KickBoxer-1989
Director: David Worth, Mark Disalle, Jean Claude Van Damme
Producers : Mark Disalle, Charles Wang
Genre : Action /adventure
Rating : R
Dist: Pathe International
Cast : Jean Claude Van Damme, Dennis Alexio, Haskell Vaughn Anderson III, Dennis Chan, Rochelle Ashana
This movie opened a gateway to a flood of Kick boxing films, Here Jean Claude Van Damme stars as the kid brother of the American kickboxing champion of the world. Having conquered this country,(BTW, how can you be the world champion if you have'nt even fought in thailand?) so they head for Bangkok to take on Thailand's champion. And not realizing just how badass Thai fighters can be, they soon find out!
As the story rolls along and Van Dammes overly cocky brother's attiude gets him humbled in the ring, by the Badass Thai Fighter "Tong Po" he gets clobbered by an illegal after-the-final-bell "smack" that breaks his spine like a toothpick which eventually leaves him in a wheelchair for life, but thats not all folks. After the spine break by tonpo, if that wasn't just F**Ked up, they are just thrown to the thai streets like thai thrash and left for dead, But now its up to Little brother Vann Damme to even up the score. So Van Damme decides it's time to take up the sport himself so he can teach the badass Bangkok champ a lesson or two. Here we go folks! Fight Montages!
Van Damme eventually links up with an old man who is a master thai fighting teacher, bringing with him more than the brutal art of kickboxing. He also shows Van Damme the way to spiritual peace and offers some Zen philosophy.
Sound familiar? But no bonsai trees here my friend!
Finally, Van Damme lines up his match with the badass bangkok champ Tong Po, but to ensure that Van Damme will lose the match the bad ass thai fighters agent sends some bangkok boys to rape and pillage his sweet little thai girlfriend mylee, (dam and she was a virgin!) then they kidnap his wheelchair-bound brother and even resort to sticking a knife in his little dog. (how f**Ked up is that?) Come on..take a mans woman, kidnap his crippled brother and stick his dog too? Dammmmmmmm! no.....VAN DAMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!, These are not nice thai boys at all. Nope they are Tong Po's boys and the little dogs lucky he didnt get eaten!
Now if you can't figure out how the rest of the story goes and how the climactic kickboxing bout will turn out, you've been in a cave for the past decade-and-a-half. And the acting in this film is pretty good although Van Dammes acting is off but hey atlest he kicks ass! But wait! This is no ordinary Kickboxing match my friend, this is old skool thai fighting with broken glass embedded into thier hand wraps, how kool is that? That my friends is what made this movie work, old skool hand to glass combat! HELLLLLLLLL YEAAAAAAAA!
So what's my favorite part? The soundtrack of course and Van Dammes hot little thai girl friend mylee, and of course all that Van Damage, And Tong Po was the supreme ultimo badass villian in this movie! There is just something kool about a guy who kicks concrete pillars for fun!
8/10 Stars