Oh, that was hurt! Who can survive?
It was a lot of hullaballo around Undisputed 3. Partly because of not so quality previous project from Adkins-Florentine named The Ninja and partly just about Boyka character.
From the first minutes Florentine flings us to the center of the ring where fighters knock the nonsense out of each other. Location is Chornya Cholmi, Russia – Maximum security prison. And here we can see become overgrown and religious Boyka, good only for cleaning toilets. You know, want to say that it becomes popular for good fighters to take religion for some reason, just remember Ali and nowadays popular MMA fighter Fedor, he trains in some village under supervision of some priest.
But let’s get back to the ring. So Boyka is cleaning up the prison while underground businessmen trying to arrange the tournament of the best convicted fighters from all over the world – PFC. Boyka’s request for parole is denied so he decided to show everybody how to kick ass in his best manner even with one knee..
Working on his shape with the help of wooden pail with water he meet skinny criminal who offers him to participate in tournament and make a very good money. Have to say Florentine was in a very good mood when filming this stuff because all actors talking with terribly strong Russian accent, even Adkins. Come on, Isaac, not everybody talks with such a strong accent, most of people work on it and spend a lot of money to hide it.
Boyka defeated the local champ in few minutes and heading to hell in Georgia.
I have heard a lot about Chilean martial artist, actor, and stuntman Marko Zaror and expected to see a real deal, but wasn’t impressed of his role in Undisputed 3. Sorry Marko, but if you want to play tough bad guy don’t dance even if you won the award for Best Overall Stunt by a Stunt Man in 2004 and shared it with J.J. Perry.
And what we have in Georgia: 8 fighters represent different styles from Taekwondo to Capoeira. Coutries are North Korea, Croatia, Greece, France, Russia, Brazil, USA and Colombia. Capoeira is very popular today and looks great on camera, so later I will tell you about the first Capoeira movie from Brazil named Besouro.
And again we have got an opportunity to see opposition of Russia and USA, how without this. The talkative american was driving me crazy half of movie and I was not alone, even Boyka said “Shut your f** mouth”, but to my surprise after few tiffs they became friends.
I was impressed with fighting choreography of Larnell Stovall, the former world and international champion in fighting, weapons and forms. Boyka showed very good MMA skills and probably it was the right decision to cover up his problems with knee. American fighter played by Mykel Shannon Jenkins looks very good, I liked his trick with elbows during a fight.
Sum up I have to say I liked this movie and Florentine is growing as a filmmaker from film to film. Keep it up Isaac, will be waiting for your next movie.
Oh, by the way, Florentine paid his respect to the first underground fighting movie Bloodsport. You probably remember the scene when a cleaner is tidying up the ring with the broom, so don’t miss the same scene Undisputed 3.
Seems to me martial arts movies become very popular in 2010 but only few of them deserves sequels like Undisputed, Tony Jaa‘s Ong Bak 3 The Movie and old-school Karate Kid 2010 Movie.