MMA Fighting - 'Blood And Bone' Review: Could Michael Jai White Be UFC Champion? | This Is CineMMA

Episode Date: April 20, 2024

Michael Jai White has the skills, but does he have the grit to survive the mean streets of “Blood and Bone?” On this episode of This is CineMMA, the MMA Fighting movie review crew break out of the clink to follow the adventures of Bone (White), a man on a mission who batters and bruises his way through L.A.’s underground fight scene while crossing paths with real-life combat sports stars Kimbo Slice, Gina Carano, and Bob Sapp. Featuring plenty of bloody battles-and some very, very NSFW language-this one ain’t for the faint of heart. Alexander K. Lee, Jed Meshew, and E. Casey Leydon channel their inner “Just Bleed Guy” as they marvel at White’s dazzling martial arts skills, pick out some of the nastiest looking moves in the movie, and try to make heads or tails of some truly befuddling dialogue choices. How would Bone fare in the #UFC? Is Eamonn Walker a better villain than Conor McGregor? And is it really possible to jump in the air and kick four people at once? Dig into Blood and Bone with us for the answers to these questions and more. Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Follow E. Casey Leydon: @ekc Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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preferably the mixing of. I am your host, Alexander Cayley. As always, I am joined by two top shelf cinephiles. Now, before I introduce some guys, an homage to some of the over-the-top introductions that we saw in today's film, the name which I will reveal shortly, allow me to get a little over-the-top here.

So in this corner, we have the master of the hot take, the man whose opinions never shake, a man about town who never backs down, the man who puts the hot in Hotlanta, it's Jedmishir. I want to say one, I love the never backs down shoutout in that.

And two, I'm just really happy that you didn't get like super pejorative, I guess, this is the best way to phrase that. It could have been, kept it clean. So much worse.

Yes, we have to, relative to the content that we'll be covering. So you didn't speak to Dante Basco? work in this film, but, you know, I liked it nonetheless. And in this corner, a dash of mustache, the master of production with a pension for destruction. Ladies and gentlemen, he must be sent from heaven, Mr. 107, E.K.C. Live. You're so good at this, AK. Thank you.

That's pretty solid. Again, I was inspired by pinball, my pinball. The aforementioned Dante Basco as pinball, yes. All right, guys, if you don't know by now, we are covering. the film, Blood and Bone. Quick synops here. Michael Jerry White stars as Isaiah Bone. Do you really just called Bone in the film?

He's a hard-in- How did you know his name was Isaiah? Because it is never mentioned in the credits. They said his only reason. They never said his first name. No, they do not say in the movie. He's an ex-con with some incredible martial arts talents that he puts to use on the L.A. underground fighting scene.

But there's more to me see eye with Bone's quest. and he eventually runs a foul of the dastardly James, a wannabe kingpin played by a delightful Aymn Walker. So, Jed, before we dive in deep, giving your elevator pitch for the 2009 action film, Blood and Bone. Okay, so you know how sometimes when you like Xerox something over and over again, you can still see the outline of it, but it's like it's faded, it's not there.

Blood and Bone is like the 80th Xerox. of a 90s martial arts movie, that is itself the Xerox of an 80s martial arts movie. It's awesome. Honestly, I had a great time. It's got some issues, but we'll get into that. But tight 90 minutes, and you know exactly what you're getting

when you get into a film called Blood and Bone, and Bone is one of the character's names. Yeah. To say it has some issues is, I think, to put it nicely, but also, I think to say that it was a brisk watch is also not an exaggeration at all. I had a decent time of it, not to give my review so far ahead.

Casey, what was your first impression of blood and bone? So this is our third episode, so we've done Roadhouse, Bite Valley, and Blood and Bone. Three very different films. Yeah. I honestly, I don't know if this was the worst film

or the best film of the three. I really don't know. because I do. But you know what? The runtime ruled 90 minutes was that was this best part. The perfect runtime. And yeah, Los Angeles in the underground fights. My big question, I had to get this place out.

Is MMA like regulated government regulated MMA? Does it exist in this universe? I was, hmm. Unclear. Okay. The whole time I kept thinking is like, why isn't Bone just a professional fighter? I would say that it does, though. I would say it exists because, and if you're, one, I don't believe in spoiler alerts for a movie that came out 15 years ago.

Let people know now. Here come all the spoilers. Here they come. Yeah, here come all the spoilers. But there is that one scene when he is talking to Amin Walker and Walker's like the biggest gay, like the real money made in fighting is made in underground in the underground. in the underground fight circuit, which suggests that there is other money to be made, not in underground fight circuits.

So, thus, that would suggest that MMA is in fact part of the blood and bone universe. Sure. We do see glimpses of an actual cage fight as well. I think cards sort during that section you're talking about, there's some TV screens behind, and we see this guy price. Oh, you're right. You're right. But that doesn't mean it's sanctioned.

We just do see a cage, but that's the closest we come to seeing like a cage fight in this universe. Otherwise, it's a lot of crowds standing around and people beating each other up, which is quite delightful. But it's a fair question. Casey, what happens here is Bone rightfully recognizes that the UFC doesn't pay very well, and he can get paid more in the fast-paced world of underground fighting.

He's not wrong. This film's so subversive. It is. And it's hating on the UFC. Oh, wait, way before it became cool to do so. This was 2009. And when everyone was all like, UFC's the greatest. And then this film was already like, oh, is it though?

We're on that. Look into it. So wait, wait. So is this film really about bite or pay? Could be. It could be. I mean, this film, Casey, this film is about multitudes, right? There are many themes about this film.

Yes. Many high-brow ideas that weren't here. Some class warfare, some racial tensions, you know. The American Penal System. I mean, there's a lot going on here that Michael Jai White and the director's name is like Bruce something. Who is it? Let me, you know, let me. Ben Ramsey.

Let me get to that. Let me get to that because this may answer your question a bit, Casey. Perhaps the talents behind it will let you know what their intent was. So the director of the film, as Judge, just said, Ben Ramsey, who also wrote the big hit, it's a guilty pleasure of mine, the Mark Wahlberg hitman movie. And later, Dragon Ball Evolution, which was not well received. widely regarded as one of the worst adaptations. That was a big year for him, though.

He had Dragon Ball Evolution and Blood and Bone in the same year. Was it the same year? Yeah, Zone 9. Good ago, Ben. Wow. Ben was on, he thought he was on an F train that was never going to stop. And he was wrong. Stop real quick.

I don't think he's directed a mainstream movie since. And the writer is Michael Andrews, who hasn't been quite as prolific. I believe his next project after this, after Blood and Bone, was a documentary called The Legend of Four-Twenty. So, you know, it's a hell of a creative team. That's so fitting to this film. He's a free thinker, man. Again, this goes to what Casey may have suggested,

that there's more to this movie than meets the eye, you know. There's some subversive commentary being made here. Like a transformer, there's more than meets the eye. Of course. And I want to shout out, of course, the fight coordinators as well. Fernando Chen and Sam Hargrave. Jed, you would recognize Chen, of course, as one of Hobbs's crew in Fast Five,

the gentleman with the, he had like a Mohawk, I think. And Hargrave is very famous. He's actually done the stunt coordination for several Marvel Cinematic Universe films and the director of Netflix's extraction films if you've seen those, which I saw the first one. Quality films.

So there's some, and I don't want to go over all the credits, but if anyone skims the MDB, there's actually quite a bit of talent involved in the making of this movie. Yeah, this was a mood, this, okay, unlike fighting Valley, which was shot in some iPhone 2. It's a student film.

Yeah. This was a real movie. I will say that. I don't know what that really means, but it felt like a real movie, just not a real script. But it was a real movie. So I don't know what that means. There's some choices made with a cinematography. Like, I admit, I admit.

Let's recap real quick. This is a more composed and, like, actually built film than certainly. either of the films we have discussed. This is a much better rounded out film than Roadhouse is. Yeah, and different way. I realized, listen, I gave Fight Valley a fist last week. I was the lone fist. I acknowledged this.

I had maybe forgotten what a normal just action film looks like. It's not a, like you said, student project like Fight Valley. And it's not this weird studio mishmash, like monstrosity that was Roadhouse. Like, this is just an honest, tightly put. together, pretty tightly put together action films. So, to that, is it an MMA movie, though, guys? Would you classify as an MMA movie? What belt do you give this film?

Oh, the belt. I'm going to go blue. I'm going to go blue belt. Probably no stripes on that belt. Maybe like one, you know, like you've been training for a year. You know a couple of things, but you're still well off from getting your purple. but you know enough to think you know more than you do. There's certainly MMA elements at work here, right?

