DOA: Dead or Alive
I couldn’t think of a better film to review after Jesus Camp than this one, DOA: Dead or Alive. Based on the video game by the same name, DOA is a 2006 martial arts film directed by Corey Yuen (The Transporter, The Avenging Fist). Yuen is primarily known for martial arts films and for bringing the genre to America with No Retreat, No Surrender, the Jean Claude Van Damme flick from the 80s. Yuen uses stylized action shots, lots of slow motion photography and a great deal of rapid fire zooms on various body parts of his attractive female cast. It’s the quintessential video game movie.
Let’s face it, DOA isn’t a very good film by most standards. It is, however, a highly enjoyable romp that killed 87 minutes in relatively quick and entertaining fashion. The film stars Devon Aoki (Sin City, 2 Fast 2 Furious), Jaime Pressly (Torque, Tomcats), Holly Valance (National Lampoon’s Pledge This!), Sarah Carter (Final Destination 2, Haven), Natassia Malthe (Lake Placid, Elektra), and Eric Freakin’ Roberts (Runaway Train, Star 80). As you can see, DOA works like a veritable ensemble of Maxim “it” girls alongside Eric Roberts. That’s pretty much what you can expect out of Yueng’s film.
The film centers around a martial arts tournament run by Donovan (Roberts) and the various contestants that show up for it. Each contestant has a little bit of a backstory. Kasumi (Aoki) is looking for her lost and presumed deceased brother. Christie (Valance) is trying to rob the place. Tina (Pressly) is trying to prove that, as a professional wrestler, she can be taken seriously without her dad (Kevin Nash) following her around. All of these plots come together when it’s proven that Donovan has ulterior motives – as always, the bastard – and the girls have to team up to take him down and escape the exploding Buddha head fortress by jumping off the balcony.
Yuen hasn’t designed a martial arts film that relies on the complexities of the characters or on the depth of the plot. He’s designed a martial arts film that relies on fun and enticing action purveyed by the lovely scantily clad ladies that star in it. DOA has some impressive and exhilarating fight scenes, including a stunner of a fight featuring the delightful Sarah Carter on the stairs against a hell of a lot of guards. The match-ups within the actual competition are quite fun, as well, as they are all set up a lot like the video game and take place anywhere, anytime. There’s even a voice-over proclaiming the winner of each fight.
The plot does wander quite a bit, of course, and the various subplots end up taking over the focus of the tournament, but really….who cares? DOA is as much about watching Valance, Pressly, Aoki and Carter have a beach volleyball match as it is about trying to figure out what the hell Eric Roberts is up to. The acting is often stiff and the cinematography is exploitative and purposefully titillating to the point of being absurd. If someone can have a fight in the rain in bikinis, it’ll happen. If someone’s shirt can get torn “accidentally”, it’ll happen. That’s just the type of film DOA is. It’s fun and innocent enough to not be obscene, making it a pretty safe haven for most audiences, except those that take their cinema too seriously of course.
DOA is a good little pop fluff piece filled with a bevy of gorgeous beauties in bikinis and other various stages of undress. It also has some surprisingly good and innovative fight scenes, such as the incredibly entertaining have-to-rewind-to-see-it-again scene near the beginning of the film with Holly Valance and a bra. All in all, DOA isn’t going to move mountains but, like Doom, it’s a video game film that knows what it is and doesn’t overstep its boundaries by puffing up on pretentious nonsense. If you’re looking for a fun way to kill an hour and a half on a lazy Saturday afternoon, pop in DOA and you might be surprised.
Trailer:
