Bendell's self-defense school is considered pretty good, but not in the league of the one run by his rival. One thing leads to another, and the two men find themselves, and their students, s... Read allBendell's self-defense school is considered pretty good, but not in the league of the one run by his rival. One thing leads to another, and the two men find themselves, and their students, squaring off in a winner-take-all.Bendell's self-defense school is considered pretty good, but not in the league of the one run by his rival. One thing leads to another, and the two men find themselves, and their students, squaring off in a winner-take-all.
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe original cut of the film was shot for a few weeks in 1980 and was completed in 1981. In 1983, after Don Bendell had moved to Colorado with his new wife Shirley, he was able to secure a deal with Hollywood-based distributor Shapiro Entertainment to release the film, providing that he would shoot a new opening to make it more action-packed. This "new" version appears on all video releases of the movie.
- GoofsThe stuntmen are clearly visible during the climatic chase and fight scene.
- Alternate versionsWhen Shapiro Entertainment Corporation picked up the movie for its release, the distributor ordered director Don Bendell to shoot and insert a new opening to make the film more action-packed and to give it more character development. The new opening consisted of Thumper and Bob Chaney's character engaging in a no-holds-barred fight with a street gang. Another sequence occurs at the same time when a group of playground kids battle a seemingly normal guy creeping around, disguised as a ninja. The ninja later shows up after the fight and Chaney offers to let him join his karate school, to Thumper's dismay.
Featured review
A Real Con Job!
Truth Out! Don Bendell didn't direct this film but he wrote it, at least as far as I know. The truth is nobody directed it. Here's the story; I was a Cleveland film producer/cinematographer when I was approached by Bendell a Used Car salesman at the time & a karate freak, to shoot The Instructor. Being a slow time, as it was mostly in Cleveland, I glanced at the script and agreed to do it. A side note, I hate Karate movies except perhaps for the Karate Kid. Anyway after agreeing on the $$$ which were peanuts, the whole budget was $100 K or there about, it was shot on Agfa 16mm, I went down to Akron for a meeting with cast & crew. These, mostly conned volunteers with stars in their eyes except for a few credible people like an Akron U Drama teacher, & Don Chaney who was a real nice guy.
Bendell was a real classic used car salesman I'll give him that because he conned the whole town & even the Akron Police Dept. into trashing cop cars for this joke which you will note if you could sit through this POS! Well I knew from day one that Bendell who had never even been on a film shoot in his life was clueless which only made my job more difficult but as I said I'd nothing better to do then. Anyway to make a long story short, I worked my ass off trying to make something out of the project, at least visually, until Bendell started to try playing Director when we were about 7/8 done with shooting, at which point I quit. You see making film is a pretty tough job & when you have some clown who after 3 weeks on location thinks he's figured out how to put pieces & actor together to make sense, tries to take command for his lame ego, things go all to hell! Anyway after I left, they hired my assistant Ron Hughes to finish the project with his Bolex. You'll note a total different style of lighting happen in the film at about that point. Ron was into the dark "noir" dramatic style of lighting.
What I found really funny and sad on this film was that most of the people involved in this project, relationships & marriages went down the tubes, even Bendells. It was just like you read about film people in Hollywood. Wonder where they got it from??
Bendell was a real classic used car salesman I'll give him that because he conned the whole town & even the Akron Police Dept. into trashing cop cars for this joke which you will note if you could sit through this POS! Well I knew from day one that Bendell who had never even been on a film shoot in his life was clueless which only made my job more difficult but as I said I'd nothing better to do then. Anyway to make a long story short, I worked my ass off trying to make something out of the project, at least visually, until Bendell started to try playing Director when we were about 7/8 done with shooting, at which point I quit. You see making film is a pretty tough job & when you have some clown who after 3 weeks on location thinks he's figured out how to put pieces & actor together to make sense, tries to take command for his lame ego, things go all to hell! Anyway after I left, they hired my assistant Ron Hughes to finish the project with his Bolex. You'll note a total different style of lighting happen in the film at about that point. Ron was into the dark "noir" dramatic style of lighting.
What I found really funny and sad on this film was that most of the people involved in this project, relationships & marriages went down the tubes, even Bendells. It was just like you read about film people in Hollywood. Wonder where they got it from??
helpful•144
- filmit2001
- Oct 25, 2011
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- The instructor - Instruktören
- Filming locations
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime1 hour 31 minutes
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content
![The Instructor (1981)](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BOTc4OTllN2ItYThjYy00MTc2LWJjOWQtYzQzMmU0ZmI0ZDI3XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMzU0NzkwMDg@._V1_QL75_UY133_CR0,0,90,133_.jpg)