A couple of the casting choices. Bob Sat plays a prominent role. Gina Krono is also involved. Kimbo, big role, though Kimbo's MMA credentials at that point in time are also, you know, where they were at. And then you get, you know, you get some moves that would occur in an MMA fight. and particularly when you like give this time like where the time was right in 2009 this is when you started to see that sort of thing

just filter out into all action films across Hollywood instead of just being Jason Bourne quick like quick cuts you know fast punchy stuff you start to get to see some bits of grappling involved some you know moves that maybe aren't I don't know productive in an MMA fight but stuff that you can at least be the hallmark And to that point, you know, Gene LaBelle is, was involved in this film, had a cameo in it.

And so like, there's, there's some undertones of realness happening here. So blue belt. And it's not a white. It was honestly less MMA than I thought it was going to be from the like quick, you know, the synopsis read. Okay. I'll tell you now. I went a little bit higher. Casey, I want to know where you went, because there was some mixing.

I'm like, I will give this a solid two-stripe purple belt. basically the only thing I was missing was an actual literal cage but it seemed to be just open mat unsanctioned M.A. Like they're basically a smoker to the death, you know, I think. No one fights in Tim's in smokers. This is pre-2010 L.A. You don't know. It was different back then.

There was a sleeveless tapout shirt. So I'll go. There was a tap-out stuff in there. There's a bunch of tap-out stuff. Bob Sap is drinking from something when he's getting injected with steroids that is tap-out. I couldn't tell if that's supposed to be like a tap-out energy drink or like a tap-out Gatorade or tap-out whiskey. I wrote down whiskey. That was my assumption.

Yeah, because it's in like a flask. I thought it was a whiskey. And I got to say, tap-out needs to make a whiskey. Like, I don't know why they haven't gotten involved in the whiskey game. I was well I have so I set a precedent by giving oh sorry Casey were you oh no but I was like in the actual fighting while there was a bit of an over overuse of the roundhouse but not what do you mean what do you mean Casey whatever what do you mean yeah there was a lot there was a lot of spinny kicks in this film but I thought in the actual fight scenes I thought there was more

actual MMA. Maybe not mixing of it, but they did different with Jiu-Jitsu, a little bit of wrestling, a lot of spinning. I thought there was more mixing of the martial arts than Fight Valley, for sure. Probably. And so...

Fight Valley was just all about the lumpy-bumpy, you know. Yeah. Watch out for the lumpy bumpy. So I gave Fight Valley a pretty generous fighting score. I think I awarded a brown belt. And rather than revise that, Rather than revise that, I have to use that as a precedent. So I will give Blood and Bone a brown belt as well with like three stripes.

What's too many stripes? What's too many stripes before you're just like getting to the next belt? Four. I think four. Yeah, with four. Oh, I know that I'll go to. It's kind of like Monopoly. We get like four houses.

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I'll go to two striped brown belt. Because again, similar to Fight Valley, the plot is driven forward by fighting. The characters are fighting to achieve a goal or to get to a certain opponent, certain nemesis to pull or to execute their plans. So fighting is important. Again, as we sort of said at the beginning, it's not really sanctioned professional fighting. And also, as we said, the fighting is kind of an entertaining mishmash of, yes, there's some ame in there, but also some traditional kind of kung fu-few action film stuff.

You said, 80s, 80s, push-hands. 90s, high-flying... It's a lot of comes through taekwondo. Yeah, a lot of that in there. Which again, is a martial art. But perhaps not the M.MA. It's a martial art that Michael Jai White has like eight black belts in or whatever. So a lot of that.

He is. He is, I'm just going to say it right now. He is fantastic. Is that an overstatement? Are you speaking in this film or as a person? I don't know him as a person, but in this film, he is impressive. Like, physically, obviously the martial arts, He's a decorated martial artist and action star.

He is, he is something to watch. He was spawned. He was spawned. Yeah, he was spun. I enjoy watching his films. Yes. I don't think that this is his best work. Okay.

But he's certainly not bad in this film. His character, unfortunately, so I'm only talking about the action really. His character, unfortunately, is a little bit, a little Jake, Chill and Holly, like, just kind of blank slate, cool guy. There's not much to. Bone does not have any depth or interesting hooks other than the fact that he kicks people in Tim's, which is awesome. And also, I'm just going to ask now, because I don't have a section for this, why are his clothes so baggy? Because he wants to. Why?

He's got to have freedom of movement, AK. Isn't that the opposite? He's got a lot of muscles. No, baggy clothes are much better to move in. The fabric was light. If it wasn't baggy and I have to fabric, it was a little. Okay. I'm,

I'm, I'm wearing this shirt, A.K., because it's, this is something Michael Shawy would be fighting

in. It's very, it's linen. It's terrific for flow. It's great. I'm, I'm not a street fighter, so I guess I wouldn't know.

Did Jameses, the main bad guy, did his suit, looked like it came from like, about 10 years before the film was made. It looked like a very late 90s.

This? Early 2000s, you know, like that. It maybe was a little earlier than I would associate with 09, but, you know, not like that far off the time because, you know, the bigger suits were certainly late 90s, early 2000s.

Yeah, okay. All right. Go watch any of the NBA drafts from the years. Yes. Yes. I knew it reminded me of something. Like Kevin Garnett when he got drafted. I felt like I saw him in that suit that James was wearing in the movie.

But you know what? It's a fitting for his, it's fitting for his character because the character of James, our main antagonist, is like, I kind of a wannabe, you know, he wants to be part of the elite. He wants to be part of the criminal elite. And he's not there. He's kind of a pretender. He's got this philosophy that he supposedly sticks to, but he really doesn't. And the philosophy is don't curse.

Is that the philosophy? I don't know. Don't curse. Like, don't drink. Don't drink. Don't drink. In his defense, they do right around that where he doesn't have the philosophy yet. He's trying to add it in.

He says, like, you know, I'm not there yet, but I'm working on it. I don't hesitate to say. he is the best character we've seen in the three movies we've watched. Dude, let's talk about it because Aiden Walker, I watched this movie and was like, why is he not in more things? Why is he not doing more things in mainstream films? Because it's like a touch overacting,

but it's the overacting that comes from being like a theater guy, which he is. So it's like it's just a little bit more performative because you have to when you're on stage versus. in front of a camera, but it still is a performance that captivates you. I was like, yes, you should have more roles in stuff. I thought this when you were in Lord of War and I thought this watching Blood Mow. I was like, why are you not just like the mid-heavy in a Marvel show on Disney Plus or something? You could very easily be doing that and be very quality at that role.

And instead, I think he's just kind of working in theater in London or something. Like, I don't really know what he's doing. but he should be on my screen more often. Shout us to also the supporting man here. Dante Basco as the foul-mouthed street smart sidekick of Michael Chaiway. Many will know Dante, of course, as Rufio from the Hook films. Many. Well, no, no, disagree.

No, even more, Jed will know him as the voice of Saka from the Avatar cartoon. So he is way more known for that than he is a reviewer. You don't know his face, though, as a voice. It doesn't matter. I didn't know he was Oaka. I didn't know he was Saka. And thank goodness, because I do not want this character being associated with either Rufio or Saka, frankly. His language would not be appropriate for Hook nor Avatar.

I disagree with this, AK. This is a stance I've long had about films, right? Okay. Sometimes you got to know who you are. And God love Dante Basco, you know, for an anime, that's something totally different. for a movie like this, like if I was writing this film and I had written it and here's the script and if I'm the director or whatever, I'm like, ah, we're going to cast Dante Vasco to do this. And I think he does fine the role we can talk about the complications of what that might mean

for modern day sensibilities. But I would be like, all right, we're going to rename this character because there's no reason for him to be named Penball. We should just name him Rufio because why not? No. There's no reason not to just leave. lean into that. No. Like the dude,

Hector and, um, uh, training day. Oh man. I got to find that actor's name. I think his actual name is Hector and in like 30 movies. His character name is Hector.

That's a joke. It's not true. It's not true. That's a meme. I mean, he's only, I'm saying. He has only played Hector like seven or eight times.

Not the 30. Okay. Yeah. Sorry. Seven or eight is still like a lot because, but they get it. It's just how it. it's like in John Wick after they made the first one where Stahelsky was like all right you know what we're going to do fish burns coming in the second and people are going to lose their minds when fish burns there's like get this man a gun it's just you got to give the crowd little stupid idiot bones like that and just naming him Rufio would not have detracted from the plot nice we're not detracted from the plot at all and it would just be way better if instead of being named pinball his name was Rufi

I think you want to distance him from that child film classic. And also, possibly litigious, let's be honest. I don't know if they would get away with that. You definitely name him, Rufiel. You don't even know the hair. It's fine. I remember that scene in Hook where, you know, he's talking to Peter Pan. He goes, all right, MFers and MFER.

