Review of The Sensei

Once in your life you come across a movie that you feel that was made just for you and no one else! That movie reaches out and grabs your soul and shakes it to its core. The Sensei is that movie for me. I have never experienced a movie that touches more chords in my life at one time than this movie. I too am an HIV+, openly gay, martial artist who struggles to attain his black belt and more importantly to find his way in not only the martial arts community but through life to find the happiness and peace the martial arts is supposed to help the practitioner attain. Even writing this review I become choked up thinking about the all that both characters have gone through with their families, communities, and themselves. I may be a bit prejudiced in favor of this movie but I believe that EVERY martial arts instructor should show this movie to their students. The martial arts action is also quite real in its movement and outcome as the main fight scene indicates. But it is not the physical battles that make this movie worth watching; it is the use of the martial arts to help the characters deal with and overcome their mental and spiritual struggles. One of the best movies ever written.