MARTIAL ARTS FILM The Octagon

Very good eighties, we return to take our Delorean to go back to the year 1980, the beginning of our glorious cinephile era.

In this year, the historical fact was neither the Moscow Olympic Games, nor Quini being top scorer with Sporting, but the premiere of this martial arts movie that I bring you: THE OCTAGON.

The plot focuses on Scott James (Chuck Norris), a retired martial champion, who finds himself in a Ninja plot, as a result of seeing how they murder the woman he is dating. To find out where they are hiding, he decides to enlist the help of a mercenary The plot is, a priori, interesting, since it introduces us to that secret society, as admired as it is hated, which are the ninjas, who had barely appeared in Western cinema. Let me remember now, my vein '007' comes out and we find them in the sixties film "You Only Live Twice", with Bond swarming through Japanese lands.

The problem is that the ninjas, the truth is that they appear, well it is not that they appear much, more than until after the hour of the movie, they do not show signs of life, rather of fighting, but of course, it turns out that Scott was trained in the ninja mystical arts and they can not with him. And look where, it turns out that these Ninja are sent by Seikura (Tadashi Yamashita), who is Scott's stepbrother and since we are doing evil, he wants to take his stepbrother ahead of him, who has tarnished his honor .

Throughout the film, we will have a burden, that voice in Off, by Scott, which gives me, that Chuck didn't have to study the script very much, because maybe in the whole movie, talking, talking only talks about twenty or thirty minutes and the blissful little voice, believe me, it becomes tiresome.

As for the fights, well the truth is that the best is the one that takes place in the Octagon of the title, with Scott fighting against Kyo, the mute ninja, who despite wanting to imitate the sounds 46

that are usually made in the katas, what comes out looks like a crude imitation of Darth Vader, but at the core, the martial choreographies, this one in the Octagon, stands out for the use of both the katana and the ninja knives, known if I'm not mistaken as kalis, by Kyo with great dexterity. Seen today, it may seem like a slow fight, but it really is a very worthy fight, with an incendiary ending included.

As far as the most anticipated match is concerned, that is, the final match between Scott and SeyKura, unfortunately, here is one of the two or they ran out of ideas, or without a budget or who knows, because it is apart from being brief, a fight very bland and ends with what I suppose they would think would be ideal, a death at dawn, but seeing the final result, it leaves us completely indifferent.

In summary, a weak Chuck Norris movie, with a wasted Tadashi Yamashita, whom we would see shortly after in "The American Warrior" and an almost testimonial Lee Van Cleef, although surely certain things he saw would come in handy for the series he would star in. years later "The Master" with a ninja theme.

JOSE MARIA MOLANO cinedelos80.blogspot.com