Yes. Are we not the curse yet? Are we not in other than God words yet? I think we were okay. And then they used a bunch of homophobic jabs to describe the rest of the lost boys. Yeah, that is a distinct. That's a core memory for me. We'll get to more of Dante Bassett.

We should shout out some of the other performances and stars featured in this. We got Bob Sapp as Hammer Man. Actually, it's a decent billing too. I think he's like the fourth name because some of the other fighters and like action people kind of get also featuring. It's like Gina Carrano and Kimbo. Bob Sapp gets his own. Bob Sack gets his own title card.

Again, no stranger to the world of entertainment television film. he's pretty good a great physical presence he's straight up bob sapping it up the scene where he's taking PDs a little on the nose I am a little surprised he embraced it so fully and tap out whiskey and then he eventually Bob shop does great he does yeah Bob Sap better like use Bob Sap better like use like at this point maybe he's a little old he still has the physicality it's just like there was like a moment where they were plugging Bob sap into rolls like this he's in the longest yard and stuff. It's just like, yeah, Bob Stop is great to be like the, the men heavy, where, you know, the guy that the hero gets over on. He's perfect. It's perfect for it. Kimbo did the same. I thought they were both quite good in fulfilling their roles.

Kimbo is right. Yeah. Kimbo's terrific. I'm sorry. I'm sorry we just one to mention it because Kimbo is the first face we see in this movie. It's immediate Kimbo. Because I remember when I first heard about this film, I was like, I wonder how much Kimbo. Kimbo's in it. And while it is definitely a small role, it's kind of three small scenes that he's in, he is the first face you see leading a gang of near-do-well prisoners to try and shank Michael J. White in prison. And instead, sadly, Kimbo is the one who is shanked. So. But Kimbo gets his revenge in the end. We don't. I'm going to let us, I'm going to say we can all retcon our viewing experience.

No, it will. He does also get a mid, there is also a scene. There is also a scene. in the middle of the film where he is used by the main villain to kill Bowen's friend. Danny, right? Danny, correct, Danny. And sweet, sweet Danny, his wife, taken by the main bad guy, his child relegated to foster care, some sort of independent child care home. But, yes, spoilers, guys, sorry, because it doesn't get revealed. It's like an hour in the film.

Bone's quest to become a top fighter is to get to James to avenge poor Danny, who he befriended in prison. So it's quite a, it's quite a plot. Not really. His quest is less to get to James. His quest is more to get to Danny's wife and kid. But then, yes.

Then the James thing happens because James can't, can't let stuff go. I feel like gone would have just walked away, you know? Mm-hmm. I both, yeah. Any other performances jump out of you guys, either actors and they're fighting or fighters and they're acting. Anything else worth of note?

Because we do have plenty of fight scenes. to break down, so I do want to get to that. Because there's a lot of fighting in this movie. A lot of fight. I will just say, I actually enjoyed Dante Basco. Yes. You know, if you could have changed a lot of his lines, that would be better, given modern sensibilities.

I mean, honestly, even in 2009, some of the stuff he said probably, probably wouldn't have been like that kosher. But he still brought the exact sort of energy you're supposed to bring to that role. And it was just nice, nice to be like, oh, Rufio, still like. here cooking. Good for you. Getting that paycheck, baby. Yeah, he's the perfect guy. He's the perfect guy to host a Fast and Furious style street gathering. That's kind of the energy we kind of get there. We got a little bit of bootleg, Fast Furious thing when we first see the first set of street fights. People are doing Capoeira. Can you explain to me how he's not in the

Fast and Furious movies? I don't know. It just feels like how he just didn't show up somewhere in him is bad for him to me. There's still plenty of time. Don't. Dante Basco is out there. Listen, he works a lot, but I'm sure he can make time for the Fast and Furious. And then in our first real fight, a street fight, we see a character played by Ernest the Catmiller, pro wrestling veteran Ernest the Catmiller, fighting former UFC Heavyweight Champion Maurice Smith, who is credited as fast hands. Ernest the Catmiller is wearing overalls and hair rollers, or it's a wig with hair rollers.

Are we talking about the character, Mommy Dearest? We're talking about Mommy Dearest, yes. That is, in fact, the character we're talking about. Who was introduced? And I don't want to give away the best quotes of the movie just yet. But we really can't talk on Mommy Deer. Still talking about his introduction. And again, this goes with what we're...

This guy was a pro wrestler? This guy was a long time... He's a martial artist and then also, but really a long-time pro-wrestler. So, Dante Basco gives some pretty colorful introductions to some of these fighters. And I will read some of the names he uses for The Cat, not all of them because I cannot he calls him and this explains guys why

I guess Ernest Miller is wearing a wig with hair rollers in it he calls him the homicidal homosexual the queer that inspires fear and this is really borderline the butt battling bandit so that one's not borderline that one just not acceptable

it's not good guys it's not good so that's a little taste of some of the dialogue in this film and then the cat wins his fight. He actually breaks Marie Smith's arm. I can't. Is it queer that inspires fear awesome or is it bad? Like I

don't know. I should, I want to text some family members and figure out like where that line is because if that's acceptable to say that's kind of a banging nickname, right? Like if you're owning that, I don't know. I don't know the line. I don't think you'll be hearing

that at a approach. Let's talk about this fight scene. You know, we're talking about, no, this is the MMA movie? Yes. This first fight scene. You have Maurice Smith, a decorated kickboxer. And what happens? He faces Mommy Dares, uses that terrific fireman's carry, throws him over, some sort of weird arm bar and breaks his arm. Wrestling and submission wrestling works against a kickboxer. This is an MMA movie.

So we immediately get that. The physics of the arm bars in this film are not functional. There's a couple of arm snaps that just like there aren't the leverage points. to actually pull that off, and that's one of them. But yes, the firemen's carry, you know, gets, gets them to the ground. And Boris Smith couldn't hang. Yeah, actually, I just re-wiking. Mark Coleman had that level of firemen's carry.

UFC history would be entirely different, you know? Yeah. Oh, man. Yes. Yeah, the first arm breaking we see, one of several. You're right, it's not quite an arm bar. He almost just like ripped, it's like, it's just trying to rip the dude's arm off. It's comically fake.

I mean, got a big credit to Marie Smith, sells it like a champion, a UFC champion, one might say. And yeah, so we have our first treat fight. So we can get into the fights now, guys. I'm a little curious. Casey, do you tell me first, which we have, there's some good ones in here. Which fight jumped out of you? What fight do you want to talk about first? Ooh, um, there's a right answer.

There's a right answer. You go first, Jed. You go first. Okay, Jed, go ahead. I do want to shout out the opening fight scene with Kim Bo is just like that's, it's not, really an MMA scene almost at all, but it is just a good. That's a perfect hook scene. Like, here's the film that you're about to watch.

It was great, great, well done as soon as that happened. I've already seen that one a couple of times before just on YouTube clips doing Kimbo stuff. But I was like, oh, I didn't realize this was the kickoff of the movie. Perfect. We're set here. I, for my money, the best fight scene is the roller rink fight scene. I don't actually know if it's a roller rink, but it's just like a hardwood floor. Yeah.

They're fighting in some dude who I don't know. I didn't look up to figure out who that man is. But it's like the most competitive one. It's the one that ultimately sets up Michael Jai White's your bone, you know, getting bloodied and bruised. And so then when he goes home to the boarding house, he's staying at the, I don't know what that character's name is. Tamara.

Tamara. Nona Gay is like, oh, what happened to you? And then they can connect. So it sets that up. But that was just like the most interesting. fight. That was also the fight that had, I think, the most sort of MMA level of moves and stuff happening there. Michael Jai White at one point goes for an inside heel hook. Doesn't have control over the hip. So Homeboy just steps through it. You know, you got to, come on, you know, that's how you know

he's not a jiu-jitsu blackbell. Michael Jai White is blackbell in like 18 different karate's, man, didn't the jiu-jitsu blackbell because he didn't have the leg. He didn't have that leg greep. It was just opening the win there, man, step through, get into, you know, the scarf position. There's some grappling exchanges. I thought that that was both the most dynamic fight from a viewing perspective. Yeah. And also just like the one that most speaks to our MMA sensibilities. Is that the one?

Did he win by Renekichuk? Is that the one? No, I think Comorra. He did that Comorah or something? Camara. Yeah, exactly. He finishes it. Oh, I get, I read that.

