that's it, it's a personal taste thing, but for me it's more about why we're doing it at all. Why did we even need the cat in the movie? It wasn't contributing anything, other than sitting in a tiny cat carrier, and then getting out once, and being strangled for a few seconds by the baddie before they cut away, but none of those were scenes the cat seemed to particularly want to be a part of. Again, going back to the fact that other reviewers didn't seem to care about this, maybe we can chalk it up to the Venn diagram of cat lovers and action movie lovers doesn't have much of an overlap, and I just happened to be the one poor schmuck who does love both.

Finally, you may not know this about me, but I almost went to Korea to teach English. I got my teaching certificate for English as a second language, and started applying to schools over there, but then met Jen around the same time, and decided to stick around the States and see how things went between us. We've been married over 12 years, so I guess it worked out. One thing I didn't know then that I learned subsequently, and that this film touched on, is the amount of jingoism in Korea. For example, there are bars that are for Koreans only, no foreigners allowed. Technically we have establishments that discriminate here too, it's just they can't overtly say "[X] only," it's more like you may go in and find out the hard way. Anyway, Korosi uses this jingoism as a plot point, as it's the driving factor of the baddie, he's cursing people in mixed marriages so they'll kill their Korean partner, then shrivel up and die themselves. It was a great added element to the story that gave it more depth.

And with that, let's wrap this up. It's looking like December of this year is when we'll see here in the States and in Europe. It's definitely worth a look, the martial arts is next level, and we have two great leads in Jiyeon Han and Anita Korosi--there's also a bit of an anime tinge to it that I couldn't appreciate, but you may enjoy as well. The cat mistreatment, I think you tread at your own risk, and maybe I'm just too sensitive.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30780374/

Pretty (2026)

This is another CriticBridge review. In looking at it beforehand, I saw that the director, Metecan Duren, is only 19, which is crazy that he's that young! I was intrigued to see how it would turn out for sure. Then I saw the runtime, two hours and three minutes. That took a little of the steam out of my excitement to see what it was all about. Let's see how it did.

Pretty is about our eponymous lead (Melisa Kihtir), who is lonely and looking for companionship. She and her sister Emma (Saran Duren) live in a nice house in an affluent neighborhood, but beyond that Pretty doesn't have anyone else in her life. That changes when she hears the voice of a ghost at a neighboring house, whom she goes to talk to; and a mysterious person starts messaging her on Instagram. At the same time though, there have been intruders in her house. What could this mean? Are they there to do her harm? Is she imagining it? As she starts to learn more about this mysterious ghost, and this mysterious person messaging her on Instagram, these mysterious attacks become more frequent too. One night, while her two cousins are visiting after their parents were killed, the mysterious Instagram friend asks to meet her. Her decision to go out to meet him may be the thing that puts the rest of her family in danger.

Let's start with the fact that it is amazing that this film was not only directed by a 19-year-old, but he was the writer and DP as well, and this looks pretty decent and was competently made. We've seen people who are a lot older make things that look a lot worse than this. Also Melisa Kihtir was great in her first role, and a lot of what makes this work hinges on her performance. It's not perfect by any means though. The lighting in the night scenes look a lot like those early seasons of Better Call Saul where Jimmy would go to his brother's place, and his brother thought he was allergic to electricity, so everything was lit by lamps. You'd think a big, fancy house like the one the sisters lived in would have some nice overhead lighting. There are elements of the story that don't exactly work, especially at the end, where our heroine doesn't discover the truth on her own, it's given to her in an info dump, so we get this "put on your eye protection as the loose ends start flying together." With a two-hour plus runtime, we shouldn't need an info dump at the end, the lead has plenty of time to figure it out. There are also moments where the dialog doesn't fit, like when Pretty learns from Emma what happened to their parents, and she's upset, but her sister says "don't make this about you." Make what about her? Did we miss a page of script. Doesn't she have a right to be upset? All that said though, while this isn't perfect, there were a lot of tense moments, and the performance of Kihtir and the way Durecan shot her gives this a lot to hang its hat on. It's currently free on YouTube, so if the runtime doesn't scare you, this is a great way to support an up-and-coming indie director.

