Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme
Plot Summary: Uh, he kicks the shit out of people. Have you never seen a Van Damme movie?
When he's not fighting his twin brother/clone in a Freudian case study or playing a cyborg, Jean-Claude Van Damme can be found kickboxing. Directors have found that if you leave a camera on him kickboxing for a couple hours you've got yourself the better part of a movie. Most of the time, that movie is complete crap. But if you get the right setting, storyline, and supporting cast, genius is created. Bloodsport is just such a movie, a film that blends together the timeless themes of honor, kickboxing, and latent homosexuality.
The movie opens with Jean-Claude plays Frank Dux, on leave from the Army to fight in the proud, historic, and most of all, brutal full-contact martial-arts tournament known as the Kumite. He visits his dying instructor, Senzo Tanaka, played by Roy Chiao who shows great range in being able to look Japanese. Jean-Claude flashes back and forth between his first encounter with Senzo, the death of Senzo's son, and the subsequent training of Jean-Claude as an honorary Japanese. This unprecedented fifteen-minute, three-level flashback brings the audience a sense of plot development, and temporal disorientation, that is missing in most martial arts movies.
Karate training in the Shidoshi clan is based on getting beaten savagely while blindfolded. Jean-Claude's senses are gradually sharpened until he can learn no more from being kicked in the face while blindfolded. At that point Jean-Claude learns about the proud culture of the Shidoshi clan by performing the tea ceremony for Senzo and his wife. Blindfolded.
Jean-Claude flies to Hong Kong in search of the ancient tournament, held in a rat's nest in the warehouse district. On a bus he meets Donald Gibb, building on his role as Ogre in the Revenge of the Nerds franchise, portraying Ray Jackson. There is instant friction after Jean-Claude interferes with Ogre's attempts to sexually harass a Chinese girl on the bus. In an exchange dripping with homosexual tension, Ogre asks Jean-Claude, "Aren't you a little young for full contact?" Although some may call that a stretch, the exact same line is used in Turkish Prison 4: Sensual Awakening. Using the time-honored male bonding ritual of video game karate, the two become fast friends. Ogre reveals he is also participating in the Kumite, representing the drunken Irish brawling fighting style.The next day Jean-Claude, dressed in a scoop neck shirt designed to show off maximum cleavage, has his qualifications questioned at the registration desk for the illegal, shadowy martial arts tournament. In a classic example of martial-arts reverse discrimination, Jean-Claude is decreed too Belgian to represent the Shidoshi clan. He must prove his qualifications by performing the famous Shidoshi "death touch." Jean-Claude strikes a stack of five bricks, causing the bottom brick to explode in slow motion. Chong Li (played ably by Bolo Yeung), a Chinese man more top-heavy than Pamela Anderson, mocks him in broken English, "Very good, but brick not hit back." Reportedly, Chong Li actually ad-libbed that line.
Registration day over, Jean-Claude hits the hotel bar where some of the extras are harassing a blonde reporter named Janice, played by veteran television guest star Leah Ayres. Jean-Claude comes to her rescue by wagering her in a game of "I Bet This Human Being's Life I Can Grab a Coin out of Your Hand." Luckily, Tanaka trained Jean-Claude to grab goldfish out of a pond just for this occasion. Jean-Claude, using nothing more than rudimentary camera tricks, is able to not only grab the coin out of the extra's hand, but replace it with another coin. His powers confirmed, the others back down, winning the girl's freedom and a date the next night.
The tournament starts the next day. While two of the extras fight, the rules are explained. Two men beat the living snot out of each other until (a) one of them is knocked unconscious, or (b) one of them resigns and screams, "Mate!" which translates roughly to "You have shattered my pelvis! Please cease and desist." Director Newt Arnold makes a bold decision to use the 80s power ballad to set the tone for the first martial arts montage. Normally the power ballad is used to alert the audience that the scene contains deep emotions, sweet loving, a motorcycle, or any combination of the three. This is the only documented case of using the power ballad for watching extras getting brutally beaten.
