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Starring
:
Kane
Kosugi
Sho
Aikawa
Masaya
Kato
Misato
Tachibana
Noburu
Kaneko
Ikkei
Watanabe
Ken
Lo
Action
:
Chan
Man Ching
Sam
Wong
Producer
:
Kazuya
Hamana
Toshiaki
Nakazawa
Director
:
Simoyama
Ten
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MUSCLE
HEAT (2002)
A.K.A.
- Blood Heat; Massuruhito
Reviewed
by Phil Mills
The
last time the majority of us saw Kane Kosugi was when he
appeared alongside his father, Sho Kosugi and Jean Claude Van
Damme in 'Black Eagle' but he's certainly come a long way
since his childhood acting days. After earning his
stripes appearing in various television series and a few low
key movies, he went on to gain some experience by training
with Jackie Chan on the set of 'Who
Am I?'. Now he's putting that knowledge to good use
by starring in his first Martial Arts movie hailing from
Japan.
In
the not too distant future, an underground drug by the name of
Blood Heat is sweeping throughout the world. Although
it's effect of giving the user superhuman stamina and strength
may seem harmless enough, its addictive qualities cause the
user to ingest quantities that can be extremely fatal.
The criminals at the heart of this operation see nothing but
pure exploitative potential though and create a sport known as
'The Muscle Dome' for users of the drug to compete in fighting
contests with no rules, other than the loser never lives!
Enter Joe Jinno (Kosugi), a former member of the U.S. Navy
Seals who loses his partner whilst on the trail of the men
behind Blood Heat. Strangely enough, he materialises in
a battle in 'The Muscle Dome' (against his will of course) and
is put to the sword by their finest fighter. Now it's up
to Joe to take the law into his own hands and put his former
training to good use as he tracks down his partner's killers
and reaps revenge in the ring.
From
the opening of 'Muscle Heat', it's clear that this is a very
international action movie - not because of the patches of
dialogue spoken in English or even the way it is shot, but
because of it's formula that is low on plot and high on
action. This style of filmmaking has long-been the
Hollywood way of making big budget action movies that appeal
to a global audience and if employed correctly, can create a
huge hit. Luckily, 'Muscle Heat' pushes a lot of the
right buttons with decent direction and impressive fight
choreography that go a long way to overshadowing the film's
obvious flaws and enhancing your overall opinion.
Director
Shimoyama Ten provides a competent, although not outstanding,
representation of his work utilising steady directorial
techniques with a few adventurous slow motion and double-take
effects thrown in for good measure. However, the main
draw of the piece is clearly the introduction of Kosugi as his
action scenes are the most impressive and he shines whenever
he goes into action, displaying a good degree of skill in the
Martial Arts with some particularly impressive aerial bootwork.
It's just a shame that his main opponent, who comes in the
form of the masterful Ken Lo, is not really stretched in
anyway and must suffer the movie dressed in a suspicious
bondage outfit! For a first leading performance though,
Kosugi does himself a lot of favours and on the strength of
this he can be considered a promising new talent even though
it remains to be seen if he can handle a good dialogue scene
as well as the action.
Overall
then, 'Muscle Heat' could easily be dismissed due to the
severely lacking storyline which is mere framework for the
action. However, finding a decent action movie is a rare
thing these days and it's often nice to just watch mindless
entertainment so this one certainly gets the thumbs up from
me.
Rating:
  
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