Yeah. And he finishes it like appropriately where he gets up. He's got the full position. It's, you know, dude on his side and the arm going back and he rips it yeah it's i think it's the most mama fight pretty clearly and i also just thought it was the best fight actually you're right that that's what i was looking at i was trying to figure out that one because i remember i was like oh the scarf i was like oh they actually had some catch wrestling in this too i was like this is the

most yeah this is about it of all the movies you've seen so far this was the most m mhm fight scene easily easy i think easily i mean other than j hierron obviously that That was the UFC. So, you know. Yes. But that was just punch. But that was just in the, that was the MMA fight, but this is actually had all the elements of MMA. That's all I'm saying.

Look, but as A.K knows, you can't mix the martial arts. You know, it's bad to do so. It's keep the martial arts apart, I say. But yeah, I had in that noted here. I say, I call them dance hall guy. But yeah, maybe it was a roller rink. And yeah, I just said it was, I thought it was. Same principle.

Yeah. It looked good. It was the end of a montage. So there's like a month. We get that montage where him and him and pinball are just are cleaning up on the streets, making money and that's sort of the one that caps it off and like at the end of that montage and that uh a dance hauler roller ring fight i was like i'm kind of having a good time watch this movie like this is like yeah were you like pinball and would you've professed your love to bone i thought at the end of the

movie spoilers it's all sudden done and bone is is the the lonesome hero walking off into the sunset he kind of turns back for a second i thought he was going to say by the way pinball i love you too man But that's, 2009 wasn't ready for that. I think 2009. This movie also had a big anti-drug. Like, don't smoke the marijuana. Yes. Because he pulled the joint and threw it out the window.

Like, what do you do it, man? Microcharolitis for the children. This is Los Angeles. You don't do that. Don't smoke the wacky tobacco. It's going to make you say, randomly say, I love you to a dude. Gross. I agree.

I think it was a standout. It's a shame. That's like the one character I could not really get their name. name or figure out who the actor was. So shout-outs to that actor. Maybe it was one of the stunt, maybe it was the stunt coordinator. I don't know, but he was, it was very good. But yeah, a lot of nice, a lot of the fights are pretty short. Michael Jerry White's whole gimmick early on is like he's able to instantly sort of assess sort of the person's technique and then adjust his own stance and then one shot, just boom, just crack people. But I thought that was cool. I like that they had

him. He's got, I didn't realize the influence this film had on Sherlock Holmes, the movie. where Robert Doni Jujer slows down time and then assesses what's happening. It's like, all right, if I shift my stance, he will then try to kick me in the ribs, at which point I will kill him. Yeah. It's good.

A game of shadows owes its lineage to you, Michael Jai White. His very first fight, he sees a guy just kicking pads for like two seconds and he's like, ah, I know. You can see him like, I'm shifting, I think to like a Muay counter stance or something where I can block his kicks. Not that it matters because he doesn't even let the guy get a shot off. I think he just like boots him.

No, that's, oh, you didn't get it. He's not shifting to where he can block his kick. He specifically, so he's here and he specifically opens up the rib. He specifically shifts his stance so his arm is no longer here and it's up here, leaving this big gap open for the dude who was just firing right roundhouses into tie pads to go, okay, I can kick him right here at which point as soon as he goes for it, Michael Jai Y hits him with the kick. Wow. There are levels to this movie.

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I like the one shot. We got a few one shots. While we're talking about the best fight scene, were we all disappointed with the final fight scene with Price? No, it's really good. It's just not an MM. It's just not a, it's not a quote unquote realistic feeling MMA. Well, this is supposed to be the boss, the final boss, I guess.

It's tough that he has an easier time with that dude than pool hall dude. Yeah. Pool whole dude was also the most competitive fight. And this is supposed to be allegedly widely considered the best pound for pound murder fighter in the world. Killed four people, they said. Yeah. Casey, you want to know the thing that bothered me the most is that fight? When that fight's getting set up, he's in the suit and they're like, hey, you want to go change?

He's like, no, no need. I got this. And it was like, oh, he's about to lapel choke him or something. He's like, now we can. use the thing and we can get some jiu-jitsu stuff going on here, can tie them up with the suit like it's a ghee, and then that is not at all what happened. In fact, he used no grips provided by the suit jacket,

and it was just full-on karate. It was like, oh, that's a bummer. Yeah, yeah. The final fight is fun to watch, but it is more of a traditional 80s, 90s, martial arts movie type scene where, you know, it's very showy, it's very flashy. It's not really how any human beings would actually fight in real life.

So it's entertaining its own way, but not. Not far. It's not cinema, mama, is what I'm saying. Did you notice how that final fight scene, how very pro wrestling it was with the whole, like, let's do a thing and then we kind of stare at each other and walk around? I think they did that like four or five times. They started to assess each other's abilities. Like, I do think it's actually a huge weak point of the film that the final fight scene should be,

even though it honestly hadn't been built up the whole, like, oh, this is, hadn't been like there's a huge foundation for why this guy, this fight scene needs to be epic. Still, at some point in the movie, you needed to see Bone not just walk through everybody. Like, he did not face any real resistance at any point in time. And so that really muted any stakes possible for like, oh, Amy Walker has a sword now. Like, yeah, he's definitely about to get killed. Like, he's definitely about to lose because we have seen no weaknesses. And they didn't even give us, like, in Gladiator.

You guys remember in Gladiator or Joaquin Phoenix gets the perfunctory? sword fighting. No, but like at the beginning of the movie, you get to see Joaquin Phoenix fighting dudes, you at least know, oh, he can kind of sword fight. We didn't even get that with Damon Walker. It's just like, okay, he's going to get murder right now. There's no, there's no drama to what's occurring at this moment.

The final fight scene left a lot to be desired. Yeah, I was a little word, I will say, I was a little worried for a moment that we were going to get the, almost what happened with Fight Valley, the swapout. Like, because, like, he wasn't going to fight Price or so. Because Price literally kind of just popped up. Well, that kind of did happen. That kind of did happen because he didn't.

A little bit. Yeah. He's like, I'm not going to fight him. And I'm like, oh, no. Oh, and then you're right. No, no. When he had the knee bar and he had the opportunity to basically break Price's leg and then he chooses a tap out. Could have never finished that knee bar from that position.

I'm saying knee bar because I don't know what the way. He was holding a leg. I mean, it's a knee bar. I think it's a knee bar. I think. He had, there was no leverage to. I compared it to Ariani Lipski breaking Luena Carolina's leg, but that's probably doing a disservice to Lipski's very.

His hips aren't even like in. It's like the legs out here fully away from no chance. He's finishing that. Yeah, I like how it played out. I like the I'm tapping out because I, so screw this guy, screw James. He's not getting, he's not winning money off of me. And then he gets to fight.

You got you kind of got both. He fights the main bad guy, but he also gets to fight the hyped muscle, you know. So that kind of worked out for me. But Jed, you raised a good point. One flaw of this movie is Bone is never really in danger. The one scene where, like, James takes the Nandi hostage tomorrow, takes her, Nona Gay, takes her hostage. And I'm like, oh, no, he's going to like take her with him and now force Bone to fight.

But he kind of just goes like, damn you, Bone and just lets her go and leaves. And I'm like, oh, okay, nothing can go wrong. Nothing can go wrong for Bone. Bone is cruising. Bones happen a good time. There are Marvel films where it is more believable. that the main character is in trouble than in this film, which is like, I don't know.

Captain America can literally never be in trouble. You know he's not going to die. And yet somehow bone is more impervious than Captain America was. Again, it is easily the biggest flaw in this film outside of super questionable writing by modern standards and probably by 2000 standards too. Yeah. Even Jake Gyllenhaal in Roadhouse, like he gets beaten up a little bit. He gets stabbed.

His friends, his friends get affected, like her friends, the little girl and her dad, their place gets burnt down. Like, there's consequences to the actions. This one, they're a step ahead of the villains all the time. They go to the hospital. They're a step ahead of the villains. So you go to the hospital to try and kill the...

This is so complicated for who haven't seen the movie. Really, what are you doing? Listen to us if you haven't seen the movie. But, yeah, so going to kill his friend's wife, who he has put in rehab so that she can eventually reunite with her child. And then the villains think they're so smart. This is where Gene LaBelle. pops up, by the way, there's an old man who I did not recognize it for us.

An old man seen at Sharon someone who's backhand him and knocks him on-conce. And that is Gene LaBelle's cameo. The reason is to have Gene LaBelle in the film. There you go. Couldn't he have like, I don't know, just like. You could have been an old dude in the consortium. Why did he get knocked out? Yeah, why was because the other consortium guys were like well-known martial arts people.

So anyway, that was strange. Maybe he wanted to be, I don't know, but just there were only time they could fit him in. And then, yes, of course, pinball and Bowner, waiting for them. So there's really no point. There's a little Dom Toretto in there. There's a little Dom Toreto. I'm always repaired. I'm never in trouble. But at least Dom like bleeds occasionally. Even the one time where ostensibly bone bleeds, he actually isn't bleeding.

