User reviews

Martial arts actor Scott Adkins usually has a good sense of what film projects to pick, so when I found this particular film of his on Netflix, I took the opportunity to see it. It's not one of his very best movies, but overall it does have enough good things to warrant it a recommendation. Yes, it could have been a lot better than it ultimately is. The script is for the most part a collection of plot turns and occurrences that you will have seen many times before. The characters are also not that new as well. There are also some slow patches that will on occasion have the viewer telling the movie to simply get on with it. Also, there is a weird narration device throughout that doesn't really add anything, instead coming across as a possible post-production patch-up job.

But most people don't watch movies like this for their writing. Instead, they watch them for plentiful (and well done) action sequences. And when it comes to this part of the movie, things are pretty well done. The action (a mix of gunplay and martial arts) is very well crafted. In fact, it's pretty brutal, exciting, and bloody at times; whoever provided the fake blood for this movie probably comfortably retired when filming was completed.

As I indicated earlier, this is far from a perfect movie. It certainly isn't for everybody at any time. I would say that if you are in the mood for some brutal and well crafted action, and don't mind sitting through an awkward and very familiar story, the movie will grab your attention for 95 minutes.

Lets get the obvious out of the way, is it something that will keep you on the edge of the seat? No. The story was quite OK. The script was barely good. The acting was just decent however as usual when the action and choreography is concerned with Scott Adkins, he is great. This movie is no where close to The Ninja series or the Undisputed Series however if you are Adkins fan , I would suggest you see it. It starts off slow but the action sequences at the end becomes really nice and has couple of strange twists as well which keep your head scratching. All in all good action movie but that's about it.

I reckon if Scott Adkins was around in the 80s he'd be a very big star. As it is, he even struggles having a fan base in his "home" in the UK. But that doesn't stop him having decent success in quite a few movies in recent years. Also while I'm not sure if he's big in Japan (tonight), I do know he's big in Germany.

But even over here this particular movie will have some issues. Or rather limited success to be more specific. While the movie does try to give the whole thing a slightly different taste with its story it doesn't work that well overall. Also the action scenes are not the best he's done, stunt wise that is. If you're a fan of his work, this may be worth a look, but everyone else should probably spend their time otherwise

I had expected another standard martial arts flick but was pleasantly surprised to see that the director has put in some effort at character establishment , having some sort of story ...some effort at acting etc , and making the most of whatever little budget he had .... Make no mistake its still a low budget B level movie created mainly for martial arts fans ....but it was a refreshing take to see some effort being made to create a movie what we can call a decent one time watch...

Hope to see more from the Director ....

I found "Savage Dog" on Netflix and decided to give it a watch, as Scott Atkins have some fair enough movies every now and again.

"Savage Dogs" was not a particularly outstanding movie, nor was it a bad one. It was actually entertaining enough for what it turned out to be, just don't get your expectations up too high.

The story was straight forward, albeit quite predictable and generic. So director and writer Jesse V. Johnson didn't really throw the audience anything to think about. You simply just lean back and enjoy the ride for what it turned out to be.

As an action movie, then "Savage Dog" of course have martial arts and fight scenes. The fight scenes were adequate, although very visibly staged and choreographed to the extend where it wasn't looking all that natural. Well, except for the fight between Cung Le and Scott Atkins.

The cast was good and did alright jobs with their given roles, even though they had very little to work with in terms of storyline and plot.

This is a mediocre action movie, and hardly a movie that you will watch more than once.

I went into this as a random pick and mix film, they tend to be horrors.....this wasn't.

Savage Dog is an old school action flick starring Scott Adkins and the excellent veteran of the industry Keith David.

It tells the story of a disgraced former boxer in 1959 who finds himself at the mercy of a local baron who wants him to fight for money. It's full of your usual mindless action tropes and though the action certainly looks good it doesn't make it any different than 10k comparable titles.

The narration/performance by David is solid as usual, as for Adkins I don't see the appeal. The man is dull and lifeless much like Van Damme and Lungren were when they first started out in the industry.

Every square inch of this film has been done before and better. I may not be the demographic, I may generally not like action films and therefore am hard to please but this is so generic it hurts.

The Good:

Action looks great

Keith David

The Bad:

As shallow and mindless as they come

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Action movie actors start terrible and get marginally better over the years

As a rule of thumb I like martial arts films with Scott Adkins in the lead. The reasons these films work, is they follow a straightforward exposition driven, martial arts action formula.

Savage Dog fails because it tries to step away from that formula and take itself a little too seriously. The result is a film that's a self consciously uncomfortable mix of corny drama and hamstrung action.

Worse still, is the badly executed(pun intended) violence, found throughout this film. Its grubby blood soaked stuff, with some icky kill scenes that are gratuitous and farcical, in equal measure.

In my opinion, a dog of a movie. Three out of ten from me.

Very basic storyline, effects low budget. HOWEVER there are some good fight scenes (as you could expect with Scott Adkins)

I read some reviews that say this is a bad movie, but good for Scott Adkins fans. I tend to disagree. The good thing about this movie is that the director and Adkins try something different, but end up making the same movie over and over. Adkins shows that he doesn't evolve as an actor. And as a martial artist, he reached his peak way before this one. It's easy to say that this movie offers more than Ninja 1 and 2, but at the same time it offers less than anything Adkins should offer.

Adkins works better as a co-part in a mainstream movie, because as a lead actor in B-movies, he is done and is going the same way Seagal, Van Damme and others are, who make too many (of the same) movies.

