The_Phantom_Projectionist In between playing supporting roles in movies like THE GRANDMASTER, Cung Le found the time to build on his solo career in the direct-to-video realm. Disappointingly, his sophomore effort here leaves a good deal to be desired. While the previous DRAGON EYES filled his prospects as a karate star with promise, PUNCTURE is a less impressive action flick that's mainly weakened by the ravages of producers and certainly leaves Le looking less extraordinary. It's still a decent film that's strengthened by its fight content, but a bit too far from perfect to warrant a purchase for me.The story: The family of a war veteran (Le) is murdered by a racist underground faction after he interferes with their business, prompting him to target the group and its leader (Dolph Lundgren) for retribution.I don't blame the stars or even the director (Giorgio Serafini) for the movie's DTV-isms. The production company behind the film, Voltage Pictures, has a habit of editing its low budget movies in amateurish ways, so expect to see lots of gratuitous slow motion and sped-up segments, "artistic" lighting overexposures, unnecessary close-ups, and scene-hopping. These aspects are present just enough to properly irritate you but not ruin the movie, to the same degree that the screenplay bothers me. There's a good deal of unnecessary cruelty and exploitation of women that I don't appreciate. While that was bad enough, I find it just as hard to forgive how boring the script renders Dolph Lundgren. The Swedish Superman excels at playing villains, and though it seems like the part of the long-haired supremacist leader would let him show off some of his creepiness, he clearly doesn't have good character material to work with and ends up being pretty unmemorable.Cung Le shows his rather meager dramatic limits, though he still makes a good tough guy. Another tough guy, Vinnie Jones, plays a character that weirdly has the bare minimum to do with the plot but manages through sheer charisma to still come off cool. But actions speak louder than words in these kinds of movies, and this is where PUNCTURE WOUNDS shows its best side. With only four fight scenes and one shootout, the movie could definitely use more action, though Cung Le's kicks are worth waiting for. The choreography manages to appear completely efficient without shirking flashiness, so it's very satisfying when Le takes on groups of bad guys. His finale with Lundgren is much shorter than it should be, but it allows Lundgren to look pretty fluid and powerful, using his height, reach, and power karate to take the fight to Le, cool but believably.The fights too are hampered by the aforementioned editing, so despite being the movie's brightest spot, they can't elevate this review to a higher rating. Despite this one being a minor disappointment, I'm hopeful for Le's future, provided he choose a better studio for his next vehicle. Bottom line: if you're looking for an imperfect but moderately exciting karate-revenge movie, this one fits the bill well enough, but it's not nearly the best any of its performers have to offer.

bibivinh Cung Le's best acting so far. still has a few more wrinkles to iron out like his "ape mode" facial expression when expressing anger. It has to be more subtle and appropriate for the emotion that the script called for. Good script and well placed dialog. Action and fighting scenes are too slow for Cung or my taste. editing of fight scenes were not on point. too long of shot and slow as heck. Overall, decent story (better than half of "A" listed movies. Bad guys were not bad or dirty enough to be viewed as authentic. good actors were: motel manager, good cop, Cung's OC officer, bald drug dealer. decent actors: Cung Le, mob boss, Cung's vet "brother". There were no bad actor in this movie. No cheesy comments, no over the top agenda or political statement.

khillikat I do not usually judge films as awful I am not a movie snob, but this film has nothing.I struggled to watch an hour of this and had to turn it off as I really couldn't care less about what happened next or to who.I love movies of all genres but this had no entertainment factor at all. I had no empathy with the main character John and sadly couldn't find any reason to keep watching.Maybe something amazing happens in the latter part of the movie but for me this was just a bad action flick that showed us nothing we haven't seen a hundred times before done a hundred times better elsewhere.Save yourself from this boredom and pick another one to watch.

Blonde2291 This movie does not disappoint you if you are looking for some nice action. Many movies have been made on a similar storyline, but Puncture Wounds presents it you in a different flavor.John (Cung Le) is a soldier returning from war. He tries to help a hooker who works for Hollis (Dolph Lundgren) and that's how matters get worse. The rest of the movie is a mixed up world of corrupt police officers, drug dealers and prostitution rackets.Cung Le has given good performance and Dolph Lundgren has impressed like always. Vinnie Jones appears briefly but plays the bad guy role very naturally. One thing that may let down Dolph Lundgren fans is that he was not given longer screen time.