Review of The Art of Self-Defense (2019) by Lambo442 — 20 Aug 2020
This film started off well and I felt genuinely happy for the kid when he began to learn Karate and feel more empowered. The master was very funny and I liked the idea that he seemed like he was full of **** but actually he wasn't.
When he says to him 'You will always be a yellow belt, just like a ship that burns and sinks to the bottom of the ocean is still a ship,' I felt that on a deep level. But out of the blue the film gets very unbelievable, weirdly dark and brutal, which clashes with the comedic tone quite a bit.
Things start to make no sense. Like, all of a sudden he throat punches his boss just for being nice to him and doesn't even get arrested. It then turns out the dojo are jumping people in order to empower them to get marital arts training, or just so members can earn respect through some kind of sadistic murdering scheme.
This film really goes in a bizarre direction and the ending is bizarre too. There ends up being no likeable characters really. The cool master turns out to be a psychopath. I wish they'd have kept this film more believable and also just made the film I wanted them to make.
This review of The Art of Self-Defense (2019) was written by Lambo442 on 20 August 2020.
The Art of Self-Defense has generally received positive reviews.
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