The Octagon

Chuck Norris fans and martial art film fans in general will love The Octagon. He seems to be going for a record number of casualties in dispensing bad guys in this one. As seems to be usual for occidental actors in these films Norris was adopted by a ninja master who raised him as his own and after his blood kin disgraced him in competition with young Norris kicked him out. Now the ninja school is being used to train mercenaries and terrorists and the rules there are mighty strict. Counter terrorism honcho Lee Van Cleef wants to put them out of business. But Norris has to have and gets a personal reason for getting the job done. A little bit of Eugene O'Neill's self analysis and introspection dialog is done by Norris in voice overs. Believe me it worked a lot better in Strange Interlude. Enough action for any martial arts fan here.

Personally, I wouldn't say that this is an action movie. It's more of a thriller. The movie is in fact really slow and a bit boring most of the time. The decent action doesn't kick in until just before the end. If it hadn't been for that scene, this movie wouldn't have got more than 3 stars from me. But since the last scene was pretty good, I give it a 6. Just remember that this is an Chuck Norris-movie. Norris isn't exactly the best martial arts actor, he hasn't got any spectacular moves and I get a little tired watching him wear the same type of jeans in almost every movie. There are a bunch of ninjas in the movie. The movie tried to establish them as skilled and feared fighters, but it didn't succeed with that.

The fight scene inside the Octagon between Scott James (Norris) and Kyo the Enforcer (Norton) is one of the most impressive and best choreographed fight scenes I have ever seen in any martial arts flick. No wire works, nor special camera shots...just one fluid scene of swift exchanges of blows combining Katana sword play and hand to hand combat between two badasses. This scene is perhaps the next most memorable Chuck Norris fight scene, besides him duking it out with Bruce Lee in 'Return of the Dragon'. I'm not a big Chuck Norris fan, but I consider 'The Octagon' Norris at his best.

What works for me here is the atmosphere and the mystery they put into the Ninja aspects of the story. I've always had a romantic soft spot for Ninjas (sounds weird I know) but I still feel that they are a character that has yet to be captured successfully. The Octagon does a good job of building the mystique although some of the action is a little stilted, which was the style of the time. Chuck is still a little wooden (probably still recovering from the Bruce Lee beat down) but I'm not watching this to make comparisons to Pacino! Its a great late night movie!

The plot in The Octagon hardly matters. Trying to follow the nuances of the story is enough to give you a headache. The plot deals with a lost brother, ninja training, a woman who has something to do with a group of terrorists, and some other hokum. It makes little sense. But that's not why people watch movies like The Octagon. The main purpose of the movie is to see Chuck Norris fight a bunch of ninjas. I recently revisited Norris' A Force of One. Chuck's acting improved dramatically between the time he made that movie and the time he made The Octagon. He still had that unnatural style of delivery, but there was improvement there nonetheless. The big problem with The Octagon, though, isn't the acting – it's the complete lack of anything interesting. The first hour or so is, in a word, boring. Nothing much happens. Chuck spends most of the time, like the audience, just trying to figure out what's going on. I don't think he was any more successful than I was.

i rather enjoyed this Chuck Norris vehicle.the fight scenes are pretty well done,and the y are a quite few of them.the acting is is good enough for the genre.the story isn't anything special,but it works for the genre.the one thing that did irk me,though was the stupid echoing voice over whenever we were subjected to Norris's character's inner thoughts.the effect came across as stupid and cheesy in my opinion.it would just take me out of the movie. i wouldn't say it was bad enough to to lower my rating on the film.but it was distracting,and wasn't necessary.other than that though,it wasn't that bad.if you can get around that one annoying factor,then i'd recommend the movie.for me,The Octagon is a 6/10

The Octagon on the surface is just another in a long line of not-so-great Chuck Norris karate pictures. But wait; there are differences. Admittedly the quality of production is poor, but the addition of ninja assassins as chief antagonists was interesting. It should have intrigued us, but the film was just not meant to be great. The most entertaining aspect of the film is Chuck Norris' voice over narration of his thoughts. His voice echoes in whisper whenever he thinks of anything. This element may have been meant to be mysterious, but obviously it was just another part of the movie that may have swayed the viewer into thinking this was a comedy. This movie is at best described as a guilty pleasure, or something to watch on a night when you can't get to sleep. But for sarcastically humored people, or just undemanding viewers, The Octagon is fun to watch.