Fist of the North Star starts with a lengthy, & boring, narration by a guy named Ryuken (Malcolm McDowell). The opening shot is of a desolate post-apocalyptic world with what were once our cities but are now crumbling ruins, a lawless world where acid rain falls from the sky & the strong prey on the weak. Ryuken talks of a school of martial arts named the Southern Cross, the flag of the Southern Cross is now the fearful symbol of a new order. The North Star is the last opposing school, basically the Southern Cross is evil & the North Star is good. The Southern Cross Master, Lord Shin (Costas Mandylor) executes the Master of the North Star, Ryuken. Lord Shin also tires to kill Ryuken's son, Kenshiro (Gary Daniels). Lord Shin leaves Kenshiro for dead in the wastelands & takes his lover Julia (Isako Washio) as his own to Southern Cross City which he rules. However, Kenshiro is not dead & sets about finding Lord Shin & putting a end to his evil plans to 'liberate the wastelands' by any means necessary. About 200 miles North of Southern Cross City is a small town called Paradise Valley where they protect their most precious commodity, water. Lord Shin wants this water & sends his deformed henchmen & their gangs out to destroy Paradise Valley & take the water lead by head bad guy known as the Jackal (Chris Penn). Kenshiro runs into a teenager named Bat (Dante Basco) & a young blind girl named Lynn (Nalona Herron) who he magically cures. Since they both have a common problem in the shape of Lord Shin & his men they sort of join forces to defeat him, after some silly plot devices keep throwing them together. I guess that's just about it, Kenshiro eventually meets up with Lord Shin & after some personal angst over Shin kidnapping Julia & murdering his Father they have a fight & that's about that.<br /><br />Co-written & directed by by Tony Randel based on the Japanese comic & anime Hokuto No Ken by Buronson & Tetsuo Hara I thought this live-action version of Fist of the North Star had a lot potential which it ultimately didn't deliver. The script by Randel & Peter Atkins ditches the over-the-top violence & comic book feel. The film seems to take itself a little too seriously & as a result ends up being a bit dull. There are a couple of scenes which try to recreate the comic book feel like when Kenshiro kicks someones face & dislocates his jaw to an amazing extent or in the same sequence where he punches someone in the back & a big bulge appears on their chest from the force. Unfortunately these are about the only scenes worth mentioning in this regard as the rest of the fights are short, dull, unimaginative & few & far between. Towards the end Kenshiro has to fight lots of Lord Shin's guards, he literally punches or kicks them once & they're defeated, Kenshiro's climactic fight with Lord Shin was also a let down. Fist of the North Star really needed lots more blood, gore, violence & energy in it's disappointing fight scenes. Having said that the fights are reasonably well choreographed & aren't any worse than any other low budget martial arts film. The story is simple to say the least, large chunks of it are annoyingly told in monologues & flashbacks by various characters. The characters were annoying thinly sketched bland stereotypes. It also could have done with losing a few minutes worth of running time as it drags a little in places. The cast features some familiar faces, Malcolm McDowell is in it for about three minutes maximum even though he gets near top-billing in the credits, Chris Penn makes for a sleazy bad guy & is criminally wasted throughout, Costas Mandylor didn't convince me as the most evil man on Earth, Clint Howard makes an appearance as Stalin one of Lord Shin's henchmen, Melvin Van Peebles was here somewhere but I don't know who he played & as for leading man Gary Daniels he is about as wooden & unconvincing as I expected. The music by Christopher L. Stone is totally inappropriate as it's very quiet & orchestral, this film needed an upbeat fast score to compliment the action scenes & at least try to get the blood pumping a little. The one thing where Fist of the North Star gains a few points is it's production values & design, it's actually rather impressive. The wastelands, Paradise Valley & Southern Cross City all look very convincing considering the budget as do the costumes & the overall look of Fist of the North Star. There isn't much blood or gore & disappointingly not a single on screen exploding head even though Chris Penn's head almost explodes but unfortunately the scene cuts away just at the vital moment, there is a cool looking zombie though who's in it for a couple of minutes & a few blood spraying wounds. Overall Fist of the Nortrh Star is a reasonable film, there's nothing greatly wrong with it as it's generally well made & tells it's story competently enough but I can't help but feel disappointed at what it could have been had it been made by a stronger director who had the guts to go with what made the original Japanese comic so good. Average at best, worth watching if you've got nothing better to do.