The Flicker

DOA: Dead or Alive

2006

Rated PG-13

Directed by: Corey Yuen

Source: Netflix

Plot: A tournament for the greatest fighters in the world.

Acting: Surprisingly the world’s greatest fighters are mostly female.

Special Effects: And they fight in bikinis.

The Skinny: In this flick, Kung-Fu is spelled with  T and A!

DOA opens promisingly with the introduction of Kasumi, a princess who is informed that her brother the leader of their temple is missing and presumed dead.  She must now take his position and lead their tribe.  She refuses, instead hell bent on leaving the temple to search for her missing brother.  Apparently leaving the temple is forbidden and carries a punishment of death.  She exits the temple only to confront an entire army.  Like a scene straight out of Jet Li’s Hero she karate chops her way through the man ocean somersaulting onto the temple wall and jumping into the mist to escape.  As I’m thinking oh hellz yes this flick is gonna be good she tears off her clothing in order to deploy a hidden parachute and while floating down to the ocean is met with a flying shuriken which invites her to attend this DOA fighting tournament thing.  What the?  First it felt like we’re in ancient Thailand or something and next thing I know she’s pulling out a personal parachute.  Well Kung Fu Asian chick established, now to next character.

Middle of the ocean, sunning herself on a beautiful yacht is Tina Armstrong.  She’s gabbing on the phone, something about not wanting to wrestle anymore and basically this is to tell us that even though she’s hot stuff, she bad ass too.  As if that wasn’t enough proof, just then a group of modern day pirates bum rush her boat looking for an easy payday.  Oops.  A few pile drivers and suplexes later all bad guys are bye bye and in flies shuriken number two.  Now we have our tough American white chick character covered.  So who’s next?

A European babe of course.  She’s taking a shower in some swanky hotel.  As she wraps a towel around herself the police barge in.   See Christie Allen happens to be a world renowned thief and there just so happens to be a few million dollars missing.  The police are not happy and they would like to ask her some questions.  She makes an understandable request of the cops to allow her to put on some underwear before they leave.  Then like a Basic Instinct scene gone wrong, she uses this chance to whoop up on the boys in blue while her bra floats in mid air.  And being Miss Smooth, as the last man falls she nonchalantly steps into her dropping brazier.  As she escapes the hotel evading hot pursuit, shuriken number three swoops in.  Hot European babe makes three so lets go check out what this DOA thing is all about.

So, DOA is a annual tournament put on by Dr. Victor Donovan where the best fighters are invited via ninja star.  The payday is 10 million dollars and the fight ends when someone is knocked out.  Not sure where the dead comes in in Dead or Alive.  Who fights is decided by Mr. Donovan himself.  All competitors wear bracelets which will announce when they are chosen to fight by showing a picture of their opponent and then its pretty much on where ever the two meet.  Now since this flick has been focusing on our three lovely ladies it’s obvious they will be going far.  And in fact there are a lot of female fighters there, of course all scantily clad.  As far as the male presence, there’s not much hope boys with dudes like this.

Whaaa-DOOSH!

Ok, so before we can get to fighting each one of our DOAers must undergo a rigorous physical by request of the man Mr. Donovan himself.  Even though it seemed like just another excuse to see our ladies in their scoobies there is a plot line delivered.  What seemed like a innocent physical was actually a way our Mr. Donovan could secretly inject nanobots into all the fighters.  We’ll get to the nanobots’ purpose later but this gives us our first ideas that Donovan might not be the nicest fight promoter in the world.  Who wouda thunk?  After the turn your head and coughs are over we get to the beat downs.  Kasumi and Christine Allen easily move on to the next round while Tina Armstrong is asked to fight her father, a Hulk Hogan-esque ex-wrestler.  Don’t worry though, her Dad don’t stand a chance.  This is her flick after all.  Next our flick takes a turn toward the hilarious.  First a sequence of our hotties during the day in between fights.  What to do?  Oh I know, how ’bout a some volleyball!

How else will we show off our bikinis?

After an intense game, Tina is chirped for her next fight.  And let me tell you she comes dressed ready.

Nothing says I'm gonna kick your ass like a jean jacket.

What follows are a few more plot lines involving Christine and her thieving ways, Kasumi evading her honor-bound death sentence, and a lovey dovey interest I won’t go into.  Finally though, we find out what those nanobots were about.  See old Donovan implanted them to monitor all the fighters and basically steal their moves.  We are to believe that the nanobot broadcasts the muscle memory of each fighting style into a device that when worn allows you to in a sense become Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, and Jackie Chan all in one.  What is this device you ask.

Yes, a pair of fucking Oakley sunglasses.

In the final boss sequence Donovan busts them out for a test run.  Of course he can only test them against the best, so he drops the bomb that this whole time he’s been holding Kasumi’s brother prisoner, keeping him in the greatest fighting shape just for this moment.  Well, as you can imagine, all hell breaks loose and it doesn’t end well for the Okes.  The brother fights his ass off, everyone escapes, the sunglasses fall off a cliff, and the DOA compound blows the fuck up.  Wam bam thank you ma’am.  Our flick leaves us with our lovely ladies back at Kasumi’s temple.  I guess Kasumi didn’t have enough fun the first time she laid the smack down on the temple army because she’s back again, and this time she brought friends.  Oh and they all have swords.  Two words army: GO AWOL.

The Verdict:

DOA: Dead or Alive is loosely based on the video game of the same name and honestly this is what probably led me to this flick.  What I found though was your typical modern day karate flick with the added flavor of skimpy swimsuits.  The cast is pretty weak with the only recognizable actors being Eric Roberts as Dr. Victor Donovan and Jaime Pressly as Tina Armstrong.  My favorite was Devon Aoki who played Kasumi.  You might remember has as the sword wielding head choppin off honey from Sin City.  All the fight scenes are nothing new and the story is lacking so it really never gives you much to hold onto.  Really, all you’re left with is hot chicks.  Which I guess aint half bad if you’re watching this flick in the middle of a sausage fest.  At home, maybe watching it with a partner, I say no.  You should pass and wait for the sequel.  I hear it’s gonna be even better.

DOA II: Showdown at the Super 8