Bloodsport
In the wake of Bruce Lee’s sudden death in 1973, along with the now aborted influx of top Asian film stars following him right into Hollywood, the truth of Lee’s actual legacy was finally coming to light, that of which is the now common practice of non-Asian Westerners to take up and practice the martial arts themselves, and one of the most prominent of these early purveyors was none other than Frank Dux, undoubtedly one of the greatest martial artists to ever live but also a source of much controversy due to him having claimed to have been a very highly trained CIA operative who was said to have taken on a large number of secret missions without ever having shown any proof of this whatsoever. In addition, he claimed to have such widely known skills that he also supposedly competed in a number of “secret” underground full contact martial arts tournaments, the most famous of which he claimed was The Kumite, a completely illegal, Chinese mafia controlled event held every year in Hong Kong which nonetheless Dux said was a proud tradition in the country and one of their most beloved sporting events. Again, Dux could offer no tangible proof of these claims nor has anyone else in the martial arts industry ever come forward to also say that they too knew of any such event, but regardless, even if the movement to discredit Dux’s claims can be readily chalked up to people wanting to make him look like a crazy fool for clearly talking about things that he was NOT supposed to be talking about, there’s also no doubt that the guy could sure tell one HELL of a story, and that all led to this 1988 release, a true martial arts classic that not only revived the genre itself, but became just so damn popular that many attribute both it and its success to have inspired the entire formation of the sport of Mixed Martial Arts, with the early UFC events also having had a tournament being held as well. And likewise, just as Bruce Lee’s legacy had inspired others like Dux, the question soon became just who would play him in this movie, as obviously most of the Asian stars were not suitable enough (even though Jackie Chan, long thought of as being the true heir to Lee’s throne, would not break through as a star onto American soil until the mid 90s), and then with the real life Dux himself who was said to not be all that handsome, until Jean Claude Van Damme, a world champion karate fighter and fledgling action movie star, was brought in to play Dux in the lead role, prompting Dux to take him and put him on a rigorous 3 month training regimen (which Van Damme called the “toughest thing he had ever been put through in his life”) before being deemed worthy of having the lead role here. The problem is in Van Damme’s thick Belgium accent, with it being more pronounced here than at any other time in his entire career, leading to some hilariously inept dialogue readings and earnestly bad bits of acting and emoting which showed that while Van Damme may have possessed both looks and presence, he also had an inherent lack of charisma and acting talent, for even as his career went on and the budgets got bigger and the storylines became more and more over the top, this still remains his single best movie to date which is quite ironic considering that it was his first actual starring role, as while he was able to come across as a reasonable placeholder for the real life Dux, it was the allure of the story itself and the presentation of The Kumite as being a larger than life (at the time) martial arts event that drives the movie along even when the whole thing puts on the brakes early to depict in flashback how Dux met and trained with his Japanese master as a boy (with the young actor recreating his accent coming off as being either retarded or seriously infected with Down’s Syndrome) and then after the (unexplained) death of the old man’s son, inheriting the family mantle to be fully trained and conditioned to fight, which led to his military involvement where the higher ups strive to prevent him from competing since he is considered to be far too valuable an asset to risk getting hurt or killed. The rest of the cast includes Donald Gibb (the legendary Ogre from Revenge Of The Nerds) as another American fighter in Hong Kong to compete who seems to have no martial arts training whatsoever but whose inherent style seems to be that instead of an extremely effective head smashing, ass kicking barroom brawler, Leah Ayres as a completely bimboed out blonde reporter who wants nothing more than to just get inside the secretive event so that she can do a story on it despite the strict rules of no media ever being allowed in, Forest Whitaker in an early role just getting shit on in one scene after another as the CIA man looking to recapture Dux (with a taser) and take him back home to his military base to resume his usual duties, and best of all none other than Bolo Yeung as the feared and vicious Kumite champion, Chong Li. Truly a case of a once thought lost potential coming full circle as Bolo was actually one of those aforementioned Asian stars all set to follow his friend Bruce Lee to Hollywood after co starring with him as the equally fearsome island enforcer in Enter The Dragon until Lee’s death put an end to all that, but 15 years later it would appear that Bolo had finally made it to Hollywood on his own, looking in unreal physical condition at 42 years of age, and more importantly, succeeding magnificently in making his Chong Li without a doubt THE greatest martial arts villain of all time. This is a guy whom we are told is the undefeated Kumite champion, but yet he also appears to be the reigning “bad boy” of the whole underground circuit, the type who enjoys fighting with little to no honor even though he clearly doesn’t have to, can work a crowd like it’s nobody’s business, including jumping up and down with glee like a big goofy kid to get them all riled up, is definitely not above using dirty tricks and illegal tactics such as throwing powder in an opponent’s eyes in order to blind them, and best of all, if he really wants to give people something to talk about, will even go so far as to actually kill an opponent if the mood strikes him right, all while showing a mocking attitude towards the tournament elders for their “back turning” ceremony in order to show their disgust and disapproval for such lethal and despicable actions. In short, he is the PERFECT villain for this type of movie, and Bolo (whose very own background even suggests that he might have actually competed in these same type of tournaments in real life) winds up bringing so much to the movie in terms of his own (bad guy) charisma and presence that he literally makes up for all of Van Damme’s own deficiencies as an actor, with worlds of contempt and hatred being projected just by showing a simple closeup of him smirking at Dux’s heroics. But it’s The Kumite itself (with the first 30 minutes setting up Dux’s character) that winds up completely taking over the film even as we only come to know most of these fighters by either just their name and / or general look, getting sucked into the competitive nature of the whole event all while the story beautifully builds up to the final showdown between Dux and Chong Li, allowing the whole animosity the two have to come bubbling to the surface before a magnificently staged final fight scene (one of many in the film). And it is that raw, kinetic energy of the violent nature of these fights (which the female reporter ultimately finds herself revolted by) which not only raises the movie to the top of the heap in this genre (second only to Enter The Dragon, of course), but more importantly, it had such an incredible impact and influence on the world of real life martial arts sporting events (regardless of the veracity of Dux’s accounts), that it wound up changing the state of combat sports as we know it forever with the creation of MMA and the on and off again popularity of The UFC (despite it being run by shady types such as Dana White) mostly due to it inspiring millions of young people to once again take up the long unheralded pursuit of martial arts just like the original master himself in one Bruce Lee had once done almost 2 decades before that, and in this particular genre, that’s the absolute best result that anyone could hope to ever see…
9/10