There's just blood on his shirt. And that blood could easily be the dude he fought. Yeah. It's like he is he is the greatest plot armor of all time. And it's pretty it. It's a huge weakness. Huge weakness. Just to break down some of the other fights real quick, he fights a guy called Goldtooth, who you guys may recognize him. That's Tenoy Reed.

He is the Rock stunt double. So if you've seen a rock movie, you have seen Gold Tooth in action. Also, coincidentally, he was on American Gladiators, the 2008 reboot with Gina Corona. So there you go. There's a little Gina Corona also in the film as Veretta Vendetta. But, yes, Bowen beats up Goldtooth, then beats up multiple. people two versus one i think three versus one then just pretty much anyone they can throw out them uh jed

no no uh no strategy here from the goons uh all coming out of one at time not using the um formula popularized by fight circus asymmetrical champions uh bank and no money that was kind of when they came two at a time then bone will throw a spin kick and knock out both of them of one kick yeah so the k kzie you're you're you're correct but you are leaving out the single best move in this whole film, which occurred during this fight sequence. And it's because on top of doing the spin kicks, Casey, which is very much in the roundhouse and wheel kicking,

Uvra. He's also a big fan of the split kicks. You get up and you kick, kick, one leg, two leg. And then in Timbs, again, I can't stress enough that all these fights happen with this man rocking Timberlins, which is the best part.

He does a quad or a double split kick, where in the air he goes, kick, kick, kick to four people. before landing. And it's the coolest thing I've ever seen. I was like, that's outrageous. And almost certainly by the time the fourth dude's getting kicked, he doesn't even feel it.

Like, there's no force behind it. But who cares? That was awesome. That guy's like, that's so cool. Boom. He just knocked out by the coolness of the game. He's just falling down out of respect for the fact that it was dope that this man hit a quad kick and Tim's on him.

I have to drop. This is the part where I fall down. After he beats those guys, he rips a stack of cash, which some gang leader was hiding in his crotch for some reason. So that was a bit funny. He also gets Gina Krono's number. That's a nice little scene there. And I also want to shout one more thing. The bones fight with Bob Sapp.

I actually really liked. Not very fast. Hammerman's steroids seemed to do nothing. I thought after he got knocked down, I thought it's like, oh. I don't think steroids are an instant reaction boom. It's not like Bain serum where you just put it in and you get bigger and stronger. But that's why I thought it was more like a revitalizing juice or so. I thought like, oh, he's not actually out and he's going to spring back up like in a rage and then.

What is your revitalizing juice? What is this? Secret juice. Secret juice. Okay. Oh, but I. Casey. Can we talk about something that I think it was very ahead of time?

The final fight scene with all the, what do you call it the consortium? which is I guess just millionaires from across the world who come to invite this private fight club or whatever This was essentially from Squid Game Yeah Also into underground fighting This was this was pre-UFC apex We're only the richest could afford tickets

That's all we saw We just saw Steve A D's with Stepe versus DC And the apex when it was in his final fight Yeah this is what we saw It was the same exact thing A bunch of millionaires and fighting and probably billionaires billionaires

watching the two best street fighters in the world for like 15 people this was the UFC Apex like the UFC Apex completely ripped their entire business model off the final scene of blood and bone Dana White and company saw the scene and said these guys are on to something

we can't implement it yet we can't implement it yet but the time will come where we can implement it we just need a worldwide health crisis first then we got it yeah there's no going back I also want to shout out Bob Sap. Just, we don't get enough of people getting Mount Position and going Donkey Kong as their weapon of choice. Just the Bob Sap, two-fisted smash from Mount Position.

Somebody's got to bring that into the cage. I need someone to do that at 301. It's just, it's such an effective maneuver. What did you guys think of the sort of kind of gimmick of this film? One of their shot gimmicks was the first person, well, not. I guess the reverse point of view, you are the one getting smashed. I think one of them was standing. I think when Bob Sat was getting beaten up by Michael J. White, we got a little standing pummeling.

But yes, generally that was sort of the trick. Gina Corona, yes, ground and pounding an opponent. And then we got the girls, poor girls view of her getting smashed. No, Jed, you didn't like that? I never like that sort of thing. There are very few times. I think any sort of a POV perspective is like warranted or adds to the film. It's just dissociating and particularly because it always also looks bad because you can't

have it. And pretty clearly, Gina Krono is not punching, like, she's punching not to hit the camera, thus not to hit my eyeballs, like through the POV. It's like, oh, your punch is pretty clearly going in front of my face and not hitting anything. So it's, I, that's not just this film. It's a lot of films that sort of do at least sprinkles of this and every time it's bad to me. What a buzzkill. Casey, you're a video guy. Didn't you not appreciate that? It wasn't done that well. It wasn't done well. When I think of the movie Fight Club and I think the scene where he's getting, we don't want to destroy something beautiful scene where he's beating up Jerry Lotto. I think that's, I think from my memory, that's kind of POV. Does he ever actually

go POV or isn't it just like over the shoulder? Maybe it's over. Maybe my, maybe my, maybe maybe it's just my memory. It was bad, but I kind of remember that angle. And it felt much more visceral and violent in that movie. But, no, that was Fight Club and this is this. But it can be done well. Most time it's not. It also just doesn't make sense in the context of this.

Because if you are doing that, ostensibly the point is to be in the POV of your lead character. But this isn't like this was just being, hey, you want to have a POV of this woman that Gina Krona's beating the soul out of who we don't know her name and plays no part in the film like there's nothing there's no reason to provide the audience that view other than you think it's cool i guess pretty 100% what it is and it doesn't work for me like i'd at least understand it if it was here's the pov of bone getting his ass beat and you can kind of emotionally

connect to that trauma or whatever it's not what's going on well i can't well mr mr palm door over here geez louise okay fine um uh what did you say your favorite move was jed i think you mentioned earlier what You like the quad kick. The quad kick. The quad kick is the best thing that happened. The quad kick is the best move. I did like the transition into the knee bar that we discussed. He does like a pro wrestling victory role, which I don't think is a real martial arts maneuver.

I don't know. I've never had so much right on me. Maybe it's super effective. But yeah, he essentially jumps in the air almost onto the guy's shoulders, rolls forward and then into the ineffective knee bar as he described it. That is the best move in the film. The second best move is the very beginning of the film within the first first minute is I'm fighting five guys in a prison restroom. The fifth guy, how do I stop him?

I throw my wet t-shirt on his face. I mean, that would disorient me as well. Yeah. They got me like, ew. Ew. Ew. Gross. Gross. Yeah. He's like, remember he took his shirt off. He got it wet and he started doing the whole shirt thing and then wept some guy in the face. And then the other guy, he just throws it on his face. Yeah. That's the thing. I thought the first time I ever watched this scene. I thought for sure he was just about to start rat tailing people, just left right and sitting, just hop in them with the wet thing. But then he just, he hits him once, throws the shirt and then just obliterates everyone. I was like, okay, that's also effective, also an effective fighting strategy. Now, you guys have already asked, why is Bone just not

fighting the UFC? And then we've sort of posited maybe the UFC doesn't exist as we know it in this universe, but let's say it did, or let's say Bone came to our universe. How's he doing, guys? How's doing the octagon? I mean, his ability to make in-game adjustments is unparalleled. I mean, just the speed with which he was able to assess and then attack people. But I will say, I got concerns about his ground game. The one time some dude was actually rolling with him, you know, wasn't just engaging in a Tai Chi, you know, Taekwondo fight, you know, dance hall, whatever that fight was.

That was, you know, that was the hardest he had. he had the most difficulty when someone was out here trying to grapple with him. Granted at heavyweight, which looking at Bowen, I'm going to go ahead and say the man, man's not making the cut to 205. Not a ton of heavyweights. He's short, though, isn't he? I couldn't tell. I don't know, but I don't think he's like that short, but he's also just yoked.

So, like, Jeff Bonson was short too. You know, it's just being his built. Look at the tree trunks on that fella. He's a big boy. Big fella. somebody like Curtis Blades, I think, going to give him real problems, but, you know, heavy wins.

A weak division, he could do okay. Who wins? Isaiah Bone versus Sirogon. I mean, you got to go bone, right? Oh, yeah. I'm gone, bone. I'm going to bone. So, yeah, so I think that answers your question right there,

A.K. You would think of the speed with what he's a top five. Top five fighter in the UFC. In the heavyweight right now. If you get rid of the Timberlands, think how fast he'll kick. You will never see. C speed like that in the heavyweight division.