Adkins, you can do better, and less is more.

Don't listen to anybody else, this is a great action film. Scott at his best. Don't miss it.This is a violent, gory film not to be missed by any action fan. The story is fairly average, but this is not really the main concern for an action movie, Scott is brilliant in this. This is better than Eliminators, Close Range Etc. Any real action/martial arts fan will be not disappointed.

This is one of the better Adkins movies of late, with the exception of The Accident Man and The Debt Collector, much of his recent stuff had been below par.

Savage Dog is far from perfect but it does have some great fights (the key element for this type of film) and it does have a good enough story.

Are there some moment I wish they hadn't shot, yes, especially for 10 minutes right in the middle, but overall its pretty good.

Adkins is proving over the years he is the best at delivering contemporary fights scenes.

The setting was interesting, in this country at this moment of History. We don't see that very often. But the movie lacks beautiful scenery. Everythng is filmed so close.

As usual for Adkins movies : gunfights are boring, martial arts scenes are good (but not as good as in the Undisputed series).

The finale drags on too long.

The pitch could have been interesting but the movie gets lost.

Just Bad... one of Scott's worse plot,acting and narration all bad and this is coming from a huge Scott Adkins. Only thing enjoyable was the final fight scene. If your a fan like i am stay away from this movie you'll be highly disappointed.

In the first place this movie should be illegal and the makers detained. This is such an offense to the art called 'film'.

This movie is so bad that any extra word would just add milliseconds to the time I already wasted watching it.

I would love to have a chat with the director of this movie and try to understand what in the world is his message as an "artist".

This movie indeed is targeted to violent people, feeding them on the hate and murder and blood and so on. It is like feeding hard core porn to a sexually obsessed rapist.

What a shame. Hello, this is 2017.

I started watching this movie for the great B-movie director Jesse V Johnson and for the ever great Scott Adkins. Both were truly, and I mean really truly disappointing to watch....

The bad: please, please, please NEVER make the mistake of trying to force B-movie actors to act. They cant! They can fight. They can grunt. But they cannot act. They tried to make them act anyways and the result is painfully cringeworthy.

Not any good? NO. Not even the few action scenes were any good. The opposite, those action scenes looked quite lame.

What 's the point of watching a B-movie when there aint no exciting action? NO point. To be avoided at all costs...

This movie had all the potential to be great. Scott Adkins, the best on screen martial artist of this generation against Marko Zaror, a guy just as good as him in term of on screen fighting, and Cung Le, a real former MMA fighter who has proved he can also do excellent on screen fight but had yet to be in a movie with a decent script.

Did it achieve its potential? Not really, but its still decent. This is a really low budget movie and you can see from the start, from the filming location being very limited to some bad cheap CGI blood effect, which are thankfully not too numerous.

The story is good even tough simple, i don't really ask for too much for these type of movies. There is a decent amount of hand to hand action scenes, which is why you watch a Scott Adkins movie, and there very decent but as one guy pointed out, the character played by Adkins is supposed to be more of a brawler and the movie is set in the late 50s, so it reflect on the fighting side. Therefore do not expect a "Boyka vs Dolor 2" cause you are gonna be disappointed, but that does not mean that the fights are not interesting.

I watched this movie with a a good amount of beer and honestly i had a good time. Its not a Ninja or Boyka movie, but its a great effort by Adkins and i had more fun than with Hard Target 2. This is the kind of movie i want to see Adkins in, and i wish more movies like that would be released.

Scott adkins movies are awesome. I believe he will be the best when it's all over. Him and van damme movies just make sense compared to other action stars. I mean if he was in the 80's or 90's, he would've killed it. His martial arts, and his knowing how to do movies the right way makes him just awesome. Scott adkins movies are just way better than any others nowadays, and that's a fact.

This is almost certainly the worst film (of it's type) i have ever seen !. They built the story to fit & that really didn't help,stilted,bad acting (paycheck) & the good stuff (?) was hidden by the really awful editing. All in all rubbish (edited) !. This obviously a wagon to transport the lead 'actor' to heady heights of Hollywood,'sorry son' NEXT !!.

Adkins is a great actor and has done a good job with staying active in movies. Wow, his martial arts skills are so impressive. I actually like the movie a lot, a little gruesome. I would like to see him and Michael J White in an up-to-date movie. Keep up the good acting. KayInspirer

Like you guys already know Scott Adkins, Marko Zaror and Cung Le all great martial art actor and for the first time they teaming up in this movie Savage Dog direct by Jesse V. Johnson the result is pretty average and meh.Don't expect with all the named i list up there so you will get a ball to the wall movie with action after action in pact is take a while to get to there but the leading up is very boring and dragging.Never in my life going to a Scott Adkins movie make me said that but really with the run time about 1h 34min the movie had to be fast paced and non stop fun but the subplot involving the Scott and Juju Chan with the local army run by Vladimir Kulich always hold the fun factor of this movie back.When the big final fight happen the movie does get better when Scott go full Rambo in the jungle slice and shoot enemies left to right leaving behind a mountain of corpses but one of the highlight of this movie is the fight between Scott and Cung Le is very disappointed even through it later been fixed when Scott face off with Marko with the result is a bloody gory knife fight but up until that the whole movie is already a bad taste in my mouth.Hope Jesse upcoming movie Triple Threat and Accident Man both staring Scott Adkins is much better