Kickboxer - Il nuovo guerriero

Nah, you're not interested in "Kickboxer," the Jean-Claude Van Damme martial arts movie set in the exotic and mysterious Thailand and focuses in on the brutal sport of Muay Thai, are you? You're not going to miss Van Damme's hammy acting, his trademark splits, or his harsh (although according to some sources, inaccurate) training and portrayal in and of the Thai sport of Muay Thai, are you?

Of course you do. The Muscles From Brussels goes Thai in this 1989 adventure, with the Belgian actor exploring the martial arts fundamentals of Muay Thai, the national sport of Thailand, which has gained wider recognition in the West because it's the de facto fighting style for mixed martial arts and Thai-native newcomer Tony Jaa seeks to promote his tiny country's greatest commodity for a worldwide audience. But this is a Van Damme movie, first and foremost. True he's no great actor, but there's something about his work here that makes me want to watch "Kickboxer" again and again.

First things first, what is Muay Thai? As already stated, it's the national sport of Thailand, where the fighter will condition his body so that his arms and legs become weapons capable of delivering blows, kicks in particular, that are three times as powerful as that of any ordinary martial artist. He'll also use his feet, fists, shins, and elbows too. If one wants to go all out, two guys will get in a ring and have themselves a rope-fist fight, where the fighters' wrists are bound in rope and covered with broken glass. Isn't that mean and nasty?

To begin "Kickboxer," Van Damme is Kurt Sloane, brother of Eric (Dennis Alexio), the top kickboxer in the United States. Tiring of the generic competition of his native soil, he travels with brother Kurt to Bangkok, where he hopes to dethrone the current champ Tong Po (Michel Qissi), who has a reputation for fighting dirty. Kurt first sees this towering mountain of flesh and muscle kicking the hell out of a support beam in the locker room; that's the first clue to Kurt that Eric shouldn't get in the ring, but he's not listening.

And Eric fights anyway, against baby brother's warnings.

To make long stories short, Eric takes quite a beating in the ring but a series of illegal blows delivered after Kurt throws in the towel cripple Eric for life. So what went wrong? According to some sources, American Kickboxing is a watered-down form of Muay Thai, so it's no wonder Tong Po got the upper hand so quickly on Eric, who despite his excellent training and peak physical condition, only landed a few lucky punches on the towering fighter. Apparently, Muay Thai is strictly for street fighting, not something for refined martial artists like Kurt and Eric.

To teach Tong Po a lesson in humility, Kurt contacts American Winston Taylor (Haskell V. Anderson III) to seek out a venerated Thai master, Xian Chow (Dennis Chan), to learn the art of Muay Thai, and so the training begins. Kurt first puts aside his already-planted Karate training and strengthens his body, kicks tree stumps until the scar tissue prevents any kind of feeling aside from invincibility, learns a little about Asian spirituality, and even flirts with Chow's niece Mylee (Rochelle Ashana). What it all culminates in, of course, is a no-holds-barred "Rocky IV"-style showdown using the ancient rope-fists between Kurt and Tong Po.

As someone who knows next to nothing about Muay Thai (in fact, much of what I know comes from Wikipedia and the special features section of the "Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior" DVD), I found "Kickboxer" to still be quite entertaining. It's brutal stuff, really, so it's no wonder Muay Thai is gaining such greater notoriety in the United States. As Kurt Sloane, Van Damme is good (despite his acting limitations in showing emotions), his performance notwithstanding, and none of the other performers are really worth speaking of either, but Tong Po is a nasty villain and his one speaking line "You bleed like Mylee; Mylee good f**k" sends chills down the spine.

The fights are another thing and are what this feature co-directed by Mark DiSalle and David Worth seems to specialize in. The fights are spectacular (as with any martial arts movie that features Van Damme doing his trademark splits and 360-degree flying spin-kick), which does include one sequence where Kurt gets drunk, starts dancing, and takes on the patrons at a bar.

This "Kickboxer" - it's a kick, just don't let it "kick" you in the head too much with its lackadaisical script and lame-brain plotting.

7/10

this is the one of my favorite van dam movies. I think that it is also one of his best films. We watch his character train throughout the movie for a fight at the end. The martial arts throughout are very well done. This is one of those films you can watch every time it is on TV. If you like martial arts movies you will probably enjoy this one. The movie though is all about the final fight. Like many other films of its type. All in all van dam is great and if you want to see a film based on the martial arts that doesn't have Druce Lee or Jackie Chan or Jet Li in it then this movie is one for you. The story is pretty simple but the fight scenes are worth it so go for it. 7 out of 10.

Kickboxer (1989) was another in a long line of star vehicles for the "Muscles from Brussels". In this picture J.C.V.D. plays the younger brother of a unbeaten American kick boxer who lusts for some real competition. So he decides to go to the home of Muay Thai kick boxing, Thailand. There he realizes that he doesn't know squat about the true art of kick boxing. He learns a painful lesson. His younger brother decides to learn Muay Thai and avenge his brother's honor.

Not a bad movie. Entertaining and a good time waster. But for some reason the producers decided to franchise out this series. The rest of the films are a mixed bag at best. The more they made the least interesting they became until the final results were unwatchable. As always with these films the first film is usually the best of the bunch. Jean-Claude plays his character with a thick euro-accent (I forgot how they explained it). He's physically impressive so it's kind of hard to swallow his naiveté about fighting and what not. Or well. Fun for all.

Recommended.

This movie is really good and its about a Kickboxer and his brother who go to Thailand to fight the Thai Kick boxing champion and the American Kickboxer loses and ends up being paralyzed and then his brother gos and gets kick boxing training in a remote part of Thailand to revenge his brother.There are heaps of good scenes in this movie like all of the scenes of the city Bangkok and of all of the beautiful temples and the great fight scenes in the end of the movie.This movie stars good actors like the great action star Jean-Claude Van Damme,Dennis Chan,Dennis Alexio,Michel Qissi and Haskell V. Anderson The III.Kickboxer is one of Vam Dammes best movies and so are the movies Blood Sport,Nowhere To Run,TimeCop,The Quest and Hard Target.Over all this movie was good with NEVER a boring scene and my rating is 7 out of 10.

This is a splendid movie. It's van Damme exactly as I want to see him, with great martial arts action, a decent plot (even if it's not original at all), cool characters and a great 80's soundtrack. The movie is somewhat different from Bloodsport. Of course there are similarities too, like an evil fighting champion that van Damme is fighting. But this movie hasn't nearly as many fights as Bloodsport. Instead, it's more focus on training here. The training scenes are visually very good, and with really cool background music. Even though I had expected more fighting instead of this, there's no doubt that this is a great movie in it's own way.