Kickboxer: Retaliation [2018]

A long time ago we watched "Kickboxer," the movie where Van Damme learns to kickbox to get revenge for his brother being paralyzed in Thailand. In his own time Adam has been watching through the entire "Kickboxer" series, which stops featuring Van Damme and eventually got rebooted. The seventh movie, called "Kickboxer: Retaliation," was the one he deemed most worthy of a rewatch.

The movie starts with a perfume commercial of an opening where a man and woman dance in a fancy train car before the woman is kidnapped and the man has to fight a bunch of NPCs. This may have been a dream, it's unclear, but in reality he is a famous fighter who is kidnapped and thrown into a Thai prison that's basically a fight club. Why? Apparently he killed someone in a previous film and now they want him to fight his huge bear (as Erik dubbed him). When he refuses, he goes to prison where he meets Mike Tyson and Van Damme, now playing a different character who's blind and here to train him. Main character decides to do the fight after they kidnap his wife, the dancing lady from the intro. At one point the wife gets punched and sent to the hospital, but she's okay. Then the main guy fights the bear since he already agreed to do it. He wins. The end.

There's a lot of what including:

• A newspaper called "Nation International"
• A "Bad to the Bone" rip off blues song during a long fight sequence
• Words in subtitles being different colors and in bold for no reason
• Rapid fire cuts
• The crowd shouting "white warrior" to the main even though the bear is white too.
• The wife injecting the main with a mysterious syringe to wake up during the right.

So how was it? It was okay. It had some laughs, but it was definitely too long at over an hour and a half. I would recommend the first few minutes and a YouTube video of the dance they do before a Muay Thai match that was completely left out of this so-accurate film.

Spoon Rating: 4

Kickboxer [1989]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

Last Monday we watched what I believe is the fourth Van Damme movie since Bad Movie Night started: "Kickboxer." Since this movie is about 75% filler, it's impossible for me to give a summary without explaining the entire movie. Van Damme is American (as always and inexplicably) and after his brother wins a kickboxing championship he decides to go to Thailand to fight Tong Po, the undefeated champion of Thailand. He gets paralyzed so Van Damme decides to learn Muay Thai from a master so he can avenge his brother. There are a few disposable side characters who contribute nothing but mostly the film is Van Damme training among the beautiful scenery of Bangkok. And in case you didn't get enough training montages the first time, there's also a ton of sequels and a planned reboot coming soon. All in all, "Bloodspot" is funnier and has slightly more plot if you want an 80s Van Damme fighting movie but at least there's plenty of hilarious Van Damme faces as he tries so very hard to emote.

Quotes:

"I'm in the best ship of my life! I'm a butter fighter!" (transcribed phonetically from Van Damme's dialogue)

"GOODBYE TO BUGS" (the last thing listed in the credits without explanation)

Adam's Grandma's Review: "Wasn't bad."