Don "The Dragon" Wilson has always been pretty cool in my book. I think if he had more memorable films he'd probably be in the DTVC Hall of Fame. He'd definitely be in my UFC Color Commentator Hall of Fame if I had one. I don't want to bag on Joe Rogan here, because everyone else does that, and to be honest, I kind of like Fear Factor, but D "The D" Dubs held it down when he had the gig back in the early UFCs. I was glad to see him in that Last Sentinel movie on Sci-Fi, even if they were packaging it as a vehicle for the chick that plays the counterfeit Starbuck on the new Battlestar Galactica.
Bloodfist IV: Die Trying is another in producer Roger Corman's Bloodfist series, all of which star Mr. Wilson as different main characters (except the first two, where he's the same guy). In this one, D "The D" Dubs plays a repo man who repos the wrong car. He fights a buff and long haired Gary Daniels for it. Later Gary brings his boss and others to the repo place to retrieve some stuff from the car, and they massacre all of Donny's co-workers. He's blamed for it, and he needs to clear his name and save his daughter, who's been kidnapped by Daniels' boss, at the same time. James Tolkan of Masters of the Universe and Top Gun fame plays an FBI agent.
I must say, Don does a great job choreographing fight scenes in this, especially with Gary Daniels and the late Cat Sassoon. The first and final fights with Daniels are some of the best I've seen in a non Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, or Jet Li film. I guess it pays to be the greatest kickboxing champ ever, right?
The plot in this was interesting. The bad guys were after switches to nuclear bombs or something. Don had to deal with not only the baddies, but the LAPD, the FBI, and the CIA. One thing I liked was how they had all these complicated plot twists with the whole "who's side is so-and-so on?" kind of deal, but it wasn't too heavy because we knew they were all against Don. All he had was character actor Amanda Wyss, who you may have seen in absolutely everything (most memorable for me was the reporter on Highlander: The Series), to lean on as he tried to clear his name and save his daughter.
Other than the nice fighting and the simple plot, this didn't have much going for it. There were no memorable lines or spectacular action. If I hadn't been watching this at 2am while fighting insomnia, I probably would have turned it off. After the final fight between Don and Daniels, there's still another 15 minutes (a half hour with commercials if you're watching it on TV), which for me was useless.
If you came into a bunch of Bloodfists for a cheap price, it's not exactly a bad deal, especially if you like good martial arts. Overall, though, spending more than a couple bucks on these individually, especially this one, is a little much. If you see Bloodfist IV on TV at 2am and you're battling insomnia or taking a break from a term paper or an all night cram session, you could do a lot worse. That's probably why Spike and ShowtimeXtreme show this around that time.
For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103840/
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