I never thought a documentary about No Retreat No Surrender would make me cry. However, co-directors Oliver Harper and Christopher Stratton’s The Untold Story of No Retreat No Surrender is a supremely satisfying deep dive into the cult classic (which I still have my VHS copy of), that is a bountiful banquet of joyous moments, as seen through the eyes of the people who made the movie. Fans and fellow action stars who love it so, those who have kept its fire burning bright, are also on hand to tell how and why the martial arts b-movie inspired them.
While editing the anthology Conquest of the Planet of the Tapes: Straight to Video III, I began a correspondence with Keith Strandberg, Loren Avedon, and Keith Vitali. I was curious about their working relationship to The Seasonal Film Corporation. It turns out that Strandberg, having established himself as a writer for martial arts magazines, contacted Hong Kong movie companies, seeking their interest in making a new sort of film. This production would combine an American story and cast with Hong Kong-style action. For over a decade, Seasonal ran like a well-oiled machine until they broke from their formula with a bigger-budget picture, Bloodmoon, which, when sent to film markets, earned much less than previous productions, marking the beginning of the end.
A documentary interview moment outside a strip-mall location in The Untold Story of No Retreat No Surrender (2025).
“…[a] deep dive into the cult classic…”
But the films left behind from that run, like No Retreat No Surrender, end in just such a perfect way: triumphantly. As The Untold Story of No Retreat No Surrender went on, I greedily wished that each film in the Seasonal catalogue (like Superfights, also known as Karate Tiger 9) would receive the same treatment, but that feeling soon diminished as one big revelation after another unfolded before my eyes. One “Hey, I didn’t know that” moment was I learned Joe Satriani (before he was famous), played on the title song. Yet the song wasn’t the song everybody heard, as the film had two different songs and scores for the U.S. and international releases. This sumptuous trivia morsel then spirals into a glorious discussion among critics about the multitude of variant titles applied to No Retreat, No Surrender and other Seasonal entries by money-hungry distributors looking to build franchises and catch waves of crazes. From Karate Tiger to No Retreat, No Surrender 2: Raging Thunder, these attempts to cash-in ring all too much like the Bruceploitation pictures from a few years earlier.
The martial arts tournament movie was, at one time, a household favorite. No Retreat No Surrender stands out from the pack because of the unique glint in its eye. For we once were young and had heroes, and nothing would have pleased us more than to have them leap from the book pages, or comic book covers, or movie screens, to tell us not to fear, to fight at our side. With The Untold Story of No Retreat No Surrender, Harper and Stratton brilliantly distill this wish into something engaging and thought-provoking. I found myself moved. I guess by something that may have moved the first time I saw the cinematic subject. That feeling returned to me, much like the ghost of Bruce Lee, in this opulent piece of behind-the-scenes exploration that makes you want to stand back-to-back with a buddy, and you say, “No Retreat!” and they reply, “No Surrender!”
"…engaging and thought-provoking."
This review doesn’t really talk about anything in the doc, and tells us nothing at all about its contents. It’s just superfluous fanboy waffle. Terrible, unfocussed writing. Hill needs to learn what the point is, and stick to it. All he does is talk about himself. Crazy that this waffle even gets published. Pure narcissistic navel-gazing.