Only the Strong
Tags: cult, violence

Plot synopsis:
Former Green Beret Louis Stevens (Mark Dacascos) returns to his hometown of Miami after completing military service in Brazil, only to learn that his old high school has become a haven for gangs and drug dealers. After Stevens uses his Capoeira skills to kick several drug dealers off the school property, Mr. Kerrigan (Geoffrey Lewis), one of Stevens' old teachers, sees the impact that Stevens has on the students. Kerrigan gives him the task of teaching Capoeira to a handful of the worst at-risk students at the school, giving Stevens an abandoned fire station as their practice area. While doing so, Stevens earns the ire of the local drug lord, Silverio (Paco Christian Prieto), whose younger cousin, Orlando (Richard Coca), is one of Stevens' students. Silverio is also a master of Capoeira, and he engages Stevens in combat, beating him viciously. The horrified Orlando resolves to learn everything he can from Stevens. Stevens' class learns quickly, and they become very skilled at Capoeira. The principal, delighted, proposes a district-wide Capoeira program to the school board. After a field trip with his class, Stevens once again crosses swords with Silverio, who declares war against him.
Silverio's gang terrorizes the high school and sets fire to Kerrigan's classroom, resulting in the death of one of Stevens' students. As a result of this incident, Stevens is banished from the school grounds and the Capoeira program is terminated. In retaliation to the attack, Stevens sneaks into Silverio's chop shop and defeats the workers before setting a cash-filled car on fire. Furious, Silverio orders the gang to bring Stevens to him alive. Orlando flees to get help. After a desperate battle, Stevens is finally captured and brought to a bonfire, where Silverio awaits. However, Stevens' Capoeira students bar their path in an attempt to rescue their teacher. Before a brawl can ensue, the exhausted Stevens challenges Silverio to a single combat to win back his students. Despite a grueling battle, Stevens defeats Silverio before the police arrive, sending the gang scattering in all directions. With this defeat, Silverio's reputation as crime lord is gone.
Stevens' Capoeira program proves to be a success that his students graduate from high school. To celebrate, they join a Brazilian Capoeira team to perform for Stevens at the graduation ceremony.

Review: Dacascos is the most graceful, watchable martial arts star since Brandon Lee, with an easy charisma that really comes across in a film like this and also the brilliant "Drive".
The plot and characterisation are admittedly 2-D, but what the hell, it's a 100% schmaltz-free feelgood movie.Two of my friends actually took up Capoeira after watching this film.
Unique Brazilian martial arts exhibited in a mediocre movie.
The real star of "Only the Strong" is the capoeira style of Brazilian martial arts (which is the pre-cursor of many break dancing moves) exhibited throughout the film.
There are many movies that concentrate on wushu, taekwondo, karate, aikido, and many others styles from different parts of the world, but capoeira movies are far and few between, which makes "Only the Strong" that much more unique.The story is nothing short of rehashed and predictable; a well meaning soldier (Mark Dacascos) with martial arts background from his previous station in Brazil, comes back to the U.S. and attempts to take charge of the rebellious, rival students in a troubled neighbourhood.
The troublesome students take a while to be won over by Decascos efforts, but eventually play along.Things get complicated when it turns out that one of the students is the son of a Portuguese gangster, a capoeira maestre himself, that is the terror of the town, leading to some battles and a showdown between the ruthless criminal and his followers and the well meaning teacher.The acting and the story is sub-par as mentioned previously, but this is , at the time of this writing, the only movie focusing on capoeira as a whole, and as such deserves a closer look by martial arts fans everywhere who are ready for something truly different..
ONLY THE STRONG Aspect ratio: 1.85:1Sound format: Dolby Stereo SRA former Green Beret (Mark Dacascos) is employed by his local high school to rehabilitate some of its worst students by teaching them the art of capoeira (a form of martial arts from Brazil, using dance-like moves).
But his work brings him into conflict with a local drug lord (Paco Christian Prieto), whose operations are threatened by Dacascos' interference...Predictable B-movie, elevated above the routine by virtue of its slick presentation and interesting cast (including Geoffrey Lewis), under the assured direction of Sheldon Lettich (DOUBLE IMPACT).
Excellent movie showing that great fighting art,Capoera.