But those Timblins would give that last kick on the four-person kick that enough weight to make it effective. He's going to have to adjust some of his fighting strategies, certainly, but I think he can adapt and be okay. Michael Jai White is listed at 6'1. So he is not a short man. I take that back. He's a fairly tall. As you said, he'll wait a weight list at 260? I don't know.

Probably 250, 245. Who would even know? I wonder. Like, how do you even, who keeps track of these things? The first result just says 235, 235, so I was leaving at that. So, yeah, it's a small heavyweight. But the speed, got the speed, a lot of power. Man, he was, I can damn.

You guys ever watch Michael Jai White like pseudo-instructionals? They're not instructional videos, but it's like him talking to other people about, like, his techniques. They are, I can't tell if they're genius or if he's insane, but they are captivating watches regardless. Okay. That's quite the endorsement. So there's a really famous one of him working with Kimbo on this movie, like outside of it. And they're like in the fits that they are doing, like that scene in.

But he's talking like he's just talking with Kimbo about like timing functionally and how to punch things. Google it if you, I assume you haven't seen it, okay. Him and Kimbo? Him and Kimbo. Yeah. Where he's like, all right. So Kimbo try to hit my like, I'm going to try and hit your hand. don't let me punch your hand and he like tries to punch it and kimbo gets out of the way okay he does

like a really slow punch and kimbo kimbo like just doesn't see it coming and gets caught and he's explaining like how he set that up with like essentially distance control and stuff like that and he's got like a number of other things there's one with him out there doing like uh explaining kicks and how like if you load a kick then everyone it's like much easier to see you're but if instead the way you shift your weight is this way, then your opponents are only going to recognize this as a threat at the last minute. It's going to be much easier to hit a front kick on them.

He has a bunch of stuff like that that's like real, you know, brutally mysticism stuff that I kind of think is mostly hokey bullshit, but it also kind of works. It also kind of sells me because he's a charismatic man. And so I'm like, huh, I could maybe buy that. So go watch. if you haven't seen it. Yeah, I have to now.

I believe, and I believe those things would work for Bone specifically. I have him, guys, I'll give you my quick tier list here. You guys can agree. You disagree. I have Bone, clearly S tier, top of the top of the arm. I also put Price S tier. I also put Price S tier. I don't know if you guys were disappointed in his performance, and that bumps him down to

just simply a tier. I mean, they did look like a middle one. I didn't see enough. I didn't see enough. He's a little smaller. I would say, based on reputation, at least. A tier, maybe S tier based on reputation. But the NKage product, maybe he had an off night, you know, who wasn't ready for what

was going on there. He's in a suit, you know, short notice. Let him be in. But I didn't even love the training footage we saw of him. You know, I wasn't that impressed. You didn't like him flutcheoning that one guy with elbows over and over again for no reason. I was really impressed by the training footage. So I'm going to drop him to A.

And A tier is strictly based on, you know, I guess prior resume and reputation, not what I actually saw with my own eyes. Who was holding his pads? Do you guys remember that? I'm sorry. I know the guy was told me. He's a real trainer. He is a real trainer.

I haven't seen him in years, but around that time, around that time, it was an, it was an Asian fellow with a completely baldhead. Yeah. I don't, I don't know his name, but when I saw his face, it's like, oh, I used to see that guy at UFCs all the time. Yeah. He is, he is a coach. He is a real MMA coach.

A Price, by the way, played by Matthew Mullum, not an actual fighter or an NBA fighter anyway. but yes a veteran cultural artist wasn't he like a kickboxing dude i think you're pretty sure that's pretty sure that that is true you guys want he was johnny cage in one of the mortal combats that's what i recognize yeah that i remember the okay for youtube one when am we going to talk about the wang chung scene all right i i i was okay i don't go sorry we'll get to that moment let me my my tier list real quick that's a good tease though casey uh a tier I think Hammer Man's A-tier. They talk some crap about them.

I think Hammer Man's A-tier. Mommy Dearest, I thought, pretty impressive. The fireman's carried to the arm bar. B-tier, Veretta, that's Gina Krono. Fast-Hands, that's Marie Smith. C-tier. I put Kimbo in there. Kimbo is J-C.

I thought there was, he took a stabbing, and pretty tough. Pretty tough. I put him in there. Gold Teeth, also C-tier. D-Tier, Big L, that's the first guy that's the guy that the T-tricks into the disrespecting. suspecting the name big and and f tier actually this is perfect that we did not plan this f tier yes uh kacey uh darrell the unfortunate yuppie who gets who gets murdered uh they'll the nose coming there all right let's set the scene okay so kasy is asking out this wying chung scene

uh which is uh soundtracked by the hit uh dance holidays and in it our bad guy james is confronting i think a business partner who is effed up who's like made a mistake or something he's done something wrong and he's clearly being sent there to eliminate this guy and this guy does not see a coming. We get Wang Chung playing and Daryl's instinct he senses no danger

instead he says he says oh you guys don't mind like oh we're going to play some white boy music for them or something like that and then James asks for music to be played on as a noise cover for the ensuing murder Yes yes yes Darrell's wife turns on Wang Chong.

Wang Chong. And James is down with it. He very much lowers Daryl's guard by singing along with him. He knows all the words. We're having a good time. But the atmosphere clearly gets very threatening. He pulls out his little blade out of his cane, I think, and then stabs Daryl to death. So, Casey, what did you want to say about the scene exactly?

In this universe, it seems very easy to get away of murder. That's all I'm. Casey, I got some bad news for you. That's true in our universe as well. Okay. They don't explain what happens to his wife, the Asian lady. They pretty clearly killed her. So they killed him, they killed her, and then they, and James also and his other Asian henchmen run over a random black lady in the alley and kill her too.

Were there any other just random murders that weren't part? part of the street fighting scene. Oh, Roberto gets eaten by dogs. Oh, yes, terrible. The kind of old man, Roberto, torn apart by pit bulls, I believe. So we were told we didn't get to see it on screen. Thank goodness. Did not need that.

The Wang Chung scene is interesting because it's objectively fun. I don't understand why it's in the film. It serves truly no purpose. Like it, I guess the purpose is. to tell you that James is a bad person, but like, you kind of already intuited that by the fact that James allegedly set up some dude for murder to steal his wife and per pinball, force his wife to get rid of their unborn child. It's not what ends up happening.

But you're only like, yeah, okay, James is a bad dude. I don't need to see him kill somebody. And honestly, I felt that like after the end of the movie, I was like, I think one of my issues here is that Julian Sands, who is Franklin McVeigh, feels like he's actually supposed to be the heavy of this movie, but you never get to it.

And so, like, that scene lends towards, oh, James is just a pawn of this other individual, and that's who is ultimately going to get their comeuppance. And then, no, it's actually just James, but there's some sort of depth to James'

motivations as a middleman of you. It is. Yeah, it was just very weirdly set out in this record. He's a climber. He's a climber. He's our best character we've seen so far in any of the movies. Because they were going somewhere with James and, you know, Franklin McVeigh was like, because they had the whole race thing and how like, you know.

Okay, let's, wait, Casey, hold on, hold on Casey. We got to explain this to people. We can not, I'm not saying. It gets a little complicated. It gets a little complicated. We can, we can discuss this in a civil way. Oh, first, the last thing on the Wang Chung scene, I just want to say, this movie, according to Wikipedia has a budget of about

$3.7 million. That's a license. And maybe he's friends with people who know Wang Chung or something, but like to license that, I think that's the only big license song they have in the movie, it's got to cost them at least like 500 grand or something.

Am I crazy? Like it's expensive to license music. That's probably more than it would be, but you know, I'm sure that that was not cheap. Yeah, anyway. So that's, maybe it was a discount because that song seems so random.

Maybe that was like, Wang, John's like, do it. Give me, Give me 5K. Yeah, take it. That's not like the Wang Chung song. That's like the other Wang Chung song. So I'm just saying they didn't get the, they got the semi deep cut.

It wasn't everybody have fun tonight. Yeah. Which might have been, which I think, I bet it was way more expensive. That's why they asked for initially. And they said, you can have that for 500 grand or you can have dance hall days for 50K. And they're like, wow. I mean, I think dance all days works. I think it fits.

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Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two, ghosts in the machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Roscoe Cadulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Frey. reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible original blockbuster, The Downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide.

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Very sad circumstances. Went hiking and just got caught by bad weather disappeared for months. What a fun thing to bring up during the podcast, by the way. Oh, you're killing me. Yeah, he's a RIP. So we dedicate this podcast for the memory of Julian Sands. RIP. Yeah, he's great.

