I cannot deny it; I did find this DVD mildly entertaining. Perhaps not the hardest confession of my life, nor will it be the critic's quote they put on the box but believe me, if you ever have the misfortune of finding yourself watching this you'll know that that's more than it deserves.
As a fan of a good fight scene and (although I am ashamed to admit it) an avid watcher of all '100 Best' film collections I must admit I expected a bit more from a DVD entitled 'Ultimate Fights from the Movies'. The moment the first fight begins it becomes evident that there is nothing 'Ultimate' in these fights. A more suitable title would be 'A bunch of fights that we could obtain for the lowest price featuring some guys who have done some good fights in other films.' Admittedly, not the most flattering of titles but at least it would be guaranteed to avoid the type of disappointment that I was faced with while watching this. The fights are, as I previously mentioned, from deservedly lesser known titles or films where the rights could be easily obtained. The fights are usually too short and when they do actually show a decent film they don't show the best sequences from it.
Most of the world's more famous martial artists are included (Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Chow Yun Fat and Jean Claude Van Damme all make an appearance.) and even Bruce Lee appears in the form of a Lee look-a-like making funny Lee faces. But, despite the some-star cast, all of these stars have done far better work in far better films. Flix Mix knows this, I know this, all the fight fans who would be interested in watching this know this so who exactly are Flix Mix trying to fool?
There were some almost acceptable bonus features including a commentary by James Lew, who manages to keep some interest while prattling on about a film he didn't actually work on. He also treats us to a cinema Kung Fu master-class so we too can make films as bad as the ones we were just subjected to. I have patchy memories of a Trivia pop-up that might have interested me with some pieces of useless info at the time, but none stayed with me long enough to tell you now.
With a bit of care this could have been a well thought out collection of brilliant fights. But even then you'd be far better off just watching the actual films. A fight sequence might look pretty, but without the context it's nothing more than an extended period of violence.
2 out of 10