Too much fake touchy feely stuff including lots of lame flashback scenes, horrible acting (Lima and the son are just pathetic) a plot that is boring, predictable and all around lame, terrible weak score accompanied by bad 80's music that wants to be "the eye of the tiger" and if you get through all of that you'll be rewarded with a horrible final fight scene. If you love fight scenes where a guy lands a big blow to his opponent and then turns his back on him so that he can begin showboating to the crowd while the other guy is getting up and preparing to jump in with his own big blow...Then you'll love the end of this movie. I was hoping that the final battle would make up for the rest of this bad movie, but it was the worst scene of all. They threw a mat on the floor of some dark room put up a work light and started filming. The set looks pathetic, there's a pallet leaning against one wall, a mop bucket visible against another, cardboard boxes laying on the floor...why? To make the scene seem more "underground"? If you have any event where the two participants take away $350,000 your gonna make the place look snazzy and not leave junk like that laying around. Let's just say that the final "set" was horrible and leave it at that. Watching the crowd of spectators keep showing up in this poorly edited finally made me question one thing... Where are they in this scene? I'm not sure they were actually in the same room, from the way the scene is shot it seems that nobody was close enough to the "stage" (mat) to even see the fight. And the fight... Just horrible, It's obvious that "Zulu" isn't even trying, look at his legs in any scene where he's on the ground and you can see that he's not struggling, he's not even moving. And in the end Lima turns his back on Zulu...WHY? Why would a trained fighter do that? This movie is just junk, don't bother.

Story line: played out but has potential. Acting: poor. Fight Choreography: good, highly technical. However, fight sequences are too short and at times can be see that no contact was made during the hit. Editing: good sound quality, good soundtrack, great visual effect that capture action. Actors and Fighters: Going back to choreography they did a good job sparing but everything else was on the poor side. In Summary: If you're a martial arts fan or fan of any of the fighter and like to see them in action, watch it and take it for what it is. However, even though its a low budget movie, I think Director should have put more effort and demanded more realism from his crew. Hope I didn't offend anyone too much :)

This movie is not too bad. But I will not suggest you to watch it if you have some better things to do. The acting is very poor. I have not seen so bad acting in local drama also.The good part is the plot is little better than acting. It has shown the parental love. Though it could have been shown in much better way or by much better acting. The movie was not too clear also. At last they were able to arrange of money but how it was not clear to me.The movie could have been presented much better way. Like little more past story the situation. As if the movie was trying to show only some fight and nothing else. I am till not sure about our hero. He had suffered acute proverty in his childhood. But the movie does not tell how he overcame those. Little more touch could make it better.

I knew this was a low-budget independent, and I did keep an open mind before I watched it, but still it was disappointing and downright funny at times. Being a fan of martial arts as well as MMA, I have nothing but respect for Mr.Lima for coming out and making a movie on the genre. However I was misled by the cover; there was two fierce-looking fighters, one in a standing armbar, but this scene was not found in the movie at all. The acting was indeed mostly wooden, but Andre came out as a pretty likable guy.The biggest letdown was the lack of action scenes and slow pace. There were lots of scenes that I found pretty pointless, and some of the "fights" were downright hilarious. For example there was a decent sparring practice between Andre and an Asian grappler, everything went well as they showed good technique transitioning from submissions to submissions and escapes, but out of nowhere, the Asian guy does a front flip when being pushed off by Andre. This isn't Drunken Master or a Jackie Chan flick, such fancy moves as well as jumping spinning kicks are really unnecessary. Besides, mainstream Hollywood movies do it better anyways. The plot also has some serious issues, I didn't really understand it at all nor do I understand why Gary Busey took the role in this movie, he looked completely out of place. The ending was also pretty weird, I didn't get it at all but I did feel pretty relieved to finally see the credits.This movie isn't completely without positives though, there's just very little. Jennifer Chu was very fine, too bad she doesn't do more movies because her on-screen presence far exceeds other exotic-looking Asian actresses, such as Devon Aoki (i am going to kill myself if i have to hear her call Paul Walker "Bullet" again). *Some* of the fight scenes, which were all sparring and practice except the last one, were okay. Being a Taekwondo master, Andre Lima display some impressive kicking, but again most of it is flashy stuff that we see all the time in mainstream flicks. I also can't get over the fact that the movie looked an awful lot like an advertising campaign for Lima Taekwondo Schools, which was blatantly displayed at the beginning when they showed the kids training, as well as Andre's family members taking part in some of the roles, such as Jessica (Aycka Lima) who seems to be her daughter or niece. I have no problems with fighters and martial arts masters selling themselves in some way, as they do need to make a living just like anyone else, but I don't think Mr.Lima will be getting a call for an actor's role very soon. Taekwondo is fairly common, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is the art that's on the rise, and Andre doesn't display it enough in this movie. Beyond The Ring has nothing on classics like Bloodsport, because there is a serious lack of passion on Andre's part. When it comes to fighting, which is basically his entire life, he just seems like a robot despite executing his kicks with impressive technique. Andre Lima should stick to being an instructor, and possibly a martial arts director or stuntsman.