The film DOA: DEAD OR ALIVE may not be among the best American-made martial-arts flicks, but its title is certainly the most repetitive in any genre.
I have nothing to say about any permutation of the DEAD OR ALIVE videogame, since as I've noted earlier I don't follow that form of entertainment. But I did find that the 2006 film adaptation of the game was goofy if derivative fun, and obviates one of the biggest criticisms of the game by featuring female fighters whose breasts are (comparatively) real.
Since I don't have a lot to say about the place this lightweight flick holds in the history of Femmes Formidables, I'll content myself with reprinting my observations from my film-review of same.
"Corey Yeun, veteran of several Jet Li/Hong Kong actioners, directed this vid-game adaptation, partly filmed on a famous Hong Kong movie set in Heng Dian, China. However, while the three actresses are all adept at the fighting-stunts given them, it's quite evident that none of them are capable of the extreme athletics of the best HK cinema battles. Frankly, even the big warehouse battle of CHARLIE'S ANGELS: FULL THROTTLE is superior to any of the fights in DOA. This may be one reason the film approaches the girls' battles with a comic tone, though not to the extent of ridiculing the central heroines. Devon Aoki probably gets the best single battle, fighting a huge muscular opponent who attacks her in her hotel, while Pressley gets the most amusing battle: battling it out with her own dad (a Hulk Hogan-like wrestler) in order to prove her abilities. Finally it all winds up with a big multi-character battle in which villain Eric Roberts, souped up by his miracle device, nearly beats all of the heroines. He's rather comically beaten when his device is simply removed (too cheap to spring for an implant, guy?) and Aoki kills him by blowing up his entire island."
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