Review: Bloodsport (1988)

After sitting through a couple of movies that made me go "meh", I felt like watching something that I knew kicked major ass, so I popped the 1988 Jean-Claude van Damme epic Bloodsport into the DVD player. Before you start looking for this display of manliness at your local shop, make sure that you stay clear from the sequels, as all the good stuff is kept in the original.

Van Damme takes every opportunity to show that he's more agile than you

Bloodsport tells the "based on a true story" tale of Frank Dux (van Damme) who escapes his army base to defend the honor of dying sensei Generic Miyagi Ripoff in a no-holds-barred underground asskicking contest in Hong Kong. When he isn't simultaenously staying clear from government agents (including a young Forest Whitaker who is actually so bad he makes van Damme look good) and flexing his muscles in beautifully choreographed fight scenes, he finds time to befriend a cross-eyed retard and gets in bed with a hot undercover journalist.

Two out of three characters will end up in the water. Can you guess which?

The main villain Chong Li, played by Bolo Yeung, is a textbook fighting-movie-antagonist-whom-the-hero-inevitably-will-face-in-the-final-of-the-tournament, whose Evil Move^TM is to flex his pecs and utter one-liners such as "Brick not hit back" when Frank warms up by smashing brickstones. If you recognize the quote from somewhere, it might just be from Enter the Dragon, where Bruce Lee says "Board not hit back" after one of the goons displays his awesome wood-breaking powers. It might be a cheap rip-off of a macho quote, but as I love the movie I'll call it a homage based on the fact that Enter the Dragon's textbook fighting-movie-antagonist-whom-the-hero-inevitably-will-face-in-the-final-of-the-tournament is also played by Bolo Yeung, who might just be the greatest martial arts villain of the last century.

Van Damme is at the peak of his athleticism and fighting skill in the movie

It's hard to put the finger on the single greatest part of Bloodsport. The fight scenes are excellent, and the movie contains everything a great fighting flick should contain: 80s pop songs, Benny Hill-inspired chase scenes, bad acting, stereotype characters that range from hilarious to outright offensive, a fighting montage, a training montage, another fighting montage, a flashback TO the training montage in the final fight, and of course nudity, although it's a bit disappointing since it's van Damme's ass.

The other black fighter uses a chimpanzee fighting style (no, seriously)

All in all, this is probably the best of all Jean-Claude van Damme's movies. It manages to catch all the aspects you'll be looking for in the genre, and has such an 80's feeling over it that I'm surprised my hair wasn't in a perm when the end credits rolled.