Ten years ago this year, Boyka: Undisputed IV brought Yuri Boyka back into the ring, premiering at Fantastic Fest in September 2016 before reaching a wider audience on home video. It was built as the closing chapter for a character who had grown from supporting menace in the first Undisputed into the reluctant, damaged champion of three sequels. A decade on is enough distance to judge whether that ending actually holds.
Todor Chapkanov directed, stepping in for Isaac Florentine, who had guided Boyka through the second and third films but moved to a producing role this time. Scott Adkins carries the film as Boyka opposite Teodora Duhovnikova and Alon Aboutboul, in a story that puts the fighter face to face with the consequences of an accidental death in the ring and a debt he chooses to repay.
The more interesting handoff happened behind the camera. Fight choreographer Tim Man took over from Larnell Stovall, the third different choreographer the franchise had used, having already worked with Adkins on Ninja: Shadow of a Tear. Filming on a tight schedule and largely one set, Man built sequences around proximity and control rather than scale, and the two on one fight late in the film stands with the best the series ever staged.
It travelled further than a direct to video release usually does. The film won the Best Fight award at the Shanghai International Film Festival, and Adkins took home the festival's Best Action Movie Actor prize for the role. It holds a 7.0 on IMDb today, a strong number for a series built on B movie budgets, and it remains the clearest argument for why Adkins belongs among the genre's best.
