Product Description

Ex-Special Forces soldier Louis Stevens (Mark Dacascos) returns to Miami to find his former high school overrun by drugs and violence. A master of the Brazilian martial art, capoeira, Stevens pledges to straighten out a dozen of the school's worst students by teaching them this demanding and highly-disciplined fighting style. Slowly, his program begins to work, giving the students new hope and purpose. But the local drug lord, himself a martial arts expert, vows to stop Stevens' positive influence. Now Stevens must fight to save his own life, as well as the lives of his rebellious young students.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9061 in DVD
• Brand: Twentieth Century Fox
• Released on: 2003-12-16
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 95 minutes

Customer Reviews

Better watch this in slow motion!
This movie was by far one of the best martial arts films ever. Even in the first few minutes of the movie I could feel the urge to go out and try these moves for myself. The music is awesom! You may need to slow your VCR down so you can take in all the action in the fighting sequences. This movie introduced me to Capoeira and I am now a student under Mestre Almira. Axe!

On DVD?
The movie is excellent. The fight scenes have incredible fluidity, and the movie in general has a lot of color, light and motion. Some of the scenes in Brazil are just very beautiful to look at in addition to the scenes where people play capoeira. The absolutely best part of the movie besides the visual sequences of capoeira is the music. Once you hear this music you just spontaneously feel like dancing capoeira. The story might be cliche but this is raw action at its best. Does anybody know if it will be published on DVD? If it is I am sure it would be awesome.

Formulatic Movie Delivers a Strong Kick
This film, directed by Sheldon Littich and starring martial artist Mark Dacascos, is a fine piece of work despite formula script. There are several reason why it works so well: 1: Dacascos, is not only a bonda fide martial artists, learning the martial arts as a child from his famous martial artist father Al Dacascos, but he is also a very good actor.

2: Littich takes a simple movie and is able to focus on a couple of main characters where we begin to sympathize with their social condition and the "hero's" attempt to see that they have choices and can change the conditions.

3: Littich picks for this film the martial art caporia. This little known art (compared to karate, kung fu, judo, etc) is flashy and exciting to watch if performed well. The fight scenes are different and well staged.

Yes, this plot is formulatic, but it is still an impressive movie.