I am a fan of the Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee movies, but this type of martial art has found a place in my heart.
Capoeira, the rhythm-based Brazilian martial art / dance, is the movie's chosen subject, and its saving grace: flamboyant and effortlessly acrobatic, accurately pulled off by a cast of the style's best practitioners.
Dacascos masters the art while stationed in Brazil working as a Green Beret, and returns to his old school in Miami to find the classes out of control, made up of petty criminals and drug dealers.
I think that the capoeira scenes are great, plus it has good music, but the story and characters could've been presented a little better.
Great film,displaying a lot of martial art skills and action!!!!!!!
Richard Coca,Mark Dacascos,Paco Christian Prieto,Ryan Bollman,Stacey Travis,Mark Cardwell.The others,although they are not mentioned.....have done a great job also.
The music is a lot of fun too and the soundtrack is a lot of fun!However, this is one of the worst offenders of movies that have thirty year old high school students - er - actors in their late 20s playing 16 year olds.
The main character does a Michelle Pfeiffer-esque dangerous minds revolution in what is supposed to be the worst high school in LA by taking a group of the "worst" students and teaching them martial arts.
Saw this movie and was very intrigued by it..Had it for a few years and still watch it..My daughter is learning the dance through the movie as a protection for her and enjoys the dance moves as well..We're from Hawaii also and I think Mark is a great actor..One of my all time favorite movies..Much Aloha to all!!Cyndi.
My only regret is that the producers saw a need to speed up some of the Capoeira play, as though it weren't impressive enough to stand on its own.Plot and acting aside, the only real flaw with the movie is that the entire movie, they use a fairly accurate Capoeira fighting style with legs being the predominant weapons, but in the second half of the final fight scene, the fighting style completely shifts to a more street style involving only elbows and fists.
Excellent Portrayal Of The '90s "Pop Culture" And Great Martial Arts Action!.
It also explores a "martial art" that was little known, since Capoeira is actually more closely related to a dance, than a fighting style (made popular in the U.S. in the fighting game "Tekken 2" and Tekken 3").
Aside from the fact that some of the actors needed a few more acting lessons, I think it was a very good movie and would (and do) recommend it whole-heartedly..
this flick is the type of movie that is timeless and will continue to inspire many generations of martial art's movie fans like myself to explore and venture into new territory.this hit of a flick does just that as it intrigues jackie chan,jet li,vann damme,steven seagal and don the dragon wilson fans like myself.i've ventured into alot of different style exploitations and this one(capoeira)definetely has my respect for it's grace,athleticism,finesse,and most of all it's upbeat enthusiasm.i can hardly believe that myself,a longtime practitioner and martial arts movie buff first saw this flick on hbo in 1996 and was'nt particularly enthralled by it back then,but guess what?i really decided to watch it(the whole thing and not just in bits and parts while i was doing other stuff on the side,like cooking and reading like i apparently did back in 1996.like i said,this time i gave it a chance and i really became enthralled, fascinated and rejuvenated from watching this very underrated breakthrough masterpiece of a martial arts classic that it obviously deserves to be.in other words,and putting it rather bluntly and frankly,check this flick out,please.give it the chance it deserves.you won't be disappointed.the only thing that disappoints me is that they haven't made a sequel for it yet and it's been out for 9 years.how freaky is that?my rating?definetely a strong 8.5.the music video is really cool too..
It is one of the few films to portray the lesser known (meaning no disrespect to it of course) Brazillian martial art of Capoeira.
It's an action packed movie,displaying great martial arts skills.It's THE BEST!!!.
I think it's a great movie.It displays great martial arts skills as well as potential and understanding.
In the movie....Luis Stevens (Mark Dacascos) teaches the guys,not only martial arts but compassion and understanding to one another.
In the movie....Luis Stevens (Mark Dacascos) teaches the guys,not only martial arts but compassion and understanding to one another.
I would just like to mention a few whom I think deserve a great deal of credit.....Richard Coca,Mark Dacascos,Paco Christian Prieto,Ryan Bollman,Roman Cardwell,Stacey Travis.
If you like martial arts movies and movies that are inspiring,this is a good choice.
Martial Arts film fans should be happy with it.Geoffrey Lewis quite unofficially brings in former Special Forces captain Mark Dascascos for a karate program for some of his biggest challenges at an urban Miami high school he teaches at.
