No Retreat, No Surrender is a 1985 martial arts film directed by Corey Yuen in his American film directorial debut. It is the first title in the No Retreat, No Surrender franchise, whose plot lines and characters are mostly unrelated. It stars Kurt McKinney, with a supporting cast of Jean-Claude Van Damme, J.W. Fails, Kathie Sileno, and Tai-chung Kim. The film was released in Italy on October 20, 1985, and in the United States on May 2, 1986. McKinney performs as Jason Stillwell, an American teenager who learns martial arts from the spirit of Bruce Lee. Stillwell uses these lessons to defend his martial arts dojo against Soviet martial artist Ivan Kraschinsky (Van Damme).
The film was written by Keith W. Strandberg, after being contracted by Ng See-yuen, the owner of Seasonal Film Corporation, to put together a script for them, despite not having done so before. Van Damme was cast in the film and caused problems on the set for continually physically contacting other actors and stuntmen during fight scenes, even after director Yuen told him not to. Upon release, the film received negative reviews, focusing on the story, which many critics found too similar to The Karate Kid, The Last Dragon, and Rocky IV.
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