Kickboxer

Rating:
Summary: Killed my appetite.
Review: On a nostalgia kick recently, I stocked up on several martial arts thrillers I loved ten years or so back, including this little stinker, KICKBOXER.

An early Van Damme flick, this followed the superior (as I recall - I'm no longer willing to refresh my memory) BLOODSPORT released one year earlier, and the "plot" is the cookie-cutter revenge for maimed/killed relative standard for this genre and, because all anyone watching this wants is the action, that is easily overlooked. Still, the screenplay is SO bad, it is hard to sit through the slow bits (and there are a lot) to get to the fight scenes. The acting is just plain terrible as well. Van Damme's acting skills hadn't matured (try not to laugh) yet and Dennis Alexio's "performance," even for a non-actor, as Van Damme's brother is downright painful to watch. The show-stealer here is the largely silent Michel Qissi as Tong Po, radiating real evil. This performance, however, no matter how strong, could not save this film.

The big "final fight," as usual is the highlight of this movie, but it's simply not worth sitting through the terrible soundtrack (oh my, it's bad), screenplay, and acting to get to it. Still, the film spawned at least four sequels, so perhaps I'm missing some of the appeal. As far as my hunger for late 80s action cheese, I'll have to stick with Steven Seagal - KICKBOXER left a bad taste in my mouth. One star because the sixteen year-old in me once found something to love in this movie and one star for Michel Qissi.

Rating:
Summary: Wow! This is crap!
Review: I just watched this movie and thus conclude: Horrible acting, unrealistic portrayal of Thai kick boxing, unrealism in general, dumb characters, obviously not brothers that look alike, and of course, that was definitely not Thailand in the eighties. All in all bad movie. Avoid. also avoid all other Jean Claude Van Damme movies except maybe Universal Soldier.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Action Movie!
Review: This was a very good movie about karate fighting. Van Damme's brother who is champion of the arena takes on a new challenger. After watching the new challenger warming up Van Damme urges his brother to drop out of the fight. Van Damme's brother loses the fight and his title. He is also paralyzed as a result of the beating that he recieves from the Thai fighter. Van Damme decides to seek vengance for his brother's injury. He learns the Thai method of karate from a master. He has a few fights before he fights the man who crippled hid brother. Van Damme is finally able to gain vengance after a wild battle. Once again Van Damme prevails. This is a very good movie that you should watch. You will not be dissapointed.

Rating:
Summary: What a marvellous stuff!
Review: Well, to be honest, I think this is an excellent film. It has lots of fighting scenes. My favourite bit of this film is when Jean Claude Vandamme training with his master. I have actually watched it about seven times now and I still not get enough of it. Some other people say this film only worth four stars, but in my opinion this film worth at least four and half stars. I am actually is a karate kid, so when I was watching this film, I could learn a lot of kicks from it. So if anyone is very keen at karate, they should definitely buy this, not just rent it! Fool!

Rating:
Summary: Van Damme was never in better shape than in this film.
Review: NO, it is not a great film and it is corny. However due to Van Damme's fantastic build in this film as well as supporting roles by real kickboxer Dennis Alexio and the great "Tiger" Tong Po playing himself, the film is entertaining for a fan of the genre. I also found the training sequences to be very inspiring if watched while working out. Overall, an engaging movie with bad acting (JCVD must do the worst job of acting drunk in all of film history, but hey, he's never gonna be Foster Brooks.) that a martial arts fan can appreciate. It also brought Muay Tai into the bad action movie spotlight for years to come.

Rating:
Summary: Loads of Van Dammage
Review: This film is a must for the die hard Van Damme fans like me, if you like a good martial arts movie then kickboxer is definitely worth a look. This is one of Van Damme's early movies and shows off his martial arts skills beautifully. With the movie being set in thai land it gives it more of a hong kong martial arts movie touch. Perfect.

Rating:
Summary: AWESOME FLICK! 1
Review: This is one of the greatest fight flicks ever. Van Damme is awesome in the training scenes as well as the fight scenes, and he is clearly the film's main fighter, but Tong Po is good and scary as the villain. The final showdown is one of the greatest kickboxing scenes ever.

Rating:
Summary: Almost as good as Star Wars
Review: Kickboxer was a good movie, it made me wanna go out and start kicking people after I saw it. It was kinda like Star Wars in a way, so If you liked Star Wars see this movie! The only thing that was wrong was that there wasn't much kickboxing in space, like in part 4. Otherwise see this movie or I will kick you. I am the greatest.

Rating:
Summary: I want Tung Po. GIVE ME TUNG PO!
Review: By far one of the most entertaining martial arts movie from Van Damme. Not Su Cow Not Su Cow.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent film
Review: Kickboxer, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme is one of the best films he ever made. I will even go as far as to say that Kickboxer is among the greatest films of all time. I am a martial arts genre lover, so yes I do have somewhat of a bias. The film,however, brings to light many philosophical issues, and deals with them in an excellent manner. Take for instance the idea of being the best, and what it takes to achieve one's objective. There are many examples of this, but one is that Eric Sloane was too confident in his abilities, and had no respect for how other countries approach martial training. Muay Thai was more than just what one does as a hobby or pursuit, but a way of life, and to be the best, meant serious concentration of effort and years of hardcore training. As a result, Sloane gets beaten quite soundly by the true champ, Tong Po. This is the lesson that is realized by Kurt Sloane, when training with Xian. He learns what it takes to be the best, the trials, the tribulations, the frustrations and the discipline. This film is incredible on all levels. If you just want to be entertained, then by all means go see it.