Then it becomes downright personal.Martial Arts film fans will love Only The Strong and others will be entertained..
When one of the lessor known straight-to-video stars, Mark Dacascos entered the game, he brought us something out of the box with this film which features the Brazilian fighting style, Capoeira.
Though the message of a Teacher from the hood coming back to his hood to teach the worst kids in his old school how to respect themselves so it will influence them to not let the streets consume them is timeless, the delivery of this message could not be more early 90's.The acting was straight out of an after school special, and it feels like whoever wrote this movie was watching MTV while he did it, more concern with coming off cool rather than being actuate.
This movie made me obsessed with Capoeira for the next few years and even thought from this obsession I learned that the filmmakers took liberties with the fighting style, that does not matter, because the movie version of Capoeira makes this one of the best Martial art films made.Watching Mark teach these kids how awesome Capoeira is, puts a smile on my face every time,and watching him use the fighting style for both self-defense and aggressively was just so cool.
It was just mesmerizing and worth watching.It does not have the same legs as the Karate kid has but using Capoeira gives this movie an originality that most other Martial arts films don't have..
The fighting scenes from Dacascos are great and the only decent acting comes from him.
The story is a bit too sentimental at times and the whole thing of Capoeira changing the lives of these street kids doesn't bode much credibility,however the fight sequences are great..
One of the great martial arts films.
But, the trouble rises when Louis founds out that one of the kids is related to a local gang lord, who is also a capoeira master and so Louis takes the fight to protect the kids, school, and his girlfriend.Now the movie is simple, very simple and likable.
First of all, as a martial artist myself, I think that this film offers a beautiful scenes of capoeira and excellent, well choreographed fight scenes.
The movie offers a very beautiful atmosphere of Miami, good visuals When it comes to the script, it's silly and simple, nothing to think about much Mark Dacascos well of course, don't expect some fine acting from him, but he was brilliant in fighting scenes and this film remains one of the best in his career.
Stacey Travis, who plays his girlfriend Dianna, I saw her in few low budget films, and well, she pretty much sticks to similar performances, Geoffrey Lewis already did some martial arts films, but he is not martial artist, so he was good in his own element.
And we have a villain Silverio, played by Paco Christian Prieto, I love this guy, a menacing and hilarious dude, the guy can't act worth of sh*t, but he made a terrific villain, and he performed some good martial arts moves too but walking around, being a tough guy to Mark Dacascos's character calling him "Santo", or "Hey, santo!" that's a real comedy.So, overall watch this film, it's highly recommended, especially for capoeira students, or for most of them who love martial arts I don't care if you don't like martial arts, this is a cool, relaxing film and it's good for playing during the summer with friends..
All hail the 1990s and those wonderful low-budget STVs. In ONLY THE STRONG, a young Mark Dacascos plays a special forces veteran who returns home to find his old high school in total disarray.
In this formula actioner, Dacascos happens to know a unique style of of martial arts called capoeira, which combines gymnastics, dance and kung phooey.
The Brazilian martial art is very rarely seen, so it makes the fight scenes fresh and interesting.
It's a fun, feel good action film with a great lead and an awesome villain.
Even though it looks like this is made on a shoestring budget, they really managed to pull off a great martial arts movie here.
They are very good, Marc Dacascos is great in it, and overall it was a very enjoyable experience from start to finish.
The mix between martial art scenes and scenes progressing the feel-good story is perfect.
Then I see this movie on HBO about Brazilian martial arts and was hooked from the beginning!
The Martial Arts choreography is great, especially if you haven't seen Brazilian Martial arts before!Like someone also said, this is not Oscar material, but it's certainly entertaining.
"Only the Strong" certainly delivers in entertainment and in my opinion should have it's place among Martial Arts movies!.
Perhaps the worst martial arts movie of all time.
Mark Dacascos stars as Louis Stevens an U.S army ranger who teaches troubled kids a new style of martial arts that  turns the kid's lives around, however a gang leader tries to find a way to sabotage Steven's work in progress in this dull action flick.
Mark Dacascos stars as Louis Stevens, a soldier turned teacher who gives the rough students at a local high school a crash course in the martial arts of Capoeira, however the head gang member, Silverio has other plans and therefore a war is waged between Stevens and Silverio.
