SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Helllins It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

The_Phantom_Projectionist In between playing supporting roles in movies like THE GRANDMASTER, Cung Le found the time to build on his solo career in the direct-to-video realm. Disappointingly, his sophomore effort here leaves a good deal to be desired. While the previous DRAGON EYES filled his prospects as a karate star with promise, PUNCTURE is a less impressive action flick that's mainly weakened by the ravages of producers and certainly leaves Le looking less extraordinary. It's still a decent film that's strengthened by its fight content, but a bit too far from perfect to warrant a purchase for me.The story: The family of a war veteran (Le) is murdered by a racist underground faction after he interferes with their business, prompting him to target the group and its leader (Dolph Lundgren) for retribution.I don't blame the stars or even the director (Giorgio Serafini) for the movie's DTV-isms. The production company behind the film, Voltage Pictures, has a habit of editing its low budget movies in amateurish ways, so expect to see lots of gratuitous slow motion and sped-up segments, "artistic" lighting overexposures, unnecessary close-ups, and scene-hopping. These aspects are present just enough to properly irritate you but not ruin the movie, to the same degree that the screenplay bothers me. There's a good deal of unnecessary cruelty and exploitation of women that I don't appreciate. While that was bad enough, I find it just as hard to forgive how boring the script renders Dolph Lundgren. The Swedish Superman excels at playing villains, and though it seems like the part of the long-haired supremacist leader would let him show off some of his creepiness, he clearly doesn't have good character material to work with and ends up being pretty unmemorable.Cung Le shows his rather meager dramatic limits, though he still makes a good tough guy. Another tough guy, Vinnie Jones, plays a character that weirdly has the bare minimum to do with the plot but manages through sheer charisma to still come off cool. But actions speak louder than words in these kinds of movies, and this is where PUNCTURE WOUNDS shows its best side. With only four fight scenes and one shootout, the movie could definitely use more action, though Cung Le's kicks are worth waiting for. The choreography manages to appear completely efficient without shirking flashiness, so it's very satisfying when Le takes on groups of bad guys. His finale with Lundgren is much shorter than it should be, but it allows Lundgren to look pretty fluid and powerful, using his height, reach, and power karate to take the fight to Le, cool but believably.The fights too are hampered by the aforementioned editing, so despite being the movie's brightest spot, they can't elevate this review to a higher rating. Despite this one being a minor disappointment, I'm hopeful for Le's future, provided he choose a better studio for his next vehicle. Bottom line: if you're looking for an imperfect but moderately exciting karate-revenge movie, this one fits the bill well enough, but it's not nearly the best any of its performers have to offer.

Destroyer Wod I managed to find this movie because i wanted to see a Cung le vs Dolph Lundgren Movie for sure... It was not easy to find but i did.The start of the movie is a bit anti climatic and even tough i saw this formula of presenting the guys one after the other with there name stamped on a freeze frame, it was kinda chaotic in that movie. I also didn't like the blurry camera in some part, i guess they wanted to go artistic but ended up just bad.The script is as unoriginal as it may get but i usually like that kind of stuff and overall liked it. On the other hand some scenes really does not help the movie, bad decisions made by the characters and "roll your eyes" moment where you are really wondering why didn't he just shoot...Also the relation between the characters looked very forced and the wooden acting of Cung Le and his army buddy didn't help get into those guys as characters either. Dolph is Dolph, he is enjoyable and he play a good enough villain. Vinnie Jones is there to be Vinnie Jones and add "star power" to a DTV movie.Now for the spoiler, and this really bugged me out, the Vin guy, who is the one killing the family, ending out showing remorse and we do not know if he died or not, that really was bad... There was so much potential, they could had made so much in the movie with that, as will he forgive him for having kill his family when he want to repent and do a good deed, it may had been cliché but the whole movie is very cliché anyway.So in the end, a good time if your drunk by Jeremy Jahns standard, the fights are nice, and even tough not spectacular in any mean, it fill a Friday night pretty good.

leonblackwood Review: I must admit, I was expecting this to be one of those typical badly made movies with a ridiculous storyline, but it didn't turn out to be that bad. The acting was a bit sketchy, but there was meaning behind the violence and the characters all played there part in this movie about revenge. Basically it's about a war veteran whose suffering with post traumatic stress and he ends up saving a girl from getting a beating in the parking lot of his hotel. The girl turns out to be a prostitute who works for Hollis (Dolph Lundgren), who isn't too happy about the guy taking out his men. To keep up his street cred, Hollis teaches the guy a lesson for messes with his business, which turns out to be a big mistake. It isn't a very deep and intelligent script, but you do end up sticking with the storyline, just to see how the whole mess pans out. The fighting scenes were OK but it still looked a bit cheap and the main character needs some more acting lessons. Average!Round-Up: What the hell was going on with that stupid wig and the ugly looking moustache on Dolph Lundgren. I've heard about actors getting into character, but that make-up was terrible. Anyway, Lundgren seems to be another one of those actors that hit the big time when he was young but now they can only manage to go straight to DVD. I quite liked him in the first Expendables but I haven't really seen him in anything amazing since then. The guy who plays the main character, Cung Le, also starred in the awful Man With The Iron Fists but he hasn't done anything else that major. You can actually tell that he hasn't starred in anything in this scale because his acting is quite stiff, like when the Rock first started out in the movie world. Anyway, if you want a no thrills type of movie without that much depth, then it's worth a watch.I recommend this movie to people who are into there action/thriller movies about a stressed out war veteran who takes on a drug lord after saving a girl from a beating. 3/10

Jesse Boland Dolph Lundgren is pumping these out pretty fast these days. This one is one of the better ones that has come out with him in it. The camera work is not anything special, the lighting needs to be worked out, but when it gets down to the action Lundgren is his usual rock against which all of the waves think they can make a mark, and the addition of Chun Le only ever makes things better. The supporting cast do a decent job of giving us a reason for all of the drama, and the final showdown though a bit short, and sudden does play out well Vinnie Jones is always a good bad guy. I Enjoyed this for what it was, an afternoon action movie, no tear jerking around here. I recommend this one to action fans who have already run through the top 500, this is getting pretty close to scraping the bottom of the barrel, but there has been much worse in the past few years than what you are given here.