text: Saw this used DVD cheap, and got it for a chuckle. I had recently also found "The Octagon" on DVD and bought that one to reminisce, having seen it in the theatre as a pre-teen, and loving it at the time. The problem now with "going back" to these American karate films, is that I've since then seen so many Hong Kong and Thai action films, in which the fight scenes are long, fast and jaw-dropping. I'm thinking particularly of fights like Jackie and Benny "The Jet" at the end of "Dragons Forever", or Tony Jaa's circular-stairwell fight from "The Protector". The Hollywood kung-fu offerings are just not "filmed right", and even make someone of certified skill, such as Chuck, look awkward at times. And what's worse than a fight going into slow motion? Then you know it looked crappy at normal speed, so they slowed it down for effect. It really highlights how ridiculous an opponent looks as they stand and just WAIT to get kicked in the chest.<br /><br />Poor Chuck, he just has no intensity in this film, nor does he project any righteous menace. Compare that to his former co-star Bruce Lee, who had charm and attitude to burn. When Bruce would square off against some opponent(s) you could nearly see the air around him crackling with what was about to happen. In "Breaker, Breaker" Chuck seemed to accidentally be kicking people, with complete nonchalance. When the judge comes to see him in jail, and sentence him to death, Chuck is staring off with a sad look, and I thought "OK...he's doing that 'third eye' focus thing and is going to grab the judge by the throat and get out of this", but he does nothing except look up with a doe-eyed stare. Terrible. And while the DVD case gives you hope, listing a run time of 1 hour, 5 minutes, it's actually 1 hour, 25 minutes, so there's 20 more minutes of viewing pain. <br /><br />For great fight action, go watch Jackie Chan in the first "Police Story"....the fight in the shopping mall at the end is pure gold......