Kill 'em all (4 Stars)

When people ask me what sort of films I like I don't like to pin myself down to a specific genre. Even if I give a list of genres I might accidentally leave one out and give a bad impression of my tastes. I feel inclined to say that I like good films, but that's a shallow answer that says nothing. A better answer would be to say that I like films with a good story that are well acted and well filmed, but I put the story above everything else.

In that case, why do I like "Kill 'em all" so much? The story is so flimsy that it's non-existent, and there's practically no acting in it. The film lasts 79 minutes, of which at least 70 minutes is fighting. Okay, it's well filmed, I'll give the film that.

The plot can be described in two sentences. Eight top assassins are kidnapped and put in a room together. They are told that they have to fight one another to the death, and only the winner will be allowed to leave.

There is no character development. The eight assassins are introduced by eight fight scenes.They hardly speak to one another in the room, called the Killing Chamber, and what they do say is limited to clichés like "I'm not here to make friends, I'm going to kill you all".

The fighting is good though. It's mostly hand to hand combat, but some swords are used, and later in the film even guns. The battles are realistic, not idealised. The eight assassins come from different countries and have different fighting styles. I can't identify the styles, but I could at least see that they were different. I like the film because it succeeds in doing what it sets out to achieve: 79 minutes of brutal violence.