With the world seemingly crazy enough as it is, I felt like taking a look at a movie that's not only also crazy, but largely driven by the ramblings of a crazy person. It's also the breakthrough piece of renowned thespian Jean Claude Van Damme, whose most subtle and sublime performances we've touched on, but supposedly the favorite film of Donald Trump (who also reportedly likes to skip to just the good bits). With such pedigree, how can you go wrong with this 'un?
To put things in proper context, we must take a look at a mister Frank Dux, who, erm, is quite something. Dux, who ran his own 'dojo' back in the eighties, claimed to have been trained by a bona fide ninjitsu master in the slopes of Japan, undertook super-duper-secret black ops missions for the US military in the jungles of Asia, and quite possibly travelled to the year 3000 to beat an evil robot king too. He also claimed to have partaken in a secret martial arts contest, wherein he achieved a fight record that only makes sense if he 'roided himself up on Captain America's super soldier serum. That means that as far as he's concerned, this film is autobiographical. Keep that in mind now!
Monsieur Van Damme as such was given the honor to portray the great Dux in this film, with the only real deviations from his life story being that this version of the man speaks with a thick Belgian accent, and has severe difficulty emoting anything besides 'being good at kicking things'. We see a young Dux being trained by a Japanese master and all, because at some point the real one watched The Karate Kid and decided he could be a billion times more badass than that wuss Daniel. Oh, forgive me, this is a true story and all--wherein teenagers go around stealing katana blades from actual ninjas.
Anyway, Van Duxamme, grown up and in the US Army, has become most adept at the fine art of beating the shit out of people with his feet, and probably could've totally won 'Nam by himself had he been there too. He receives his invitation to the Kumite tournament in Hong Kong, and seeing as ninja martial arts aren't actually that useful in the rather more firearm focused military, tells his superiors to go screw themselves and heads off to the far east. A pair of US army agents, one of which is played by a young Forest Whitaker, go after him in a subplot that's only worth it to see Duxamme resolve it by deflecting tasers back onto guys with a garbage lid. This is a true story remember.
I'm getting too far ahead of myself--we need to focus on the actual Kumite scenes, where Duxamme gets to witness his main rival, Chong Li, played by Hong Kong movie legend Bolo Yeung. Having squared off against Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon, Bolo now presents something JCVD just can't compete with: his...goddamn...PECS. I'm not one to ordinarily obsess over male musculature, but in this case...I can't help but be in awed by those chest muscles that probably make structural steel look like play-doh.
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| uyr3w5bvrt9w3n49n23....sorry, that was just my face fainting onto the keyboard from the sheer majesty. |
Anyway, blah blah blah, we see a bunch of ever-ridiculous fights that all lead up to what we paid money to see: Duxamme vs Bolo! At this moment, any semblance of reality flies out of the movie like a tossed pair of nunchuks as we enter the deep deranged wet dreams of Frank Dux's imagination. It starts of pretty standard, as JCVD, who trained primarily in kick-boxing, displays his fight strategy of kick some more, then kicking some more, and finishing it off with more kicking. He also displays the true breadth of his acting range here, as we are greeted to the infamous shot of him seemingly shitting his black belt-tied shorts.
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| For the love of god, kids, never EVER have kim chi and week-old steak combos. |
Around this time Duxamme also goes into some sort of weird trance, whereupon he now seems to be channelling your typical televangelist.
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| "Yes, lord? You agree that TimeCop isn't an utterly stupid waste of time?! I knew it! HALLELUJAH!" |
And so, channelling the holy power of Mr. Dux's self-delusion, Duxamme delivers a backwards kick that looks about as convincing as anything out of Infra-Man. Thus, the film is concluded, and we are treated to more of Stan Bush's soundtrack, which sets itself on the lofty goal of delivering some of the cheesiest eighties ballads you can imagine. And with such classics like 'On My Own' boasting lyrics to the effect of 'Waaaaah doesn't anyone laaaaavh me' and 'weeeeeh have all maaaaaaah friends gonnnnnne', it sure gets damn close!
What a glorious mess. Dux to this day continues to swear that the Kumite and all that was actually true, and that anything to the contrary is merely part of the US military's effort to cover up just how awesome he is (I'm not even kidding). Maybe it's true, and Dux is really just so reality-bendingly superhuman, that him actually displaying any of his unparalleled skills would just shatter our mere mortal minds.
Still, this film boasts a legacy. Venerable fighting videogame series Mortal Kombat was originally to be based on this, with character Johnny Cage directly based on JCVD in this flick, yet the Muscles From Brussels went for the film version of rival title Street Fighter. Wrap your head around that one. Now, as a film, Street Fighter largely sees Van Damme overshadowed by the orgasmically overacting Raul Julia, but if you really want to see the former mug the camera, go for Bloodsport. Hell, silly fights, absurd characters, eighties music that outmasses the entirety of France for cheesiness? You can't go wrong with this one. Get your kicks up and give it a watch!
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