shmucking Has a more complicated plot than most of his films, with more subplots than usual gradually merging together, and an effective inter-cutting between Norris and the Ninja training camp. Particularly effective are the initial scenes with Norris and Karen Carlson. They have a good rapport and her getting him to come back to her house has a mysterious, intriguing quality. Carol Bagdasarian is particularly beautiful, too. The main criticisms are that the women all seem to immediately fall in love with Norris, and he also is way too quick in winning all the Ninjas that he's fighting towards the end. However, Lee Van Cleef brings a certain authority to his scenes, and Norris delivers a better performance than usual. One of his better films.

Comeuppance Reviews Scott James (Chuck) is a man who looks spiffy on the outside (he wears a pretty sweet tuxedo) but seems to have a lot of turmoil on the inside. Not only is he constantly flashing back to his childhood and his initial Martial Arts training (the young Scott is played by Mike Norris), but the voices in his head are overpowering and seem to tell him important things. All this is going to come in handy when Scott James faces off against perhaps the ultimate foe: terrorist ninjas. Yes, terrorist ninjas. While protecting a woman named Justine (Carlson) from said TerNin's - which he does with the help of mentor McCarn (Van Cleef) - he realizes the true depth of what he's up against. The nefarious group trains in an octagon-shaped facility, and their organization is named...The Octagon. Will Scott James triumph over these squares? Find out today! While The Octagon contains no cage fighting, or Punchfighting of any kind, it is in fact a reasonable Chuck movie. It's not bad, but it's not great either. By today's standards, the pace might be too slow for some viewers, and at 104 minutes it's certainly on the long side. But what else would you expect from director Karson, who later was responsible for Van Damme dud Black Eagle (1988)? But the cast perhaps makes up for it. Besides the aforementioned Norrises, and of course the legendary Lee Van Cleef, we have Tadashi Yamashita of Sword of Heaven (1985) fame, whose hair steals his own performance out from under him. The great Gerald Okamura has a brief role as a member of The Octagon, as does John Fujioka, and John Barrett does stunts as well as a small role. There's even a young Ernie Hudson on board as a fighter. As is usual for a Chuck movie, Aaron Norris was stunt coordinator, and besides doing stunts, Richard Norton has a nice appearance as a baddie who gets in a fight with Chuck.Norton's hair and mustache combo look awesome, and his blonde bowl haircut is so bright, it actually lights an entire dark scene all on its own. But back to Chuck, this movie definitely belongs to the era in his acting career where his performances were noticeably, obviously wooden. Or, WoodChuck for short. But beyond the fact that this is a WoodChuck movie, at least you can hear his thoughts, which is enlightening. There's a passing mention that Scott James was a Vietnam vet, and the baddies' training camp is seems like a dry run for the later American Ninja (1985) - which would also reunite Norton, Yamashita and Fujioka.

disdressed12 i rather enjoyed this Chuck Norris vehicle.the fight scenes are pretty well done,and the y are a quite few of them.the acting is is good enough for the genre.the story isn't anything special,but it works for the genre.the one thing that did irk me,though was the stupid echoing voice over whenever we were subjected to Norris's character's inner thoughts.the effect came across as stupid and cheesy in my opinion.it would just take me out of the movie. i wouldn't say it was bad enough to to lower my rating on the film.but it was distracting,and wasn't necessary.other than that though,it wasn't that bad.if you can get around that one annoying factor,then i'd recommend the movie.for me,The Octagon is a 6/10

poe426 I learned early on (when I saw BREAKER! BREAKER! at a local drive-in) that one of the premier point-fighters in tournament karate was not going to be confused with the likes of Charlton Heston or Lawrence Olivier. Without Bruce Lee to guide him (as he had in WAY OF THE DRAGON, wherein Norris pretty much played himself as an international hatchet man flown in for that spectacular duel in the Roman Coliseum), Norris seemed ill at ease. His performance in GOOD GUYS WEAR BLACK wasn't much better- but he finally seemed a little less stilted in A FORCE OF ONE. (Bill Wallace, the real-life middleweight full contact karate champion, played a coked-out psychotic whose deer-caught-in-the-headlights stare suited his role. The hand-to-hand combat in and out of the ring helped make A FORCE OF ONE worth seeing.) Without a doubt, THE OCTAGON is Norris's showpiece: boasting more action (and less acting) than any of his other films, it's the perfect vehicle for the man and is still, after all these years, worth a look.