Casey (Adkins) is an American raised at a Japanese martial arts dojo and sent to New York to safeguard a cache of weapons from a rogue assassin. However, it ventures further into fantasyland. While less reliant on long takes than "Undisputed III: Redemption"-apart from one breathtaking swordfight caught in a single take-it also uses zooms heavily and conveys a sense of the actors' genuine athleticism. Adkins plays Boyka, a Russian boxer forced to compete in a contest where eight prisoners fight each other for the amusement of depraved gamblers and jailers the winner supposedly gets his freedom."Ninja "(2009) is the other consensus favorite in Florentine's filmography. Scott Adkins, who has teamed up with Florentine six times, is thoroughly believable as a man who's spent years in jail, and the rest of the actors who play prisoners look equally rough. Vin Diesel, pumped-up muscles and all, is no longer so convincing as a tough guy. However, that turns out to be a strength in the end. The most obvious is the fact that the cast seems to have been assembled as much for its fighting ability as its acting talent. Isaac Florentine's "Undisputed III: Redemption" (2010) suffers from a surface cheesiness that manifests itself in several ways. Ulmer's "Detour" or Sam Fuller's "The Steel Helmet" seriously, and today they're considered essential. Most 1950s intellectuals would have been horrified by the notion of taking Edgar G. At heart, what seems worthwhile to me about vulgar auteurism is its championing of the best DTV genre films. As the concept of vulgar auteurism has become a hot topic among the cinephile blogopshere recently, something's gotten lost in all the debate about whether Michael Bay and Tony Scott should be taken seriously. Over the past few years, a handful of critics, like ex-con Steven-Seagal-expert Vern and contributor Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, have championed their work. Yet there's a certain freedom in making genre films without the budget to use extravagant CGI effects, and Hyams and Florentine have put it to good use. Director John Hyams was dropped by his agent after making the DTV "Universal Soldier: Regeneration." Fellow director Isaac Florentine has said "I discovered that being a straight to DVD director is…worse than saying you have malaria." To some extent, one can understand why DTV films have such a bad reputation: just watch the SyFy channel on Saturday night, or Cinemax at 2 am any night. The biggest taboo in American cinema may be the direct-to-video (DTV) market.
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