Can anyone help me name this movie?

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MikeyLikesIt

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Friend and I were discussing knives the other day and he recalled a movie involving knife training and fighting. Plot goes generally as follows: An American photo-journalist in Brazil, his friend gets killed by a bad guy(he is an infamous knife fighter)
The guy ends up learning how to knife fight and takes on this bad guy,mano-a-mano, and beats him. I know my brief synopsis makes it sound kinda cheesy, but my friend said it was actually a great movie. Only thing missing was its name????
 
It's marketed here under the name "Knife Fighter"... It's not that fantastic, but worth a watch if you're just renting it, imo.

James

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The beast we are, lest the beast we become.
 
Exposure is the Canadaian/English title.
It's also known as Knife Fighter and High Art, but the USA name was A Grande Arte. It was made in 1991, directed by Walter Salles, who usually directs documentaries, and written by Rubem Fonseca, who also wrote the novel it was based on (High Art).

Cast list:


Peter Coyote .... Peter Mandrake
Tchéky Karyo .... Knife Master
Amanda Pays .... Marie
Raul Cortez .... Lima Prado
Giulia Gam .... Prostitute
Eduardo Conde .... Roberto Mitry
José René Ruiz .... José 'Iron Nose' Zakkal
Tonico Pereira .... Rafael
Miguel Ángel Fuentes I .... Camilo Fuentes
Cássia Kiss .... Mercedes
Iza Do Eirado .... Zélia
Tony Tornado .... Iron Nose's Bodyguard
Eduardo Waddington .... Knife Dealer
Alvaro Freire .... Mitry's Butler
Maria Alves (I) .... Hotel Attendant

The only critic to review it (Rita Kempley of the Washington Post) didn't like it, referring to it as a "hokey thriller" which was "not exactly um, focused."

Grossing only $356,825 in the USA, it was hardly a box office smash.

It does have an interesting mix of music. Vivaldi and Cole Porter are featured on the good side, while on the terrible and weird side, Philip Glass has a number in there.

(More than you ever wanted to know, right? ;)

 
Keep in mind that there is another movie out called "Exposure". The capsule sounds very similar. There's a photographer, a woman get's murdered. But, it's a different movie.

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Chuck
Balisongs -- because it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!
http://www.balisongcollector.com
 
The movie has an interesting mix of character actors, but Peter Coyote in the lead role is weak and boring. You start caring more about the colorful characters than the lead.

 
After renting the movie, I got the novel (in translation) from the library.

As is usual with hollywood, it's quite different from the screenplay. The main character is a lawyer, and doesn't kill anybody- he ends up putting his knife in a drawer and deciding he's not cut out for revenge.
For fans of mysteries, the book reads very much like a Kinky Friedman novel-the guy even has a cat he talks to a lot.
 
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