Fist of the Vampire

I really expected something terrible when this began as the opening few minutes are washed out, scratched and generally look terrible as if the film had been on a spin cycle with some rocks.  Fortunately this was only a dream sequence to establish the protagonist's background and motive. 
 
Fist of the Vampire is basically Enter the Dragon but with vampires, as a DEA agent called Lee goes undercover to expose an illegal fighting operation run by vampire drug dealers.  In order to get to the organisers, Lee must fight his way through the opposition to get to the top but needs to conquer his rage and put on a show as the crowd want entertaining.  He later finds out that another law enforcement official has infiltrated the gang so he has to liaise with her whilst maintaining his cover, win the illegal fights and avoid being bitten by the vampires.
 

Len Kabasinski has many martial arts qualifications and his love of unarmed combat has formed the backbone of his filmmaking career.  Both Swamp Zombies and Curse of the Wolf had plenty of martial arts action shoehorned into the plot but at least here the narrative has fighting at its core.  Kabasinski, with his long blonde hair, cuts a pretty unmistakeable figure and is not satisfied with writing and directing as he obviously has acting ambitions, having starred in each of his three films. 
 
A film with this kind of plot can't fail to be a bit daft and hard to believe but this is an easy watch though the martial arts does get a little repetitive - Kabasinski is no Bruce Lee and neither is Brian Anthony.  The choreography is impressive but a little slow and unconvincing - there are too many roundhouse kicks and other slow moves that look good but are easy to counter in a fight. 
 
Despite all its shortcomings, I actually quite enjoyed Fist of the Vampire in a B-movie horror way.
 

The Disc

 
Picture and Sound
Although the picture improves from the opening 'dream' scene, there is almost no clarity in the low light scenes and motion blur throughout.  The CGI is completely unconvincing with ridiculous sparks and fire and some gunplay that (perhaps intentionally) looks like it came from a videogame.  The brighter scenes are much better with decent colours and flesh tones but there's nothing spectacular.
 
The audio is reasonably clear and the dialogue is easy to understand.
 
Final Thoughts
Kabasinski certainly knows the target audience so there is a decent level of gore and nudity, helped by the casting of adult film star and frequent collaborator Darian Caine!  Fist of the Vampire is what it is: a reasonably unsophisticated martial arts-driven revenge story, with vampires, and is pretty good fun - good value at £2.99!