He's great as Franklin McVeigh. And he has a bizarre exchange with James. James wants to have to talk to Franklin because he wants price. He wants Bone to fight price and to get all the money that he feels he's earned. I think he's going to win like $5 million or something if Bone Beats Price. And yes, they get into this weird, racially oriented conversation, which threatens to turn into a literal, we can just say, Dick Measuring Contest. Fortunately, the film stops there.

we don't get to that. Yes, there are some treaties. This is a movie that employed Kimbo Slice, just saying. Kimbo Slice, Egina Kroano and Bob Sapp are probably featured in this film, which also includes this scene, which is so weird. Baby nuts. You got baby nuts. Yes.

That is functionally what happens in this scene, everyone. I hope this scene is on YouTube isolated because it's, again, I'm trying to explain it, but it really comes out of nowhere. And it's long, too. This is not a short scene. This is like a substantial scene in the movie. it doesn't make any sense in any part of it there's no call but it never comes back there's no it would make sense if if julia if mcvay is the bad guy the actual bad bad guy it would make sense but he's not he's just a dude but then you're like oh this dude is virulently racist and i hate him so like it would be cool if he got his comeuppance no and then we just like honestly i was waiting for the like the post-credit scene is real bad and should not happen.

I, like, when they started a post-credit scene, I was like, oh, they're going to set up blood and bone too, where bone, you know, comes back for Franklin McVeigh. And then that's not at all what happened in that scene. And so it's just, it's super weird. It's not a very well-written film, is the point. Listen, there could be a sequel where we get more of the consortium, more of a Franklin. I don't know. So I take it both of you would agree.

You would have maybe either chopped this scene out or significantly chopped it down. Is this fair? I would have rewritten this scene entirely. I just don't know what the aim, like the goal of the scene. I have no idea. That's really it. Whatever the goal was, it didn't succeed. Very strange.

If the goal is to make James a more, like a deeper character because you see the things against which he is fighting kind of failed in that by creating a character that you have animosity towards that there's no resolution to. I think a scene like this could have existed. but it just doesn't serve any purpose. If anything, he even kind of gets a moment to help the hero at the end. He's the one who tells his other consortium member to throw Michael J. White a sword at the end so he can have a proper tool.

Which is also unnecessary. Just let Michael Jai White beat him where that sword. He was at a disadvantage. And that scene just resolves weird. After James is like, baby nuts, dada, you got baby nuts. Then Franklin's just like, all right, cool, I'll help you out now. Like literally moments before, he said some of the most heinous racist stuff you've ever heard. It was like, my rich white friends do not want to hang out with you because we don't like you for who you are and the color of your skin.

And then James is like, okay, but you got baby nuts. And he's like, all right, cool, we could be friends. I was like, I don't, what's happening here? What is occurring? The problem, Jedd, anyone listening to your. I mean, that's it. It sounds so, yeah, you kind of noted. I mean, it was just weird.

Is that not exactly what happens? No, it was. But here's the problem. The way you've broken it down, anyone who has not seen the movie and is just listening to your recap the scene is just nodding their head. Like, yeah, that makes sense. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's how the things turned around.

He called them baby nuts and they want them over. Like, yeah, that's a human interaction. So you oversold it. I think you made it too convincing a little bit, James's appeal to Franklin. I guess. I don't know. The only tweak I would have made was I thought, so I mentioned a scene where Tamara is held hostage by James

to get Bone to fight and it kind of resolves as nothing. I thought Tamara was going to use the Tai Chi skills that she had learned from Bone to at least escape the situation because I thought he was going to be like, Tamara, because she has a guy, James has a gun to her. Push against me.

Yeah, don't panic. Just remember. Push and push back. And James like, what the hell? And then she does some weird, like very slow move that does just enough to throw James off balance and then Bone jumps in and saves her. So one thing I would have added, that's it. Otherwise, I mean, a flawless film.

So I don't know if there's any other tweets. Do we need more Gengis Khan quotes? That was great. Did you write it down? What was the Gengis Khan? It was good. Oh, of course. I wrote down.

Oh, please. Read it out, Casey. Do you not have it? Do you want the whole thing or just the one that is the post credit splash? I think. Because the one that's repeated is I'm the punishment of God. Yeah. If you had not committed great sins, God, we're not.

have sent to punishment like me upon you. That's pretty sick. The one prior is James setting that up saying, Genghis once said, the greatest pleasure is to vanquish your enemy and chase them before you to rob them with their wealth to have those deer to them bathed in tears. Just so we are all the way clear. James says this to Bone in his house immediately before trying to befriend to Bone and then ultimately offering Bone his, I guess, wife.

It's unclear what his relationship to the primary female lead is a girlfriend who he was so enamored with that he set up her baby daddy and or husband for murder and then

stole her and banished her child. Yeah. And then it's just giving her to bone because... You're not giving her. He is using her. He is using her as currency. Because he's a horrible man. He's a horrible man. My point is It's not a really well-written film.

There's not a lot of cogency. Nothing, nothing you have. There's not a lot of cogency or clear through lines in character development in this show. James is real. James is real. I do like Angela, when Angela walks into that scene originally at the party and James introduces Angela, and then Angela says, words can't describe how little I give a damn. That was pretty good.

I was like, yeah, that was a good. But that's as deep as we got over. I thought it was the other word, the F word, but. It might have been. It might have been, yeah. Also, she's just really, I mean, she's not given anything to work with, but I'm also seeing a through line for female performances in these movies are not good. Susie Selleck could have played that role and you wouldn't have lost a beat. That's all I'm saying.

Honestly, she was not that far off from Susie Sallis. A little sad. She wasn't available. Starting to think that the people who write MMA-related movies can't. Right female characters. Oh, that's a little, wow, we'll find out soon enough. There's a little tease for upcoming episode. We started talking about quotes.

I just want to jump a couple of quick ones in here. They quoted Genghis Khan. They also quote Sun Tzu, the Art of War. James goes, you know invincibility lies in defense and bone says possibility of victory in the attack. So that was kind of a cool exchange, I thought. That was my choice for best quote, because there's not like a lot of, there's not like a lot of good ones. in this movie. There's like,

there's no lumpy, bumpy, but certainly going on in here. Whereas that's at least like, you know, that feels like a thing that would happen in an 80s martial arts movie that is cool.

So I was like, yeah, sure, why not? I also wrote down, we mentioned the insanely bizarre racist scene where they're about to measure their genitalia. And Franklin goes, let's whip them out

and I'll settle that myth right here now, which I thought was a pretty powerful line. again, this was before being called Baby Nuts and that scene was resolved. And I've really, we teased this before, guys, what the hell was Dicks on the Wall? What is Dix on the Wall? This is what Mommy Dearest,

so Mommy Dearest after breaking Marie Smith's arm shouts, Dicks on the Wall, Dicks on the Wall, I was so lost. I was lost. So I've never heard this, but because he just was repeatedly shouting it and I was like, this is incredible, I then Urban Dictionaryed it because that's the go-to source for things.

And Urban Dictionary says, an exclamation of surprise or excitement most often in a positive manner. I don't know from when systems. When was this entry made? 2009, after this movie came out? No, 2020. So this movie's ahead of its time. It's definitely from its movie.

I told you. This created the apex. This created dicks on the wall. This movie did a lot. If I ever meet either the writer of the film or Ernest the Catmiller himself, I will, that's the very first thing I will ask. What the hell is Dicks on the wall? I have no, I was, I really thought I was missing on.

The excitement usually in a positive manner, A.K. That certainly was in this case. Casey, any other lines jump out of you besides Dix's the Wall? Oh, did we already mention all right motherfuckers and motherfuckettes? That was a great one. You alluded to it previously. Yeah, yeah. Yes.

Great line. Great line, my pinball. Imagine if Bruce Buffard for the next paper view just breaks that one out. It's like, all right, we're over. It's time. Now, all right, motherfucker. Yeah. Dude, he wouldn't even say Jim fucking Miller.

He's not going to do something cool like that. I actually do think the best line in the movie, low key, was from Tamara when she's like learning what bones like actually doing. It's like, you did all of this to keep a jailhouse promise. That's like actually a pretty good line. I like that line. Yeah. I wrote some other lines down.

Go ahead, Casey. Oh, you're my white knight to save me in the tower. And then Bone responds, well, I don't know about white knight. I mean, that is the deep lineage of 80s action cinema right there. Casey, I thought you were going to go with the opening quote from Bone. Oh, oh, I had that too. I want I want

I want to tell every motherfucker behind these walls if they get the notion the fuck of me don't and kicks Kimbo in the face yeah and oh yeah

and then boom the title thing yeah good we should say dude the opening scene does its job

really well unless of the movie maybe a little less so we say blood and bone by the way is not said in this film the phrase blood and bone

is not said like nine million times Yeah, I did write this line down. I'm trying to figure out the- And bone together. Yeah. I don't know. Tell me when this one was set in the movie.

