Review of Extreme Chickfights: Reloaded

Introduction

As a means of introduction, it is difficult to know what to tell you about "Extreme Chickfights: Reloaded". Set in what appears to be a small warehouse, these "chicks" - from bored housewives to accountants to kindergarten teachers, according to the DVD cover - contest the fights, and are interviewed about the experience afterwards.

Video

Video is presented in 4:3 fullscreen PAL, and is of poor quality. All of the fights are recorded with handheld cameras, one of which is manned inside the ring. The camerawork is hardly stellar, although I imagine that is partially a creative decision, in order to give this a rough-looking, "extreme" feel.

The image itself is soft, with somewhat muted colours.

Audio

Audio is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0, and is also rather poor. An MC, playing various kinds of hip-hop music in the background, occasionally chirps in with what can loosely be described as commentary, although nonsense would be a more accurate term. There is little sound from the actually in-ring action.

From a technical standpoint, the audio - much like its video counterpart - may well have been produced so amateurishly so as to give a down-and-dirty feel. If that is the case, the goal was well-accomplished.

Features

There are no extras.

Conclusion

I didn`t know what to expect when I put "Exteme Chickfights: Reloaded" into my DVD player, except that it would be very bad indeed. If anything, I was too optimistic.

The entire feature (at a derisory 58 minutes) comes across like an episode of Bumfights - except that the unfortunate, often-desperate homeless people are here replaced by idiotic, attention-starved young women.

The fights shown are incredibly bad, and in the beginning, I couldn`t quite work out whether neither fighter wanted to actually hit the other, or whether this was caused by a lack of skill. Sadly, it became evident that it was the latter. (Actually, I should have known better, because choreographed or pre-determined fights could not look this bad.)

After the fights, the competitors are interviewed/mocked by the hosts, although the one girl who said she lost because of an asthma attack, or the other who said she quit because "it hurt", really did deserve to be castigated. Unfortunately the interviewers failed to even mock said girls with any type of humour.

In amongst all this, we had other abominations, such as the ringside nurse (dressed in latex) offering advice to one competitor in how to beat up her opponent, and one combatant frightfully coming out of her bra. The MC, bless him, was just happy to see "boobies".

Overall, this DVD is absolutely pathetic, from the concept, to the audio and video, to the lack of extras, to the 58 minute running time, and to the fighting itself. I recently reviewed "Ring Girls", a quasi-documentary which featured real life female fighters such as Gina Carano, and I can only imagine what a talented fighter such as she would have to say about this.

Truly abhorrent, and offensive to the senses.