Wolff rating: EVIL
Plot summary: A sullen Van Damme is used by a twinkling Moore to enter a fabled international kumite.
Biased, pithy comments: When I caught this on cable, at first I wondered how I could have missed this. Great setting (I love movies set in the time when pith helmets were fashionable), good costumes, and Van Damme kicking booty. Unfortunately, then I started seriously watching this film. It's awful, hilariously bad. Where ``Bloodsport'' had earnest, if not wildly accurate, karate sequences, this has action cribbed from ``King of Fighters 99'' from SNK. The combat is cartoony, short, and stupid, and if that's no good, you're only left with Roger Moore's performance. He's not too bad, I suppose, but that's not why I popped the popcorn. The ending, in particular, is gut-clutchingly idiotic; what kind of tournament rules allows exterior ring fights that *leave the building?*. Oy. A quick perusal of nearly any other karate movie will show this up as being awful late-night cable fare. Skip, skip, skip.
Other Notes: So, with my screaming orange belt in karate, I can tell you that about half of the final competitors would have been down on the floor almost immediately. The Spanish fighter, in particular, is so wrong it hurts; his wide spinning roundhouses would result in him being punched repeated in the spine every time he turned his back. The sumo wrestler, too, would have had his knee broken almost from the start, reducing him to a giant lump of easily-destructable lard.
How many times I have seen it: x1
Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Roger Moore, Janet Gunn, Jack McGee
Directed by: Jean-Claude Van Damme