After winning a (wink, wink) pardon, Boyka has traded in the dank world of illegal underground prison fighting tournaments for the glitzy world of semi-legal underground non-prison fighting tournaments. U3 allowed Adkins to fully flesh out the character, and Part 4 continues the evolution while maintaining the core of what makes Boyka so interesting, to begin with.īoyka picks up a few months after U3. Even though he was a million miles from his real-life smiling British charm, on screen, Adkins was Boyka. He could easily have been another raging, boss level thug in the hero’s way, but Adkins infused the Russian murderer with a sense of honor and single-minded devotion that shone through all the prison tattoos. Admittedly, Adkin’s early rolls were, apart from his outstanding physical performance, a little bland. Many people look at professional martial artists who segue into movies as athletes first, actors second (or third, or not at all, in some cases). The trend ends with the fourth movie (sorry, Marko Zaror) because Adkin’s Boyka is too fantastic to lose. Undisputed 3 repeats the process, putting us in the corner of defeated Russian baddie, Yuri Boyka. It brought back the original antagonist (Michael Jai White, replacing Ving Rhames) and turned him into the hero. It is, in my opinion, the perfect example of the genre.įor a quarter of the budget of the Hollywood original, the first sequel takes the basic prison boxing competition story, strips it to the muscle, and give it a clever twist. U2 was my gateway drug into the crazy world of low budget, high action, MMA fueled DTV fight flicks. The Undisputed franchise holds a special place in my heart.
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January 2023
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