Review: Kickboxer


American heavyweight kickboxing champ Denis Alexio and his naïve brother Jean-Claude Van Damme travel to Thailand to test his skills out with the originators of the sport. One look at the fearsome local champ Tong Po (Michel Qissi) and Van Damme is all ‘I have a bad feeling about this’. Sadly junior is unable to convince his older, cocky brother not to go and get his arse kicked. And thoroughly kicked his arse does indeed get, so Van Damme becomes enraged and seeks vengeance against the man who paralysed his brother. Unfortunately, Van Damme’s not as skilled or experienced as his beefy brother, but on the advice of U.S. ranger turned arms dealer (!) Haskell Anderson (quite fun, but not exactly a master thespian), he meets up with Muay Thai teacher Dennis Chan (a scene-stealer, in the Mr. Miyagi sort of role) who will ready him for his obligatory showdown with the uber-villain.


I have no good reason for liking this 1989 Mark DiSalle vehicle for the Muscles from Brussels (DiSalle would later produce Van Damme’s “Death Warrant” and direct the tedious Jeff Speakman vehicle “The Perfect Weapon”), but I like it anyway. Look, it’s essentially the same film as “Bloodsport”, only not as good (the villain’s a lesser version of Bolo Yeung, meanwhile, real-life Kickboxer Alexio is an appalling actor too) and featuring Van Damme doing kickboxing in an underground tournament instead of whatever martial art he was using in “Bloodsport”. Still, it’s Jean-Claude Van Damme doing kickboxing in an underground tournament! And he’s taping his fists up with shards of broken glass dipped in resin! How cool is that? The fighting is really good stuff (JCVD’s drunken dancing, on the other hand...), though not nearly as varied as in “Bloodsport”, wherein we were seeing all sorts of martial arts techniques.


It is what it is, and what it is isn’t defensible in any genuine critical way I suppose, but...it’s fun! Can “Last Tango in Paris” or “Birth of a Nation” claim that? No, they absolutely cannot. Strangely, the credits mistakenly list Tong Po as ‘himself’, when in fact the role is played by Van Damme’s pal and frequent bit-player Michel Qissi, whom you might remember as one of the legionnaire’s attempting to bring back an AWOL JCVD (heh heh, two acronyms concurrently in one sentence!) in “Wrong Bet”. Scripted by Glenn Bruce, with Van Damme himself having a hand in the story-writing process.


Rating: B-

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