Product Details

• Actors: Kane Kosugi
• Format: Color, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: Japanese
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Tokyo Shock
• DVD Release Date: August 31, 2004
• Run Time: 93 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00029NM5E
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #225,095 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Welcome to Tokyo 2009 where ruthless gangsters are pushing a new designer drug called ‘Blood Heat.’ The highly addictive narcotic is a sinister steroid that gives people super strength with a slight adverse side effect- it induces a murderous rage and drives them to kill! When Joe (Kane Kosugi), a US Navy Seal, and a Japanese detective, join forces to stop the circulation of Blood Heat, they find themselves as contestants in an extreme underground martial arts ‘fight club’ run by the Yakuza and hidden inside the infamous "Muscle Dome." When Blood Heat is pumped into the fighter’s veins they transform them into vicious, unstoppable fighting machines chemically programmed to annihilate their opponents!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars 2nd reviewer got it right, I felt absolutely nothing, June 5, 2006

By 

morgoth "we lamas are traditional enemies of ... (omaha, NE) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blood Heat (DVD)

Luckily though, this movie has some of the most kick ass fight scenes I have seen in a long time. Kane Kosugi is certainly someone to look out for. Ken Lo did look a bit slow, but just so you know, his and jackie's legs on the close ups are slightly sped up for DM 2. But anyway, Lo looks really really good in this. Add in a fat guy who can SERIOUSLY fight(not the blonde guy, though I am sure he is a real fighter), and a final fight that will blow you away, it adds up to a flick that is AT LEAST worth a rental(if you can). But there I go mentioning the final fight, AWESOME, until the end of it. One word to describe it------dissapointment. That is the only word to describe it. Then they have the nerve to put a make it seem justified by making you think that you should have cared about the characters. What? Am I supposed to just now believe we are in in this futuristic world even though they don't even freaking dwell on it for more than 2 total minutes? And then throw in a spectacualr final fight with a dissapointing ending. You have a 3 star movie. A cool 3 starrer, but nothing more.

Picture is widescreened and near perfection. Sound is 2-channel and good with good subtitles. The extras are plentiful with GREAT behind the scenes stuff, this actually almost caused me to give the movie a 4. IMHO-the director had no idea what he was doing. It also has a couple other cool featurettes you will like.

5/5 for the dvd release itself.

But again, this movie is dissapointing and i have to make at least one more point why. And I can't name all my problems with this movie, so I will put in the one that it is fitting to the title. Blood Heat, they didn't really exlpain this so I will have to make a guess at it. It makes you stronger?

Dissapointment.

Dissapointment big time!!!!!

Dissapointment on many levels!!!!!!!!!!

Dissapointment.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Like father, like son., December 6, 2005

By 

mr. snrub (Out there in La La Land) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blood Heat (DVD)

With the news of Jet Li's intention to retire from martial arts movies, it seems that candidates to be his successor are popping up all over the world. In Thailand, Tony Jaa has shown fantastic promise with ONG BAK and TOM YUM GOONG. In France, his KISS OF THE DRAGON co-star Cyril Raffaelli strutted his stuff in the french flick BANLIEUE 13. And in Japan, Kane Kosugi, son of Ninja film legend Sho Kosugi, takes his shot a martial arts stardom with BLOOD HEAT and comes out a winner.

U.S. Navy Seal Joe Jinno (Kane Kosugi) is released from an American military detention center to the decrepit Tokyo of 2009 as an agent recruited by the Japanese government to bust drug traffickers. The most popular drug is an extrmely addictive steroid known as Blood Heat. Drug lords, hiding out in the worst parts of Tokyo, push their products while running a no-rules combat circuit where fighters, high on Blood Heat battle to the death. Joe's partner Aguri Katsuragi (Sho Aikawa) is captured by drug lord Kenji Rai (Masaya Kato)and forced to fight in the circuit against Blood Heat addict Lee Son-min (Ken Lo). He's brutally killed and Joe vows revenge. While Kenji attempts to force a scientist to manufacture more Blood Heat, Joe allies himself with Aguri's daughter and a group of orphaned children known as "Sewer Rats" and they declare war on the drug lord and his operation.

Let me just say that I, for one, am glad that drug dealers have finally made a name for a drug that can be an apprpriate action movie tittle. Kane has some of the fastest moves put on film.

He seems to always be attacking his opponents from every direction, and is able to deliver more punches in a split second than you can possibly count.

