Product Details

• Actors: Chuck Norris, Christopher Lee, Richard Roundtree, Matt Clark, Mako
• Directors: Steve Carver
• Writers: James Bruner, William Gray
• Producers: Frank Capra Jr., Robert Rehme
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Original recording reissued, NTSC
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
• VHS Release Date: December 29, 1998
• Run Time: 106 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0792839773
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #162,208 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

This 1981 Chuck Norris movie straddles the transition from the gritty police dramas of the '70s (like The French Connection and Serpico) to the heroic revenge fantasies of the '80s (like Sylvester Stallone's Rambo movies). Norris plays reckless cop Sean Kane; after Kane's partner is killed in suspicious circumstances, Kane turns in his badge. When his partner's newscaster wife gets killed after turning up some crucial evidence, her father, who is Kane's teacher in the martial arts, teams up with Kane to track down the criminals responsible. An Eye for an Eye gets a substantial lift from head villain Christopher Lee's silky, effortless menace, as well as from Richard Roundtree as a hardnosed police captain. The early scenes of tension and suspense are surprisingly textured; the rest of the movie features a lot of impressive high kicks. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is an excellent Chuck Norris film! I feel his best!, February 8, 2000

By 

John Bennett (Springfield, Illinois) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eye for an Eye [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I feel An Eye for An Eye was Chuck's best out of all of his martial art films. The story was excellent and sad in the beginning of the film. The film picks up when Norris displays his spectacular skills on a group of Triad Drug villians. The cast is excellent with good performances from Richard Roundtree and Christopher Lee. Excellent Martial Art fight scenes including Norris facing off with Professor Toru Tanaka. This man is mean and huge. An excellent martial arts film.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good early Norris effort...bad MGM release, August 10, 2000

By 

Lunar Strain "Thrash, don't mind if I do" (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Eye For An Eye (DVD)

I've always had a soft spot for Norris action vehicles and overall I viewed An Eye for an Eye (one of his earlier efforts) to be one of his best.

I was never really big on Norris's late 70's action films (Good Guys Wear Black, A Force of One, and the abysmal Breaker! Breaker!) as they were shoddily made and had stiff directing. The Octagon was step up in quality that would continue into An Eye for An Eye, a film I like even better. The plot is pretty typical. Norris has his partner killed and he leaves the force. Not soon after his news reporter friend is murdered. He teams up with her father (that great Mako) to investigate and find her killers. There are corrupt cops, drug running two/faced execs, and a really cool henchman called the professor. Actually this film reminds me of another Norris vehicle called Forced Vengeance which would be released a year later.

Of course there's great action highlighted by a fight topped off with a helicopter with machine guns. This film is just of much higher quality compared to Norris's early efforts. The story is better as well as the directing.

Though of course this isn't art, it is presented very poorly by MGM on DVD. I have the re-release of this film by MGM that I bought a number of years ago and the picture on DVD is barely better than my VHS. The picture is just terrible. I'm not sure why either as MGM has always been good with good picture quality. Hell, even Norris's terrible film Breaker! Breaker has way better picture quality than this! As a matter of fact, this is probably the worst looking Norris movie on DVD, which it should not be. It's like MGM didn't even digitally master it before slapping it onto DVD.

Even with its poor picture quality, I highly recommend it to early 80's action film fans. One of Norris's most overlooked films.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Corny, but fun..., February 15, 2008

By 

R. Mcfadden "91pirate" (New York, N.Y.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: An Eye For An Eye (DVD)

I want to give this movie 4 stars. Mainly because it has Mako, and Prof. Toru Tanaka. But without Chuck's 'stache...I can't. In all seriousness though. this movie is actually one of my favorites by Chuck. It's got a touch of the dectective story to it. The acting is better than usual in a chuck Norris flick. And, most importantly, the fight scenes are good.

I can't speak for anyone else, but when it comes to martial arts films, one thing matters above all else and that's fight scene choreography. Of course different eras and styles have different standards. As far as American martial arts, Chuck is still the standard in my opinion...all due respect to Billy Blanks, Cynthia Rothrock, et al. This title, along with a few others, show Chuck's prowess as a martial artist in a way that later became lost in an array of spinning back fists, round house kicks and cheesy scripts (can anyone say, "The President's Man"?).

Overal this movie is fun, with some good fight scenes and a memorable performance by the Professor. Definately worth a view!!