Preposterous, from the bland title that studio execs must have chosen -- totally unrelated to the content of the movie -- to the desperate symbolism of the last shot. The Challenge is an improvement on 80s action TV only. Scott Glenn and Calvin Jung, as the two show-off Americans, have some ridiculous dialogue, and
Donna Kei Benz has no non-abs-related reason to sleep with Scott Glenn, except that he is a white beer drinker and deserves a reward for race-crossing loyalty and a heart as big as all Texas. The melodrama is almost tongue-in-cheek, especially with the little Japanese kid who washes clothes hoping to be a warrior, battles low self-esteem and speaks English like he was an orphan trying to get couples to take him home. In the end, office furniture is mightier than the sword -- or at least an insidious rival to the sword with its unwieldy symbolism. But Toshiro Mifune is good to see and a few sequences are edited very well.
February 27, 2011
