bryant

Fantasia lists this as The Order of One, but IMDB has it as Order of One. Who knows? The official website uses the article, so there you go.

It's a total DIY low budget indie flick, shot for under $100,000 in and around Montreal. The big bad evil martial arts master is played by a real sensei from a local dojo, and I'd bet on a bunch of his thugs being students from the dojo. This makes, anyhow, for some pretty fun martial arts scenes -- I can't complain about that.

Well, and I can't complain about much of anything. I mean, it's an enthusiastic low budget tribute to Sonny Chiba and 70s action flicks, right down to the split screen. Yeah, the picture quality sucks and some kind of transfer sync issue was doing something weird with the frames per second, but whatever! It's a guy just out of prison getting his hands on a mystical sword and fighting off waves of assassins while trying to decide if he should deliver it to the good guys or keep it himself. What more do you want?

... no, you don't get good acting, but they're all having fun.

Grade: B- if you don't mind the complete indie nature, C+ if the bad lighting bugs you. For me? B-.