They have a flash logo and are always looking for freshies.
Since we're not really into athletic women murdering each other on a track for three hours, we decided to stay in and have pizza, beer and watch a movie. But not just any movie - an 80's action movie.
Since Kyle's birthday in July, we've already been through the Patrick Swayze ultimate collection - Road House, Youngblood, Kyle watched Red Dawn for his birthday and, most importantly, Point Break. If you haven't seen Point Break, or don't know what it is, you should go rent it now. It's amazingly 90's.
Point Break was Academy-Award winning director Kathryn Bigelow's directorial debut. Movie poster copyright of 20th Century Fox.
Now, 80's action movies range in setting, structure and characters, but they always have two things in common - hair and music. With that in mind, let me present you with my review of Jean-Claude Van Damme's 1989 classic Kickboxer, a movie which spawned FOUR sequels in the early 90's, of which I've seen two and may review at a later date.
I will presenting this review as an overview of the structure of ANY Jean-Claude Van Damme movie, in the event that you haven't seen as many of his works as I have.
Of those listed on his imdb profile page. Of the 49 listed movies, I've actually seen 11 of them - so I think I'm more than qualified to run through it.
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There are at least six reasons why I like this movie.
Stage 1: The Setup
Every movie needs a setup. The setup is the exposition bit that tells you what the movie's about. This can take various forms - Lord of the Rings had a 5 minute opening deal with the story of the ring's creation, Avatar had a 25 minute opening exposition scene with Sigourney Weaver and The Lion King had aa five minute tribal migration bit introducing us to The Lion King. But I preferred the Animaniacs version that was only 1:14.
As applied to JCVD Movies:
You learn about the Bloodsport, Legionnaire, Street Fighter, Universal Soldier, whatever. In Kickboxer, it's a 30 second fight scene showing a Kickboxing match. Inspired. Clearly the plots are less complex than the movies noted above.
Stage 2: The Motivation / Revenue
OK, that was supposed to read "revenge" but, as you can see, I use the word revenue approximately 1000 times per week and my use of the word revenge is somewhat restricted. Anyway, something needs to the drive the plot of every movie. Usually you learn something in the Setup that hints at what the rest of the film will be about. In Point Break, there's a robbery featuring people wearing Richard Nixon masks - the plot thus becomes about catching the robbers. In the Green Lantern, Parallax gets released and starts destroying planets - Ryan Reynolds thus needs to stop him.
Like a Boss. Photo picked off of www.scifiscoop.com
As applied to JCVD Movies:
There's usually an initial plot, which involves either a bad guy trying to achieve something evil, or one of his mates tries to do something horribly self-centered and gets pwned (and probably teabagged).
8. teabagging
A term heavily used in the first-person shooter multiplayer online game "Battlefield 2." Teabagging is referred as, upon a successful kill of another player, crouching over the head of the victim's dead body as they lay on their back (dead); and doing so repeatedly in a "teabagging" motion. This act is to shame and humiliate the victim player, and usually incites anger and violence. This act is not unlike dances performed by football players after a touchdown.
"John began teabagging Jane after his hand grenade blew up next to her head; this angered Jane greatly."
[extract for this reference from Urban Dictionary - read other entries at your own Not Safe for Work risk]
Against his wishes, our sympathetic hero JCVD has to do the heroic thing and either kick the crap out of the bad guy, or avenge the mate who got pwned hard. In Kickboxer, JCVD's egotistical brother wins the World Kickboxing Championship, then flies to Thailand to fight the Thai champion, because they invented the sport or something.
Wikipedia tells me that kickboxing was invented in Japan in the 1960's, so the filmmakers might have been confused about the difference between Muay Thai vs. Kickboxing because UFC wasn't invented until 1993, but it's also possible that Thailand offered fantastic film and television tax credits in 1989.
Sadly, I've heard that the clubbing in Thailand is amazing. I'll probably never find out for myself, as I can think of many better ways to spend thousands of dollars and six weeks of my life. Stock image from WikiTravel.
The revenge scene was set up in Kickboxer when the Thai champ (photo below) beats the piss out of JCVD's brother, and then for good measure elbows his spine and paralyzes him for life.
According to the plot, the reason the brother lost was because he wasn't educated in Muay Thai, which is superior to American Kickboxing. So we need some character development.
Stage 3: The Characters
The characters are probably my favourite element of any JCVD movie. It's primarily because, right from the getgo, the filmmakers are saddled with the task of making a French-accented Belgian guy as American as possible.
Hero - JCVD
Let's be honest - JCVD is no Gerard Depardieu (and thankfully, to my knowledge, has never peed on a plane and caused Anderson Cooper to lose it entirely on air), so they never bother getting him to attempt an American accent.
