Only the Strong

Only the Strong (1993) is available to watch online on iFILM — a martial arts action film directed by Sheldon Lettich and starring Mark Dacascos, produced in the US and France.

Louis Stevens comes home to Miami after military service and walks into a school taken over by gangs and open drug dealing. His old teacher gives him a shot: take twelve of the worst kids and try to turn things around. Louis's method is capoeira — the Brazilian fighting art built on rhythm, acrobatics and deception — and what starts as a desperate experiment slowly becomes something neither side expected.

Dacascos brings genuine skill to every sequence, and the film earns its moments by taking capoeira seriously rather than using it as window dressing. It's a straightforward story, but one of very few American films to put this discipline at its center and actually show what it looks like. Stream Only the Strong (1993) on iFILM.