Bullet Points: Blood Ring
One of my favorite YouTube channels, aside from the obvious Bulletproof Action channel, is the Wu Tang Collection. In addition to the classic 70s and 80s Kung Fu movies the Wu Tang have uploaded, they’ll also throw in the occasional obscure direct to video “gem” like 1991’s Blood Ring…
- Cold Blooded: The movie starts off cold with two fighters in a ring… one has a pair of American flag shorts on, the other is dressed in black with an executioner style mask on competing in some sort of underground fight. When the focus is not on the fight, two men in the crowd are spotlighted. Both of these spectators appear to have a vested interest in the outcome of the fight and by vested interest I mean they are gambling on the fight. When the fight is over after American flag shorts appears to have taken a dive, both spectators have much different reactions… The movie then cuts to an even more underground fight, this one isn’t even taking place in a ring. This is our introduction to the star of the movie, Dale “Apollo” Cook, and his character Max Rivers. Max is sporting a sweatshirt and some purple and black biker shorts… further cementing Dale Cook’s legacy as one of the worst dressed action heroes of all-time. It becomes even more apparent in this fight than the first that things are exactly on the up and up… when illegal underground fighting is no longer above board, what has the world come to!??! Max takes a dive in this one and isn’t exactly smooth about it, which gets him some heat from the promoter Dingo, who rightfully shorts Max on his pay. Max doesn’t have long to concern himself with the lesser pay day because Susan shows up desperately wanting to speak to Max..
- Blood Brothers: Susan is worried about her husband Phillip, who is Max’s best friend in the world, they are like blood brothers (more accurately they are like Eskimo Brothers since Max was with Susan before she married Phil). She has not heard from Phillip, who has been traveling the world and competing in fights all around the world, and she is getting worried. At this point I was wondering if Phillip and American flag shorts were one in the same… Max tells her she is worrying about nothing and that Phil is probably just really busy and hasn’t had time to write.
- Blood is Boiling: Cut to Phillip, who was in fact American flag shorts guy, frantically packing his suitcase… it is obvious he wants to get out of there in a hurry, but it is not going to be that easy. Some goons bust into his hotel room… the goons and Phillip eventually make it outside (via defenestration) where he comes face to face with his boss Don Carlio… Carlio was the pissed off guy at the fight where Phillip took a dive, unbeknownst to him. Causing him to lose a bunch of money. This pisses Carlio off even more, since Phillip was one of his fighters and sees this as an act of ultimate betrayal, so Carlio tells Phillip if he can beat him, he can go… Phillip did in fact not beat Carlio, Phillip did in fact get dead.
- Blood Curdling: Susan is not letting this go, so she goes to Don Carlio’s offices to find out what has happened to her husband. Susan parks her car in the parking garage and I could instantly sense trouble was on the way… parking garages are among the most dangerous locations in all of action movies and before Susan can even get on the elevator to go up to see Don Carlio, she is snatched up and thrown in the backseat of a car… in the front seat is Carlio’s right hand man, Stevens (played by the Real Jim Gaines of Final Reprisal and American Ninja fame). Stevens tells Susan if she keeps quiet and cooperates she will get to see her husband… Susan doesn’t like the sounds of that so she pulls out some mace, disorients her captors and makes a run for it. To show you what kind of man Stevens is, he pulls his gun and shoots Susan as she is running away… fortunately for Susan the bullet only grazes her arm and her adrenaline is pumping so she still manages to get away.
- Blood Alcohol Level: Susan goes to Max’s place… he patches her up, tells her to get some rest and now realizes her concerns from earlier were justified. So once Susan falls asleep, he heads out to Carlio’s offices and after fighting the security force in the parking garage manages to break into Carlio’s file room and manages to find some info that Phillip is in South America… who knew guys who ran underground fights kept human resources files on their fighters!? And who forgot to move Phillips file to the dead drawer!? Anyway, more guards show up after Max trips an alarm and he kicks all their asses too. Don Carlio is equal parts pissed and impressed with Max. Carlio realizes he can use a man with Max’s fighting skills so he orders Stevens to arrange Susan’s abduction… as long as Carlio has Susan, he can make Max do whatever he wants. That plan may have failed too, if not for the fact that Max was an alcoholic and the bad guys were able to get to Susan, while Max was off at the liquor store getting a fresh bottle of hooch and getting in a street fight on his way back.
- Bad Blood: Blood Ring felt like a movie where they had the basic premise figured out and had the final fight scene planned out but a lot of the middle was just thrown in as filler… Max reluctantly fights for Carlio, Susan almost gets sexually assaulted by horny Stevens, Max fakes a stomach ache in order to rescue her, Max and Susan get away, steal a truck and go hide out in the woods for a while, Max returns to Carlio’s where he ends up in another impromptu fight, that ends up in a big gun battle outside of Carlio’s palatial estate, Max returns to the woods ends up making sweet love to Susan and this is about the time where I said “I was under the impression there was a blood ring in this movie?” And the movie does provide a blood ring, because the final fight between Max and Carlio takes place in the same ring we’ve seen throughout the movie, except now the ropes are wrapped in barbed wire!! That’s going to make for one bloody ring and one bloody good final fight!
Dale “Apollo” Cook definitely seemed to prefer function and comfort over looking cool where his wardrobe was concerned. No doubt about it, Cook is a badass fighter, but sometimes the little things make a big difference perception wise and Cook constantly looking like he is either ready for an intense session at the gym or a lazy day of sitting on the couch for a movie marathon gave him a low rent action hero feel… but I suppose that matches the low rent feel of a movie like Blood Ring.
Low rent doesn’t always mean bad, although in the case of Blood Ring I would say it does mean below average.
The law of averages is in your favor if you were hoping for some Bonus Bullet Points to wrap up this review…
- AKA: Blood Ring was released as part of the Bloodfight series in Germany.
- Name Drop Fight: Before Max and Susan can steal the truck that will help them escape to the woods, Max has to deal with the truck’s owner and while engaging in this sidewalk fight, Max namedrops some other noteworthy fighters from the past and present… John Wayne, Bruce Lee, Muhammad Ali, Chuck Norris, Jackie Chan, Steven Seagal, Mike Tyson AND Dale “Apollo” Cook all get mentioned.
- Directed By: Blood Ring was directed by Teddy Page or should I say Irvin Johnson?! Page directed several films using pseudonyms like Irvin Johnson, Ted Johnson, Tedd Hemmingway, John Lloyd and Teddy Chiu.
- Montage Alert: Prior to his fight in the blood ring with Don Carlio, Max decides he needs to get all the poison out of his system and the best way to quickly detox is a training montage in the woods!
- The Sequel: Blood Ring 2 was released in 1995 and features the return of Dale Cook as Max Rivers, Teddy Page is back in the director’s chair and Jim Gaines was back too, but this time the writer of the film.
