Kickboxer

MOVIE #1,823 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 07.18.24 ALBERT & AKERMAN: AN AUTEURIST STUDY IN CONTRAST + CONTINUUM I watched this, for some reason, knowing full well that I didn't ‘need to’ in order ‘to get’ Pyun's sequel that came out two years later. The film starts with some pretty bland looking professional kickboxing action as JCVD’s big brother wins the world championship. Then they take a riverboat ride in Thailand as a VERY 80s song (“Streets of Siam” by Sam Bush) plays along with the opening credits. JCVD actually has a “story by” credit in this and its director, David Worth, served as cinematographer on the previous year's (illegal) MMA film, Bloodsport (I went nuts last year watching ALL the Bloodsport movies as an addendum to my James Hong actor focus because he co-starred in two of them — my weird desire to complete blocks of media is unshakeable).

This film was equally as successful as that first Bloodsport entry at the box office and actually spawned even more sequels and an unsuccessful 2016 reboot that was directed by one of Pyun's favorite actors, John Stockwell. Proving once again that everything is connected in cinema if you watch enough movies.

It's very funny that JCVD is supposed to be this guy's (Dennis Alexio, an Italian from California) little brother, for obvious reasons. The plot follows a very Rocky IV xenophobic trajectory as big brother is brutally beaten by a comically bad ‘other’ (sub in Thai dude with crazy hair for giant Soviet steroid freak). He ends up paralyzed and not dead like Apollo Creed but you get the gist. JCVD is gonna get revenge. The whole thing looks really bad…


There's also some undeniable Karate Kid vibes, complete with a poor man's Mr. Miyagi. Art is theft, they say, as are all of these points/comparisons, which have been made a hundred times before. My thoughts are not original but it's also difficult to ignore these obvious threads.

While the ring action in this looks pretty unconvincing and bad, I thought a lot of the obligatory training sequences were nice…


As if avenging his paralyzed brother wasn't enough, the villains kidnap both said brother AND JCVD’s gf before the big fight. Do they want to make him MORE angry so he fights WORSE? I don't really understand the logic here.

This circular ring of the climactic clash, with its statues and tiki torches (not to mention the ole ancient fighting technique of dipping your hands in honey and then covering them with broken glass) provides MUCH better mise en scene at least. And I was fully hooked when the random comic relief side character comes barging in with a machine gun (and an assist from the wheelchair-bound brother) behind the scenes at the final showdown…


The whole end of this is pretty awesome. JCVD is at the absolute top of his game and his comeback in the last fight is legit rewarding, even for a fighting movie skeptic like me. I'll be totally honest, I almost shut this one off. But I'm glad I didn't.

You’ve just read a secret chapter in this book (website). That's right, this is the first (?) of several secret excursions of my Pyun & Akerman journey. It's not even in the damn table of contents! The table of contents, I says!

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CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ MOVIE #1,822 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,824 ⫸

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Kickboxer is a 1989 American martial arts film directed by David Worth and starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. Former world kickboxing champion Dennis Alexio is also featured. It spawned several sequels. It was released on September 8, 1989.