Jean-Claude Van Damme stars in this classic martial arts tournament film about an American kickboxer in Thailand who trains in Muay Thai to compete against a vicious local champion (Michel Qissi) responsible for paralyzing his brother (Dennis Alexio). It’s a modest yet generally well crafted and entertaining B-movie that features Van Damme in all of his sculpted, loincloth-wearing glory performing some of the best kicking action of his film career.
KICKBOXER was the brainchild of Van Damme and producer Mark DiSalle. After Van Damme had his breakout success portraying controversial martial artist Frank Dux in BLOODSPORT, the pair followed up with KICKBOXER as a way for the Belgian martial artist to showcase more of his own strengths which included his Shokotan karate training and abilities to perform the splits and powerful spinning jump kicks.
Upon its release in 1989, KICKBOXER quickly became a big box office hit for distributor Cannon Films, the same company responsible for releasing the AMERICAN NINJA series and a number of Chuck Norris actioners. Based on this success, production company Kings Road Entertainment went on to produce four lesser sequels without the involvement of Van Damme or DiSalle. For these films, Van Damme was replaced first by taekwondo artist and former amateur kickboxing champion Sasha Mitchell and later by future BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF star Mark Dacascos.
The original KICKBOXER is a textbook example of solid, B-grade action filmmaking from the 1980s, the kind that holds up well 20 years later. The reason for this success is that it sticks to a basic, streamlined genre formula of an underdog fighter training up his skills and beating a vicious bad guy without a lot of fluff. As a low-budget film, KICKBOXER uses its limited assets well by maintaining the same adequate standard throughout. Acting isn’t great but is passable. Martial arts training and fighting are simple yet effective. Despite a few gaffes and rather plain art direction, production standards are above standard for a $1.5 million film released in 1989. The same movie today would cost over $2.5 million and I don’t see many action films today in that price range looking as good.
Real-life American kickboxing champion Dennis Alexio makes his only major film appearance as Eric Sloane, a fictional American kickboxing champion who travels to Thailand with his younger brother and corner man, Kurt (Van Damme), to take on local Muay Thai champion Tong Po.
Although Tong Po was originally credited as being portrayed by an actor named “Tong Po,” the actor’s real name was Michel Qissi. The Moroccan-born actor’s odd facial features were the result of make-up to make him look more Asian. As the story goes, he was originally working on the film as a choreographer when he decided to try out for the part of the villain who was supposed to be Asian. He got the role partly because he had some background in Muay Thai, no doubt also because he was a longtime friend of Van Damme.
As Van Damme and Qissi were doing all the choreography and most of the screen fighting, the actual representation of Muay Thai, is weak compared to more authentic representations in films like Chang Cheh’s DUEL OF FISTS (1971) and ONG BAK (2003).
Van Damme’s mentor in the film is played by Hong Kong actor Dennis Chan. His performance is reminiscent of Joel Gray’s turn as “Chiun,” Fred Ward’s martial arts master in REMO WILLIAMS: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS. That is to say, while Chan presents an endearing, slight caricature of the stereotypical martial arts master, his fighting ability is a gimmick. In this case, choice editing is used to suggest that Chan’s character is capable of leaping into the air and performing a series of “no-shadow” style kicks that neither the recipient nor audience gets to see clearly. What this has to do with Muay Thai boxing is beyond me.
Given the film’s ill-defined depiction of Muay Thai, the training sequences are predictably light on form and philosophy. Instead, the focus remains on body conditioning, which in all fairness is what most of the old kung fu classics emphasized as well. Along with having his legs spread apart by ropes, having large melons dropped on his torso and being forced to perform katas while submerged underwater, Van Damme’s character experiences spiritualism with the suggestion that he learns to channel the spirits of long-dead Thai warriors.
The best training-related sequence is more of an odd test where Van Damme is taken to a local bar, bought enough drinks to make him drunk, whereby he is enticed to begin dancing with two Thai ladies. All of this is apparently a plan by his master to essentially pick a bar fight with the locals. It succeeds and this results in Van Damme performing a little drunken kickboxing. It’s silly but consistent with the general tone of the movie.
The film’s highlight is the big finale as Van Damme takes on Qissi in an underground match. To spice it up, the combatants are instructed to fight in the “old way” which involves getting greased up, wearing immodest loincloths and having glass shards glued to their wrapped up knuckles. Given these circumstances and the number of uncomfortable crotch shots in this sequence, the fight veers slightly into the realm of sadism and exhibitionism.
The glass fragments are a particularly effective and well played addition to the end fight as most viewers would more readily identify with a cut by glass than getting pummeled by high kicks or chopped with a sword. I’ve seen a lot of gruesome martial arts action but seeing Van Damme get his face and abdomen raked by glass shards is truly painful to watch even though I’d say the make-up effects seriously underrate the amount of damage sustained. For one thing, there isn’t enough blood given the number of facial cuts. The face of Van Damme’s character should have looked like hamburger after the beating he received but realism wasn’t a primary concern here.
The fight choreography definitely plays to Van Damme’s strengths and features plenty of dramatic kicks. The sparing is a bit simplistic. There are too many convenient set up shots with combatants standing around to patiently wait for a perfectly executed roundhouse or spin kick from Van Damme. This is especially true near the end as Van Damme keeps his opponent stunned and generally inert, yet standing for a whole series of kicks that may as well have been executed on a padded dummy.
A Foreigner-style pop rock soundtrack with original tunes from songwriters and producers Paul Hertzog and Mike Piccirillo provide appropriate accompaniment to fit the era. Hertzog also scored BLOODSPORT and later provided music for the Bolo Yeung martial arts actioner BREATHING FIRE (1992).
by Mark PollardRelated Topics:
Jean-Claude Van Damme • Kickboxer (1989) • Kickboxing • Muay Thai
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