Only the Strong

Louis Stevens served in the army in Brazil and learned capoeira there. He returns to Miami, to the school he graduated from. The place has collapsed: dealers are in the corridors, the teachers have given up and nobody cares about lessons. He makes an offer: give him the twelve most difficult students and he will teach them capoeira. Sheldon Lettich directs. Mark Dacascos plays Louis. What distinguishes it is the fighting form. Capoeira had barely been used in American cinema before; developed by enslaved Africans in Brazil and looking like dance, it is the basis of every action scene here. The narrative shape is familiar: a difficult school, a stubborn teacher, students who change. The film never departs from it. Real capoeira practitioners appear in the fight scenes and the music belongs to the form; the sound of the berimbau sets the rhythm. Mark Dacascos comes from a martial arts background and stunt doubling is limited. It did not do well commercially but circulated on video and counts as one of the films that introduced capoeira in America. Who it is for: anyone interested in nineties martial arts films and in capoeira. Who it is not for: the script is entirely formula, the villains are one dimensional, and the acting is weak.