To get around this, JCVD movies just insert a slightly ridiculous explanation for why he sounds Un-American. In Bloodsport, he was a French special agent seconded to the US Military for some reason. In Street Fighter . . . well, they never got around to explaining why Lt. Guile from Miami sounded sort of French. Oops.
To make JCVD as American as possible, he needs a name like Frank, Kurt, Alex, William Guile, Sam, etc. Universal Soldier was admittedly an exception.
Irrational Mate - Brother (Kickboxer)
Kickboxer is singularly amazing for portraying these two actors as brothers.
From this still, we've immediately got two hurdles to jump. The brothers are different races, and one of them has a heavy French accent. The explanation in the movie comes about five minutes in - here's my paraphrased retelling.
"I missed you, bro. After Mom and Dad got divorced when we were in grade school, and I stayed with him in California and you moved to Brussels to live with Mom, we were really separated." Seriously. That's the explanation.
Fry is uncertain whether this explanation holds water
But fortunately for the filmmakers, Star Trek V, Karate Kid III and Patrick Swayze's aforementioned Road House swept the Golden Raspberries that year.
Only Woman in the Universe - Some Thai Girl (Kickboxer)
No JCVD movie passes The Bechdel Test. But they throw a woman into the mix to teach young boys that, to be a lover, you have to be a fighter. Fantastic lesson if I ever heard one. Her role is restricted to cooking meals for JCVD while he trains with her uncle (the Yoda).
Culturally Diverse Local Guide - Taylor (Kickboxer)
The culturally diverse sidekick acts as cocking glue to seal up any holes that appear in JCVD's activities. In Kickboxer, Taylor is an ex-marine African American who's been living in Thailand for several years. Taylor knows the kickboxing circuit, which is convenient because JCVD needs to break into it. Taylor also knows this guy who's awesome at Muay Thai, which is also convenient because JCVD needs to learn it. Finally, Taylor has a pimp van, dresses like a pimp and is scene with Thai whores on several occasions. Not a stereotype AT ALL.
Yoda - Some Old Thai Guy (Kickboxer)
The Yoda figure is a staple in every JCVD movie. Usually, our hero doesn't have the necessary interpersonal skills and support to accomplish his end goal at the start of the movie, so he needs a trainer to show him how to learn.
This can take the form of being unable to kick a man's head right off his shoulders, or perhaps he hasn't yet learned to do the splits all the way.
Yes, that is one of my favourite screens of all time, from Bloodsport.
Learning from Yoda always culminates in . . .
Stage 4 - The Montage (Always Fade Out in a Montage . . .)
Eventually, JCVD meets the Yoda, and passes some sort of dumb test to get yoda to agree to train him. Then we have the start of the training, where JCVD has trouble running across a bridge, or suspending himself in the splits between two chairs (see above). There tends to be a lot of punching and kicking of trees and/or gym bags with awesome 80's action music in the background (turn on this Youtube clip while you read the rest of this post).
Once the montage is over, we usually get a scene to show JCVD's development as a person, where he's become a better fighter or something. In *one* of his movies, and I can't remember which one, it involved breaking concrete blocks with his hand. Since he couldn't do it before, showing a clip of it shows the viewer that Young Jedi ready he is.
In Kickboxer, he goes to a bar with Yoda and gets really pissed (ANZ slang - drunk). Then he beats the piss out of 10 local toughs, while intoxicated. And this all starts when he dances with one of their girls. This fight scene is also a montage, which nearly blew my mind.
This is an actual still from the movie. Apparently he learned to dance when living with Mom in France.
Stage 5: The Boss Fight
The end scene of any JCVD movie replicates the Nintendo Hard aspect of most ancient beat-em up games, like Final Fight, Double Dragon, Streets of Rage or a few of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle games. The commonality of these beat-em up games is they become IMPOSSIBLE to complete without Game Genie. Sometimes, once you've Genie'd to the end, it's STILL really difficult to "win."
At the end of the JCVD movie is the boss fight. Aside from JCVD trying to win revenge upon his opponent (see above), they usually Up the Stakes as well. This can include turning the fight into a deathmatch of some sort, or it could be a shoot-out with guns or a fighting match with a flying electrical bad guy.
In Kickboxer, they up the stakes by turning it into a "traditional" Thai kickboxing match. This means it has to be set in a dark underground cave lit by torchlight, and the competitors need to wrap their hands in bandages, then sticky tar, then shards of glass. So now both JCVD and the Big Bad can cut a bitch with their hands.
As expected, the Boss Fight ends with a JCVD win by knockout (and he NEVER kills the guy because Americans don't retaliate like that) and he gets the girl.
FIN
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