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Ok so my review.

I dig the HD. The movie has a very good look to it.

The performances seemed to be hit & miss or at least like someone would do a good line, then a bad line, etc. I can't say that I was overall that into the story, but I know that the finished product is not its original intention & the story had to change (right?)

I liked a lot of the baseball fight, as unusual as parts of it may have been with the whole wushu style with a bat. I think it worked in a lot of ways.

The multi thug fight had a lot of cool elements & some very nice moves. However, I think a lot of things turned me off. The camera would stay on people long after they'd gone down, which felt unecessary. A lot of the hits were black on black (meaning black shoe to black mask usually) which made the impact less clear & less.... impactful. Many of them could just as easily been misses & would have looked pretty much the same. Another thing where I think this really came off less intense than the thai stuff was that the camera was so far away. I understand that it was there often to show the grace of a complicated move but for times where you were just straight up kicking someone in the face- why not go closer? That's at least what the thai guys like to do- really show you the hit up close, when they can. I'll touch more on the Thai style later.

The Dennis fight was really enjoyable. There were times in which I felt it was too much of one person show boating while their opponent just stands there, but overall it was pretty well done & well captured. It's probably my favorite part of the film. I would agree with some of the others here that it ended kind of abruptly.

Then comes the female fight. Although there were some nice hits here & there, I was overall pretty disappointed with this fight. From a choreography standpoint, the trading of roundkicks in the beginning got real boring real fast- although I enjoyed it from a character standpoint & the effect it created. The standoffs seemed to lack the emotional intensity to keep them that interesting. It seemed like two people just kind of standing there, as opposed to really feeling each other out or strategizing. The knees in the clinch seemed particularly unconvincing.

And I didn't mind the shortness of the last fight, so much as the lack of activity. Your opponent barely does anything & it was cut funny at times.

In terms of trying to copy the Thai stuff, I think there's still a little work that needs to be done to really capture that. Firstly, I think opponents need to react a lot more when doing a contact hit. Yes, you're hitting someone for real, but it still doesn't sell on camera if the person just falls down like a dead fish. The lack of some opponents' activity was also bothersome & it's true that's a common complaint of people who see Tony Jaa's films. So I would suggest rather than copy the style to a "T" why not also try to improve on its notable flaws, as well? Then you'd have something that would really blow people away.

Now, this probably sounds like a relatively negative review, but let me just say a few more things- I enjoyed Johnny Owes. I was busy, so I had to watch it in 2 pieces- the first piece was from the beginning thru to the end of Dennis. Then I had to wait about 5 days until I could watch the rest & as the time went by the anticipation grew because I'd seen a lot of good stuff up until that point. Then I finally went to watch the rest & was disappointed that it was not as exciting as what I'd seen. Maybe I let my expectations go too high. I also LOVE the Thai stuff & watch and study a lot of it, so I'm being very critical from a fan's standpoint & also to hopefully help you achieve the effect you're really going for.

Keep up the good work, Micah. This may be the best you've done yet.

Congrats on the nominations. Good luck.