A cheap martial arts movie filmed in the Philippines, LIVE BY THE FIST was intended for undemanding action fans and contains little to satisfy even its target audience.
Somewhere in the Philippines, former Navy SEAL John Merill (Jerry Trimble) tries to stop four men from raping a woman. Instead, one of them kills her and the rest accuse Merill of the crime. He's tried, convicted, and sentenced to life imprisonment on hellish Bolera Island, which is run by
sadistic Warden Acost (Vic Diaz) and his henchman Vargas (Roland Dantes). A surprise visit from human rights activist Helen Ferris (Laura Albert) puts them under pressure to find a stolen ledger that details their corrupt management of the prison.
As one of the only white inmates, Merill is the target of much abuse, and is singled out for vicious treatment by the guards. His cellmate is the widely respected Uncle Coronado ("Star Trek"'s George Takei), who has dedicated himself to helping wrongly convicted inmates, and whom Vargas and
Acosta suspect knows the location of the missing ledger. Uncle tries to convince the warring inmate factions to stop persecuting Merill and band together against the prison officials, so Acosta arranges to have Uncle murdered and blame Merill for the deed.
Merill forces Uncle's assassins to confess in front of Ferris and her colleagues, and at the last moment, the dying Uncle appears bearing the incriminating ledger, the evidence they need to shut down the prison. The warden kills Ferris's associates and tries to kill her, but she escapes with
Merill during the ensuing riot.
Directed by long-time Filipino exploitation filmmaker Cirio Santiago, whose previous credits go back to 1966's THE BLOOD DRINKERS and include T.N.T. JACKSON (1975) and VAMPIRE HOOKERS (1979), LIVE BY THE FIST shares the deficiencies that have plagued his work since the beginning. The story is
formulaic, the action indifferently staged, and the post-production dubbing undistinguished at best, unintentionally funny at worst. The film's principal draw is World Kickboxing champion Jeffrey Trimble, who also starred in the exploitation hit FULL CONTACT. Though he may well be a superior
martial artist, Trimble is no Jean-Claude Van Damme; an average-looking guy, he's also hampered by a scratchy, off-putting voice and a conspicuous absence of screen presence. LIVE BY THE FIST's production values are low over all, and even judged by the limited expectations of the direct-to-video
martial arts market, it is not a particularly successful film. Santiago had five pictures in release in 1993: LIVE BY THE FIST, KILL ZONE, FATAL ANGEL, FIREHAWK and AGAINST THE ODDS. (Violence.) leave a comment