However Stevens will need all the martial arts learned because Silverio is a master of the art of Capoeira also.
Although looking back on this, one must admit that the story is a bit too sentimental at times and the whole thing of Capoeira changing the lives of these street kids doesn't bode much credibility however when the fight sequences are this good and the showdown between Dacascos and Paco Christian Prieto that intense, one can only enjoy the silliness at hand.
Brazilian martial arts + bad guys from Rio d Janeiro + catchy soundtrack= a C+ movie.
This movie explores the Brazilian self defense dance capoeira which is not known much about unless you've seen it.
Lewis(Dacascos)returns to the high school from which he came where he is hired to teach a group of delinquents capoeira in order to harness their otherwise bad habits.
Lewis may be getting involved with a problem that he can't solve in this action/martial arts movie.
a very enjoyable film the martial art beautiful to watch dacascos on top form.
though the film is predictable you blatantly watch it too see the martial arts.ever since watching drive i have been a dacascos fan, but feel he can do so much better than the stuff he is given.just watch the film for the martial arts, for the uninformed amongst you the art in question is Capoeira (what eddy does in tekken 3) a Brazilian martial art that looks like dancing.dacascos alone embodies the art and is given help from the on screen badguy to pull off one of the most watchable and exciting fighting climaxes in history.i say its a no brainier with the bad guy, kid that needs help, sideline love interest and the mandatory good looking leading man but what the hell?
Mark Dacascos show us his great martial-artist talent.If you like Dacascos, you have to see Crying Freeman ;).
I love this movie for the capoeira..
I am a capoeirista (student of capoeira) and I have to say that I love this movie.
I even copied the scenes I liked and made an "Only the Strong: Abridged Capoeira No-Crap Version" so that I could watch all the good parts.
This is a great Mark Movie, See it!.
This is a great Mark Dacascos Movie, One of the best ones.The school life has changed for some "bad" school pupils.
This movie is about Capoera, a brazilian fighting style.
The main actor, Mark Dacascos can be seen in other martial art movies too.
The movie is pretty HOT and not boring like other martial art movies.
It shows that martial art movies can be good and intresting too.
this fil has to be the best 15 martial art film i have ever seen in my life.
Mark Dacascos (who i first noticed in the film "drive") is absoultly incredible and has to be one of the best martial artists i have ever seen.
The storry starts off with louis stevens (Dacascos) as a green baray in Brazil, and after spending many years there learns the art of Capoeira.
He returns to his high school and starts a capoeira class and trains the 12 worst kids in the school the brazilian kung fu so they can protect themselfs against the drug dealers that are tearing the area apart and to give them something to strive for, this film has more flips and kicks than some films that are classed as " martial art" and i throughly enjoyed it.
A tribute to Capoeira martial art, if not much more....
However, Only the Strong stands apart as the only film to contain more than a few frames of (decent quality) Capoeira, the low-profile(?) Brazilian martial art.
Dacascos, a talented athlete and an otherwise accomplished martial artist, but not a Capoeirista, does, in my opinion, a decent job out of performing some Capoeira moves, but it's the real Capoeiristas shown in the very beginning and very end of the film that make Only the Strong, a tribute to this wonderful martial art.
This is a film that is all about being tough and learning how to fight and how to be strong.
All the characters are awesome, and the story is really good as well, plus Mark Dacascos and Paco Christian Prieto are simply amazing in this.
It's really emotional at times and the final fight between Dacascos and Paco Christian Prieto is intense and really exciting, plus the training scenes that he was teaching the students were really cool.
This is an awesome Martial Arts film, that really is quite the underrated gem, with excellent fight scenes and very good performances, and I say it's a must see!.
This is an awesome Martial Arts film, that really is quite the underrated gem, with excellent fight scenes and very good performances, and I say it's a must see!.
This is an awesome Martial Arts film, that really is quite the underrated gem, with excellent fight scenes and very good performances, and I say it's a must see!.
Mark Dacascos is amazing here, he is extremely likable, very charismatic, surprisingly an excellent actor, one of the best martial artist's I have ever seen, kicked that ass, and had great chemistry with all of the kid's!