No Retreat, No Surrender (also known as Karate Tiger) is a 1986 film directed by Corey Yuen and starring Kurt McKinney as Jason Stillwell and features Jean-Claude Van Damme as Ivan Krushensky.
Jason Stillwell (Kurt McKinney) is a young Karate student who trains in his father's (Timothy D. Baker) Los Angeles dojo. One night after training has finished, the dojo is visited by members of an organized crime syndicate. Jason's father is attacked and has his leg broken by Ivan Krushensky (Jean-Claude Van Damme), the hired thug of the boss. The family moves to start a new life in Seattle. Jason has a hard time adjusting and is picked on by the local bullies. One night after being beaten, he is visited by the ghost of Bruce Lee (Tai Chung Kim). After being trained by the ghost, Jason goes from a below average fighter to near invincibility. Local fighters organize a fight in an arena between themselves and fighters from the crime syndicate, setting the scene for Jason to meet up with Ivan and settle the score once and for all.
Viewers have divided opinions concerning this movie; some claim that the movie contains bad actors and heavily borrows the motivational "underdog-to-champion" theme from movies such as The Karate Kid (1984) and Rocky (1976). It is also considered as a cult classic, especially among buffs of martial arts films or nostalgia fans. Hong Kong film expert Bey Logan stated in the audio commentary to another Corey Yuen film, (Ninja In the Dragons Den), that Corey had watched The Karate Kid, liked the movie, but thought that the fight sequences could have been a lot better. At the time of the release, Jean-Claude Van Damme was still an unknown actor.
There are two versions of the movie, an American version and a roughly re-edited British VHS version that is widely considered to be almost demo-like in a lot of aspects. Both contain completely different theme songs; "Hold On To That Vision" by Kevin Chalfant and "Stand On Your Own" by Joe Torono, the latter sounding a lot like it could have been a demo track for the former. The musical scores are also greatly different. The British version featured slow generic studio stock music while the full uncut and complete versions featured typical Hong Kong stock music "borrowed" from various other Hong Kong films, such as Yes Madam, Project A and a few of the Lucky Stars films.
The sequels to No Retreat, No Surrender do not continue the storyline from the original and do not feature any of the original cast.
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