Fighter

This is about the Danish film Fighter from 2007... not one of the many other films with that title.

It's not really clear from the start that the film is set in Copenhagen. Because we see the Turkish girl Ayse with her family who are very traditional. Then it's very disorienting to start seeing blonde Danes cropping up everywhere.

Maybe I just wasn't paying attention, because I found the film very dull.

Fighter tries to be a social drama combined with a martial arts film. It does quite well at the former and quite badly at the latter. As the film progresses it almost starts to feel like a parody of The Karate Kid.

I think it would have been much better to leave out the "tournament". Girls fighting boys is one thing, but light-weights against heavy-weights is ridiculous and just wouldn't be allowed on safety grounds anywhere.

There was a story here that was worth telling, but by tying it up with a bad MA sub-plot it gets lost. The sifu character is quite funny though... his sage-like advice is staggeringly underwhelming... "look eyes".