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| Title: THE OCTAGON Year: 1980 Rating: *** |
Over an hour into the 1980 Chuck Norris action vehicle THE OCTAGON, Spaghetti Western legend Lee Van Cleef turns to the iconic karate fighter and says, "When are you gonna stop sniffing around and make some serious moves?"
Which is fitting since most of the picture's a location-hopping investigation into what foreshadows the series COBRA KAI by decades (and the movie it's based on by four years): a dangerous group of martial artists, deemed ninjas, are teaching people how to become lethal fighters, and in this case, outright terrorists...
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| Kim Lankford and Chuck Norris in THE OCTAGON |
One of several problems are the students, who look like a group of hippies that would probably fail a dirt-bike competition... that's expect the lone female in brunette beauty Carol Bagdasarian, who's initially shown only sporadically providing serious expressions while the class is in rural training...
All while Chuck goes through two romances... first with lovely KNOTS LANDING ingenue Kim Lankford, who doesn't make it fifteen minutes before being slaughtered... followed by rich girl journalist Karen Carlson, hooking up with Norris's affable sidekick Art Hindle: both men part of some kind of karate tournament (featuring Ernie Hudson)...
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| Art Hindle and Chuck Norris in THE OCTAGON |
Neither cops or government agents, it's hard to decipher what the good guys actually do for a living while Chuck Norris provides an intrusively creepy echoed-inner-narration involving his KUNG FU-like past, with the boy-turned-man who's the main ninja teacher/leader...
Their finale kick-fight battle at the end... at THE OCTAGON shaped fortress where all the ninjas are trained... is worthwhile (though too darkly-lit), but there needed far more action and intrigue leading up.
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| Chuck Norris in THE OCTAGON |
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| Art Hindle in THE OCTAGON |
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| Ernie Hudson in THE OCTAGON |
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| Chuck Norris in THE OCTAGON |
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| Karen Carlson in THE OCTAGON |
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| Lee Van Cleef and Chuck Norris in THE OCTAGON |
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| Carol Bagdasarian in THE OCTAGON |
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| Carol Bagdasarian in THE OCTAGON |
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| Karen Carlson in THE OCTAGON |
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