Bloodsport

Prepare for muscles, mustaches and mayhem during CANNON FILMS FOREVER Month at Mondo Mondays, celebrating awesome ‘80s action flicks from the studio that blew up the world! Cannon Films closed up shop in 1994, but 30 years later, their legend lives on!

“The secret contest where the world’s greatest warriors fight in a battle to the death!” It’s The Muscles from Brussels vs. Everyone Else when Jean-Claude Van Damme enters the ring, busts a lot of heads and causes some major Van Damage in the martial arts madness known as Bloodsport! “International martial arts sensation” Jean-Claude Van Damme made his leading man debut in this Cannon classic of face-breaking cinema, bringing his high-kicking charisma and fondness for doing the splits to the wonderfully trashy tale of  “American” soldier Frank Dux, a martial artist who decides to go AWOL from the army so he can travel to Hong Kong to participate in the Kumite, a brutal and secret underground martial arts tournament that everybody seems to know about. There he bonds with amiable giant Jackson (Donald Gibb, aka “Ogre” from Revenge of the Nerds), a mullet-topped fellow fighter whose secret weapon is rocking Harley Davidson apparel, and seeks to avenge the death of his mentor’s son in the tournament a year earlier at the hands of the mountainous Chong Li (played by the impassive human brick wall known as Bolo Yung, one of the stars of Enter the Dragon). As fighters from all around the globe start dealing out contusions and concussions, Frank has to also deal with the advances of a journalist desperate to break the story of this tournament and the attempts of two U.S. army officers (one played by Forest Whitaker!) trying to arrest him and get him back to the army before he hurts himself. Can Dux woo the woman, evade the police and win the tournament with various slow motion spin kicks against such overwhelming odds, or will Chong Li’s worrisome habit of straight up killing his opponents score him the advantage and win him his latest fight? Crass, violent and often unintentionally funny, Bloodsport is exactly what you want from a Cannon film, i.e. it’s a blast. Amply demonstrating why Van Damme went on to become a major ‘90s action star, Bloodsport also inspired the Mortal Kombat video game with its crazed parade of colorful fighters displaying different styles and techniques as they rip each other’s spines out! (Dir. by Newt Arnold, 1988, USA, 92 mins., Rated R)