Chong Li steals the scene. In fact, he damn near steals the whole movie despite the skilled kickboxing of Jean-Claude. Chong Li is a student of American film, and so understands that he holds special privileges due to having the largest breasts in the cast. His bulging eyes and dancing pecs are intimidating while stopping just short of cartoonish, and his skilled voice mechanics enhance the martial arts experience by making himself sound poorly dubbed.After Day One Jean-Claude encounters the sub-plot in the form of two army investigators Helmer and Rawlins, played by Norman Burton (who played Felix Leiter in Diamonds Are Forever) and Forest Whitaker (fresh off his successes in Good Morning Vietnam), who were cast in order to fulfill the demand by the Screen Actors Guild that some actors be used in the film. The two serve as a kind of black and white buddy cop device, except that they play the role completely straight, reminiscent of Slim Pickens' role in Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
They demand that Jean-Claude withdraw from the tournament and return to his post, and have tasers to ensure his cooperation. All seems lost, but Ogre comes barreling to the rescue, knocking over both men and half the set. This gives Jean-Claude a chance to start a chase scene through the alleys, streets, and docks of Hong Kong, complete with a chase-scene power ballad. Jean-Claude evades them in time to make his date with, and get in the pants of, Janice the Blonde Reporter.
Day Two of the tournament opens with several matches between extras, which are rather exciting since you don't know which one is going to win. Jean-Claude is called to fight a big fat Chinese guy who is impervious to all attacks except a punch right square in the groin. The crowd roars wildly for Jean-Claude after the mighty groin punch, and Janice the Blonde Reporter looks at him with a mixture of awe and admiration.
Then Ogre meets the fate of most best friends in action movies. After knocking Chong Li down, he commits hubris. Instead of jumping repeatedly on Chong Li's neck, face, or genitals, he prances around the ring in an excess of pride worthy of Sophocles or the WWF. Chong Li rises, snaps Ogre's neck, and in the ultimate insult, steals his Harley-Davidson bandana.
We cut to Jean-Claude and Janice the Blonde Reporter at the hospital bed of Ogre. Jean-Claude promises vengeance, but Janice is concerned that Chong Li's kung fu is more powerful than his. Jean-Claude finds himself torn - on the one hand, Ogre has been his closest friend for almost three days, and on the other, Janice has some sweet ass. He contemplates his next move the only way Jean-Claude can: by flexing his muscles and doing the splits on the rooftop of a skyscraper to a stirring power ballad.
Everywhere Jean-Claude goes, he is haunted by the image of Chong Li - in the crowds in Hong Kong, in the reflections in a subway window. At last the final match comes. Jean-Claude, who has been wearing less and less in each fight, now sports a pair of bike shorts. Chong Li and Jean-Claude flex menacingly at each other. It's kind of like a gladiator movie starring Harvey Fierstein and Nathan Lane, except with more homosexual tension.
Jean-Claude proves too much for Chong Li, so the wily Asian crumbles a white pill of magic blinding powder into his hands. He blows the talcum powder into Jean-Claude's face, blurring out his vision completely. Although this is apparently legal in the Kumite, Jean-Claude is able to fall back on his blindfolded tea ceremony training and beat the living snot out of Chong Li. He forces him to yell "Mate," thus winning the biggest victory for the white man in a harsh Asian world since the Opium Wars.
Back at the hospital, Ogre has recovered in time to hear Jean-Claude's story of triumph. Jean-Claude returns the bandana, coyly saying, "Next time you fight, remember to keep your clothes on." Ogre looks back at him with misty eyes and says, "Any time, any place." The director resists the urge to overdirect, and merely implies the heartfelt "I love you."
Bloodsport has ass-whooping, romance, more ass-whooping, and the deep bond that only men who fight each other half-naked can understand. I would have to say that this is the greatest movie I have ever seen.
1 comment:
Damn, well done. Just yesterday I fished out my old VHS copy so I could watch all those Hussein scenes again. His "Very good!" line cracks me up for some reason...
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