AJANA Nawfal (ajananawfal)
The acting in this movie is terrible, there is absolutely no feelings behind their words and I couldn't root for the characters. They fight to save someone's life and yet they act like they are grocery shopping. The highest point of the film are the fight scenes : well exectuted, flashy and impressive, it would have been much enjoyable to just watch a cut of all these scenes. Somehow the plot twist at the end of the movie surprised me and brought some satisfaction. The movie Dou fo sin (2007) shared some flaws with this movie : awesome fights but a boring story line with correct acting. So I'd recommend watching Dou fo sin over this one.
The_Phantom_Projectionist
Among the several martial arts performance groups making names for themselves in the movie business, the Z Team is definitely among those worth watching. Though one of its members – Laurent Buson – has already been generously highlighted in MERANTAU, their first feature length team production here is a different kind of project and pretty unique as far as fight flicks go. Though this genre-bending adventure takes a few creative and technical chances that don't pay off and will limit this one's appeal among viewers, it ought to appeal just fine among people who value martial excellence and are ready for a slightly different kind of street brawler.The story: A team of martial arts performers trying to make it big in Hollywood is forced by a sadistic, omniscient filmmaker to fights for the lives of their loved ones in a series of life-and-death brawls.The film is a fairly dark action-thriller. Imagine THE CONDEMNED shot by a director of the SAW series, with an emphasis on martial arts. Nevertheless, the decision of the actors to play themselves (led by director Fabien Garcia) makes this feel a little like a vanity project, and the semi-realistic approach to the scenario makes the very flashy karate look out-of-place at first. However, once the movie starts finding its pace, it begins to feel more natural, especially as mystery transcends any character shortcomings and the quality of the brawls becomes stellar. The decision to film this as a pseudo-documentary is odd but handled about as maturely as possible: at best, the camera-work is standard enough that you forget what kind of a movie this is supposed to be, and even at its worst, you never get the erratic, debilitating camera-work of "Blair Witch" knockoffs.The fight scenes are more than decent to begin with but ultimately develop into fight-of-the-year contenders. The ten full-length fights are evenly split between one-on-one and one-against-many exchanges, and in both cases, the performers demonstrate the necessary ingenuity to stand out against the competition. The first fights lack a little power – giving the impression of a bunch of guys just throwing spin kicks until someone drops – and director Garcia's love of Dutch angles is not entirely conducive to filming dynamic brawls, but the quality of the matches rises quickly and dramatically. A scene wherein Garcia battles a karate dojo is particularly cool, the showdown between Didier Buson and Xin Sarith Wuku is a showstopper, and the lengthy slugfest between Garcia and Laurent Buson is a worthy finale. If anything, I wish the fights could have been even more creative: in one scene, the filmmaker demands that Garcia fight a violent gang using only drunken boxing techniques, and a few more stipulations of this sort could have made for even more interesting exchanges.The eventual twist at the end of the movie may or may not satisfy viewers, but personally, I thought it was pretty cool. Additionally, the amplitude of performers trying to act their way through thick French accents may be off-putting to some viewers, but anyone who can sit through a Van Damme movie should be fine. Altogether, this amounts to a movie that could have been a lot better but isn't actually in too shabby of shape to begin with. The Z Team seems capable of matching its ambition as deftly as, say, Eric Jacobus and his Stunt People, and I expect good things from them in the future. In the meantime, I recommend DIE FIGHTING as at least a rental.
Rita McMillin
Worth the watch! This movie is action packed with crazy awesome fighting throughout the whole movie and the fights just kept just getting more and more intense! It's absolutely worth checking out because you won't see fight scenes like these everyday. For a low budget movie they did a great job with all the action and the fight choreography was new and refreshing compared to other movies. Anyone who says "bad fighting" is crazy because the fighting was absolutely amazing and these martial artists are extremely skilled at what they do. Most Hollywood movies these days are all wires and CG and stunt doubles - so it's been awhile since I've seen fighting like this. I hope these guys keep making more movies because I look forward to watching them!
sucraf
i don't know why guys said it was bad acting and bad fight scenes. what were they watching? the acting was OK and story was OK for a low budget movie but the fight scenes were very good. i watched almost every martial arts films that came out and these guys can fight. these guys were trained from shaolin so i don't know why guys wrote that it had bad fight scenes. there were some plot holes, but what movie doesn't? but most importantly the fight scenes, which why u watch these kinds of movies for, made up for any shortcomings. i hope these guys make more movies and for the haters, i don't know what u were watching or have against these guys.