Don't you know I'm from Pittsburgh? We don't play that shit. Oh, that's Bob Sapp when he's roughing up pinball in the ball. Yeah. When Bob Sap's trying to find where, because he keeps repeating a line that I cannot say. He keeps asking pinball, where's that man, bone? Yeah. And he's, I don't.

remember what exactly prompted it, but that is, he is, it's right before he throws pinball across the room. He's like, oh, it's because he punches pinball and pinball vomits on his shoes. And then Bob Sap says that. And we should note that this ends with bone saving pinball and just straight up shooting Bob Sap. So that is the end of Bob Sap's character. And showing a wealth of proficiency with firearms. Oh, does not miss a shot. Does not miss a shot. I mean, just. May it can be in the Olympics. All bulls eyes. Swordsman, marksman, expert martial artist. Like John Wick, great, great shooter, misses a lot of shots.

He is cycling through those weapons. Bone steals a gun and goes nine for nine. John Whiff could learn a lot from this guy. All right, guys, let's get to our review. Let's wrap this up. I'll say it right now. I quite enjoyed the film, but I don't want to spoil exactly how many fists, if any, I've given it. Shall we do a little drum roll and.

and for the raising of the fists. Casey, you look on shore. You look like you had not already decided. I haven't decided on the... Has our discussion made you enjoy the movie more or less? Casey, I'll tell you, I'm with you. I did not decide on my review until we did it. And through our show and talking through it,

I feel really confident with the grade I'm about to give. Okay. How do you want to do this? Count this down? It's to do each person. Let's go Jed first. Okay. Let's try that way.

We got to do the visual of all three of us so we know the totality of fifth. All right, all right. All right. Give me a count. Give me a countdown. Okay. Let's go three. So we go after one.

It's three to one go. All right. Correct. Ready. Our, our review of blood and bone. Three, two,

one. Yeah. Oh. Three fists. Is this our first three fister? So first three fister. Three fister. Wow.

And well deserved, well deserved. If my ranking of I was the only one to give a fist to fight value, that was a borderline, that was like a shaky fist. This is a firm fist. I was maybe 45 minutes in and I was already like this movie, unless this movie completely goes off the rails, it's getting a fist. Very enjoyable. I got to say, I was planning no fist when I got here today, but after hearing you two gentlemen,

he got a fist. Yeah, the fight scenes are good. They're impactful. Like we said, this is like a real movie. I kind of forgotten what a real movie was after. watching Roadhouse and Fight Valley. And I was like, oh, this is like a normal movie. Like you would catch on, again, well,

went direct the video, but you would catch it on cable. This could be a pilot for the Blood and Bone TV show. You know what I mean? It's just a nice, well done production. Like I said, people can go to the credits themselves. You'll see a lot of names that are involved in that went on or were previously involved with other, like, major Hollywood films. So there was work put in here.

And I'd like the mixture of martial artists that got in there. I think they used them well. No one got overexposed. Michael Jewa, again, just carries so much of the film he's such a great physical presence and yeah i can't take it quite to another level as jetta said many times during the show the script is so so bad but that's okay because i'll tell you something you didn't you guys didn't come here for the show for the script yeah for the script you came for some action if you came just for action 90 minutes solid action

delivers and then some the 90 minutes is one of the really critical parts for me because everything you said okay it's i was debating between two versus one, and I didn't feel like it quite deserved two, but it felt like I gave one to Roadhouse. I think that this is just a better film than Roadhouse than the totality, because it has a lot of problems. Writing is the biggest one, but it does know what it is as a film, and I can give a lot of credence to any film that, that knows, like, I don't need everything to be an Oscar film. As long as you know what you are and you play to that, you play to those strengths, and this does,

it lets microjewy do some cool stuff, keeps it tight, it doesn't sprawl. Honestly, you probably could hack. Like, this is probably better as a one-hour pilot if you just took 25 minutes out of it, which I think you could pretty easily do, than it is as a total standalone film. But even so, after the first 40 minutes,

there's a stretch there where maybe it drags a touch, but it's not nearly as bad as some other stuff. And most importantly, to me, it all is at least relatively cogent. It's driving towards something that makes sense as opposed to the sort of wide diaspora that was the back half of Roadhouse or just sort of all things happening

because that is the reason for everything happening is we need more Connor in scenes or whatever it is. This at least has like a pretty clear path. I think there are a ton of things that I would not do if it were up to me. but this is also a film that sort of like Roadhouse ultimately I settled on. I didn't have a bad time watching it. There's 90 minutes.

And if one of my friends who was asking like, hey, looking for something to watch, and I know that they are into a particular brand of trashy, B movie 90s action film, like, you could do worse. You'd absolutely do worse than watching this. So for me, easily the best of the three films we've reviewed thus far in this journey. man now you're making me wonder if this was a stealth pilot or this was originally conceived as a pilot for a blood and bone show which i would watch 100% and then they just decided to turn into a movie and that's what we got like the james and that's what we got the james and darrell scene and the james and franklin scene it's like oh we just need to add in more to make it feature length and i'm like this could just be a good tv show on the rewatchable podcast they do like sequel prequel premiere prestige tv like if you're going to remake it how would you do it and i'd be like i would just turn this into we weird TV show, like on AMC Plus or whatever. Casey, how do you want to justify your fist here?

Well, I came in here giving it no fist, but then James, I know James, Jed. Jed honestly did sell me on it on just the ridiculous of it. And I guess the film knowing what it is, but I got to say, like, it still barely got a fist for me, mostly because I really just hated the way the film ended in the final fight scene. I thought the final fight scene of Price kind of sucked. And then it ended with a sword fight. And this is supposed to be an MMA movie. It ends with a sword fight. And the guy gets his, you know, he gets his hand chopped off. It just kind of seemed like, I don't just wrist lock him. I don't know. It was just, it was just, it felt out of place ending it with a sword fight.

That's all. So, but it just goes back to the script. But the movie, there was, there were, There was something there. There was something there. It was something. I think we all kind of sensed that, which I think we kind of ultimately gave it the fist. But, yeah, that's pretty much it. Yeah. And I think that's-

And Walker alone deserves a fist. Oh, Amen Walker. Well done. Veteran TV actor. You will see plenty of him. Listen, I think he's on a show right now. Isn't he on Chicago fire or something? I think he's on TV regularly right now.

He's on every Chicago, MD, Chicago, 911, 911, whatever, all those shows. Oh, he's doing, he's doing well. Indication checks. Get those syndication. He needs to be in more films doing this exact role. Just better. He was great. I thought,

I think he was wonderful in this movie. But, yeah, guys, I think those are good breakdowns of this film. And I think, as you pointed out, like, kind of why this isn't a black belt martial arts film

because it's strayed so much, we got gunplay. We got, again, a sword fight is really the last fight. This is a lot going on. Yeah, into the sword fight. It was just odd. I was like,

all right, yeah. And again, shooting. Like, Bob Sapp gets killed by a gun. Like, it's kind of weird. So, yeah, but I think we're all firm that this is a three-fist movie, which, guys, it puts

at the top of the rankings. This is the greatest martial arts film of all time. Number one, blood and bone with three fists coming up behind, close behind, Roadhouse with two fists. And, again, just missing it, Fight Valley with one lonely fist. Thank you, guys. Thank you, this week. Again, I really enjoyed watching Blood and Bone.

I highly recommend this to people. I believe it is on Netflix in the United States. So people, if you got Canada, Canada, a fair. means, I'm just saying, or rent it, you know, pay a couple of bucks. Rented at one of these streaming services. It's like $3 on Amazon. There you go. I think it's on YouTube too.

I think YouTube, I'm pretty sure you can rent it on YouTube. But if you're in the U.S., you don't need that. You got the flicks. Hey, turn it on. You could do a lot worse. Great action. Plus, if you watch it on Netflix, then your Netflix algorithm is going to start taking you a lot of really bad films and you're going to enjoy that.

I noticed never back down to is on American. Sure is. Not the original, but the sequel is. John Honson, they can't bring him back for the direct DVD sequel. So Michael Jailwhite takes over the franchise. It's electric, boys. I can't wait. Well, gentlemen, and the other good, you know what,

speaking of the algorithm, it might actually put the film that we're watching next week onto the people's screens for them because we are reviewing the Netflix, I believe Netflix produced Netflix original film starring Hallie Berry and Valentina Shepchenko. Yes, we are reviewing Bruised. So we haven't had much luck with some of the female characters in this movie. Let's be honest, I think we'll do better with this flick.

But guys, until then, thank you for joining us on This is Cinema. Keep those 3D glasses handy. Keep that popcorn handy. And we will see you next time. Love y'all. We're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Defenders and cybersecurity are always there when we need them. They should get a parade every time they block a night.

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