Scott Glenn gives an excellent performance as a waistral, down-on-his luck, out-of-work boxer who becomes a fallguy for a heirloom (Samurai sword) smuggling plot. Scott, like others in only a handful of movies (e.g. The Yakuza (Robert Mitchum) and Black Rain (Michael Douglas)) gives a rare performance that contrasts the Japanese/American cultures of honor, discipline and duty. John Sayles and John Frankenheimer explore these values with a shoot-em-up verve that attempts to merge business, home, family, warrior and personal values. Tall order! Glenn is the Kevlar-perfect warrior who somehow survives James-Bondian onslaughts .. . and Samurai-disciplines to emerge a winner. Toshiro Mifune needs no introduction .. . and is, as always, a delight. One could only have hoped that better definitions of the term "Ninja" (fogged in myth as assassins and even as a race of women assassins) and "Samurai Sword" (through an expert such as Kenji Mishina) could have been added to the movie. A unique movie dealing with topics that fifty years after a major military and cultural conflict between two diverse cultures, go largely unexplored ...
Review of The Challenge