Several matches are worthy some karate oscar award. The hallway fight, which begins with Kane turning a corner and hurling two knives down the hall, is mind-blowing, and may be the the only scene since the original POLICE STORY to shatter so much glass. Kane's lenghty cage match with Ken Lo, who is aging but nevertheless can kick with the best of them, provides some of the best action. Kane's aggression in this scene is unparalled by any other fight in BLOOD HEAT.

The final match between Kane and Masaya Kato, of DRIVE fame, is also well done, and, to quote kungfucinema.com, "may be the first time in film history that two screen fighters duel with sledgehammers."

BLOOD HEAT ranks up with other great Japanese martial arts movies as THE PRINCESS BLADE and is fully worthy of repeated viewing. Kane's stepping out from his father's shadow mirrors Brandon Lee stepping out of Bruce's shadow and making a few great movies of his own before his tragic death (RAPID FIRE being the best one.) Kane may be new to having the lead in a martial arts movie, but if BLOOD HEAT is an indication of anything, it's of Kane's ability to carry an action movie.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars "It's because of people like you that the world is such a boring place", April 5, 2011

By 

Mike Sehorn "Rezo the Dezo" (APO, AE United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Blood Heat (DVD)

After having the luck of being born to Hollywood's resident ninja Sho Kosugi and following him faithfully through his movies as one of the few legitimate martial arts child stars, Kane Kosugi deserved to be a proper action hero in his own right. He had done a few promising supporting parts prior to "Blood Heat", wherein he teamed up with director Ten Shimoyama (Shinobi - Heart Under Blade) and action coordinator Man-Ching Chan (Supercop) in what should easily have been one of the best action movies of the year. What it ends up being, eventually, is a big pile of meh, as well as a wasted opportunity.

The story: Joe Jinno (Kosugi, D.O.A. - Dead or Alive) is a policeman in an increasingly lawless world. When his partner (Sho Aikawa, Gozu) is presumed murdered in their attempt to slow the trafficking of an addictive performance-enhancing drug, he begins a quest of vengeance against the crime lord responsible (Masaya Kato, Brother).

"Blood Heat" is a slick 2002 Asian action movie, which should give you an idea of its presentation. I don't know what kind of a budget the filmmakers had to work with, but it allowed for a pretty nice-looking feature with apparent good production values. The story is fairly old-hat, comparable to the evil steroid scheme in Rocky IV once you get to the cage fighting, but I guess it was played off as well as it could be. Kosugi's character is so impassive that he's easily less interesting than everyone around him, including Misato Tachibana (Silver Hawk) as the sister of Joe's partner and Japanese TV star Noboru Kaneko as the leader of a group of street children. None of them, however, are intriguing enough to keep you glued to the screen: the performers play their roles well enough but the roles themselves are so bland and unmoving that it's hard to identify with or even care about anybody.

At this point in an action movie, the fight scenes ought to kick in and save your viewing experience; here, they only prolong it. I won't say that the hand-to-hand battles in "Muscle Heat" are bad, but if you have any experience with martial arts films prior to watching this one, trust me that you've seen all of these fights before. Kosugi is underutilized: he doesn't do the flipping and flying of Hong Kong stars, but he's quick as a cat, has obvious real-life experience, and his spinning jump kicks look pretty powerful, but still he's still presented very general choreography filmed with could-be-better camera angles and presented with way too much slow motion. The action centerpiece - pitting him against superkicker Ken Lo (The Legend of Drunken Master) in a cage - ends up being pretty good but is endlessly interrupted by intersecting scenes. The duel he has afterwards with Masaya Kato features both of them wielding sledgehammers and also passes as decent, despite the nonstop slow-motion, but you've got to wait until the last 20 minutes of the movie to get to those. Up until then, it's pretty basic stuff: not terrible but nowhere near award-winning.

Were the film made with lower production values, it'd pass as a B-movie and its action and acting content would be a lot more tolerable. However, its high-end presentation ends up making these other factors seem substandard by comparison. This may not have granted the film a higher rating, but at least it'd be a more enthusiastic three stars - a three-star movie I'd be able to recommend to others - but as things are, these are a very lukewarm three stars for a movie I can only recommend if you have nothing better to watch or are a proven fan of the man. "Blood Heat" doesn't do anything wrong but it doesn't strive for excellence either, so save it for viewing after you've watched any other movies you're more excited about seeing.