Lion Killer tells the story of 2 lost souls trying to find their place in the world after a lifetime of tragedies. The movie has some great cinematography and a good soundtrack. It's a bit reminiscent of Good Will Hunting and Karate Kid. Lion Killer leaves a powerful message with a lot of heart.

Let's be real, this is not a 10/10 film or a 9/10 film. However, I also feel the average score of 5.8 is too harsh. There are a lot of films scoring around 6/10 that are utterly devoid of any talent, and Lion Killer does some things well. Unfortunately, it does somethings badly too.

Let's get the bad out the way. The dialogue seems like it was written in another language and then translated to english. There are just some really strange conversations that sound very un-natural. The other major problem is that they cast a lead who hasn't done jiu jitsu before and my goodness it shows. The obvious problem with that is that a lot of people are going to be watching for some BJJ action and they are going to leave very disappointed. There are two 'fights' between the main character and his enemy. The first ends in a way that a white belt would be embarrassed to lose. The second is just full of awkward choreography. Matthew Meehan turned up looking buff, but his workout time would have been better spent learning some actual jiu jitsu. Alternatively, it would have been better if they just found some real black belts and did the right camera angles to avoid the faces.

But on the positive side, I'm scoring this relative to the films budget and status as an indie film. When I say the acting is good, i mean that in relative terms, not that there are oscar performers here. But it was quite pleased with the acting. Bizarrely Derrick Fury is brilliant, I say bizarrely because he directed the film so I didn't expect much from an acting standpoint, but he nails it. Regina Ting Chen does the best she can with the dialogue she's given. Matthew Meehan's acting is also fine.

The film is very well presented and great choice of music. The atmosphere is as good as any film really, it never looked low budget.

The plot was alright. It just feels like is missing a bit more drama. The domestic violence aspects were done tastefully and well, that was handled just right. The apparent 'bad guy' (victor) only really does 1 thing that makes him quite villainous. Otherwise he does seem like much more of a go-getter than the main character! I feel like there could have been more consequence to the misunderstanding between the main characters. What we get is an argument in a car... so I guess he walks home. They could have had their spat at a tournament and the argument could have caused Matthew Meehan to lose in the final or something like that.

Overall it's a decent effort and watchable film. If you have any interest at all in domestic violence then watch this film. If you're coming purely for BJJ errr it's not unmissable. If want to sneak BJJ into a film you can watch with your wife, the romance story will keep her interested.

What a terrific film! I'm not a big martial arts guy so I didn't know what to expect. But boy, was I ever pleased I took a flyer out on this one and checked out this gem of an indie film. Derek Fury did a wonderful job as an actor, director and writer. I can appreciate that's no easy thing to do. I really enjoyed the story and the pacing of the film. The story was so well written! The actors I thought were all quite good. Especially the leads. Bravo to all!!