I think a big part of the reason why Duren's age makes this so amazing is, while it may not be perfect, if this is what it looks like at 19, what could we be seeing at 29? Or 39? If he stays in the horror genre, he could be one of the best ever. If he moves out of horror and tries other things, there's still a real promising career there. What's interesting at 19 though is there isn't as much world experience, and that's where you see a lot of the story holes. It's something I found with my own writing, especially with what was my first novel, Twenty-Nine, which I'm hoping to finally get out this year, but I wrote it when I was in my early 20s, and there were a lot of things in it that now in my late 40s don't sound right; plus, having published six novels in the interim, there's a lot more I know about writing too. On the other hand, the bulk of that book has stayed the same, and I think despite the holes in this, most of it was written well and still holds up too. Again, as Duren gets older, the stories he's able to tell will only get better, and he'll also get more experience behind the camera, so the sky is the limit.

Melisa Kihtir was Duren's muse for this film, as a lot of the scenes focused on her. Her reactions, walking in slow motion, sleeping, getting ready to go out, etc. Duren's cinematography combined with her ability to live in the moment made this the best stuff in the movie for me. Like when she's sitting in front of the door of the house that the ghost is at, while we can hear ghost, the rest of that is on Kihtir to make any of it work, and then Duren making sure he gets the right shots and cuts them together well. Another moment where this all came together was when the killer was stalking Pretty, and she was hiding behind an SUV. There were a lot of wide shots so we could see the killer lurking around, which required Kihtir to sell us on how scared she was with more than just her facial expressions, and she made it all work. For me, this movie could've been a half-hour shorter with no twist ending, and just focused mostly on Kihtir, and it would've worked even better than the end product.

I was looking at it, and this might be the first Turkish film I've ever seen. They haven't had one nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar yet, and that's probably how I would've found one if I'd seen any. We have reviewed a film that was shot in Turkey though, American Samurai, so at least we've been there on the site before. The interesting thing was I got the sense that this was supposed to take place in the US, or maybe the UK, even though it definitely wasn't either of those, so hopefully I read that wrong and it did actually take place in Turkey. The other thing was the decision to have the film entirely in English, as opposed to Turkish with English subtitles. While I would've appreciated it in Turkish, in the States I'd be in the minority, so the fact that Durecan could write well enough in English, and the rest of the cast could speak it, often with very little accent, is an asset they could use to break this film into the US and UK markets, which greatly enhances its earning power. I'm more interested in Turkish cinema now though, so I'll have to add some of their films to my already overloaded watch list!

Finally, I don't mean for this to be a regular feature on the site now, but this is our second CriticBridge movie, and the second time we have cellphone content. In this scene Pretty was messaging with her mysterious stranger on Instagram, and you can see the predictive text is showing the actor's name, Melisa Kihtir, instead, meaning she was using her own phone for any of the scenes that required a phone--except hopefully not when she had to throw it against the wall! I think you have to love it as part of the independent spirit when it comes to these low-budget indie productions, but also I don't use predictive text like that, so I had no idea it will suggest your name when you type "my name is". You'll also notice a tell that the characters are speaking English as a second language, when the stranger says "my phone ran out of battery." The phone doesn't run out of battery, the battery runs out of life, or as we say, "it's dead." Any kind of grammar detector won't catch it though, because while your phone can't run out of battery, people can run out of batteries. As someone who taught English as a foreign language, I know that phrasal verbs and idioms are the hardest thing for people learning the language to get, because they often have no rhyme or reason. "My phone ran out of battery" sounds like it should be right, but it isn't, and there isn't exactly a rule for why that is, other than you just have to remember it; but at the same time native speakers know it without thinking about it.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently stream this on YouTube, just keep in mind that the link on the IMDb page takes you to the middle of the movie, so make sure you start it over. I think this is well worth supporting, and I'm excited to see what both Metecan Duren and Melisa Kihtir do next.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt43378732