No Retreat, No Surrender (1986)

No Retreat, No Surrender is a 1986 American martial arts film directed by Corey Yuen in his American directorial debut, and starring Kurt McKinney and Jean-Claude Van Damme. The film was released in the United States on May 2, 1986. The film is about the American teenager named Jason Stillwell (Kurt McKinney) who learns martial arts from the spirit of Bruce Lee. Stillwell uses these lessons to defend his martial arts dojo against the Russian martial artist Ivan Kraschinsky (Jean-Claude Van Damme).

No Retreat, No Surrender was written by Keith W. Strandberg after being contacted by the owner of Seasonal Film Corporation Ng See-yuen to write a script for them, despite having never written a script beforehand. Jean-Claude Van Damme was cast in the film and caused problems on the set for continually physically contacting other actors and stuntmen during the fight scenes even after director Corey Yuen told him not to. On its release, the film received negative reviews focusing on the story that two reviewers found was too similar to the film The Karate Kid (1984).

Synopsis

Jason Stillwell is a young karate student and Bruce Lee fanatic who trains in his father Tom's dojo in Sherman Oaks, California. One night after a training session, the dojo is visited by members of an organized crime syndicate looking to take over all the dojos in the country. After refusing to join the organization, Tom's leg is broken by a Russian martial artist named Ivan Kraschinsky, one of the boss' hired thugs.

Actors