Surprised no one mentioned this flick. Excellent!

I got this from Blockbuster thru my Total Access plan several weeks ago and copied it for my collection, but I've not gotten around to watching it yet. But pretty much Mamet=God for me, so...

Great, great movie.

It really was

I take it that none of you are actual M.M.A. fans?

please explain.....

what he means is that Red Belt is about as realistic as Karate Kid. Mamet himself said he has no clue about filming or directing fighting.

myself, i found the movie enjoyably terrible.

i think the principles of the main character were closer to the true spirit of jujitsu than any MMA/IFC show will ever be. There was definitely some authenticity in the fighting (can't judge all of it) but i did study jujitsu. anyway, i enjoyed the fighting and i truly loved the story, which had alot more going on than fighting, but how it wove fighting together with values/morals

i'll definitely agree with you on the spirit of jujitsu being right. the fighting itself wasn't there though. the last fight was practically out of Rocky.

i could see what they were going for with the story, but overall i thought it was very fragmented and awkward, with a confusing, cheeseball ending. like i said, i found it enjoyably bad.

i think it has to do more with expectations. i didn't expect to see alot of fighting. and i do agree that the ending was a bit "hollywood", but overall, it was just a superior story that rang very true for me

The ending ruined any credibility the movie may or may not have had.

ah! you're no fun did you even like the rest of the movie?

Yeah, maybe filming fighting. But, he took some MMA classes I think before he before he made the movie. The ending didn't bug me too much. But, it did make me believe even more that macho shit is fixed.

I did. But if you want to see some real MMA watch the GSP vs. BJ Penn fight tomorrow night. It's not often 2 of the top 4 fighters in the world face off.