April 20, 2026 • 34 mins
Hosts Kev and Marco return for The Vintage Podcast to break down the 1989 film Kickboxer starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. They recap the plot—Kurt Sloan’s quest for revenge after his brother Eric is paralyzed by Thai champion Tong Po—and share production and casting trivia.
The episode discusses authenticity vs. Hollywood spectacle: Michel Qissi’s casting as Tong Po, Muay Thai training scenes, the iconic palm-tree conditioning, the famous bar fight, the final underground match with glass-wrapped hands, and the film’s soundtrack and set design.
They also cover Kickboxer’s impact on Van Damme’s career, its contribution to Muay Thai’s popularity in the West, the sequels, and why the movie remains a beloved piece of 80s action cheese.
Vintage Burn Podcast Store (Tees and stuff):
- Vintage Burn Patches available! $10 (6x3.5) New Logo! Put one that sweet battle vest!
- Contact: Tommy@thedarkdigitizer.com
Kickboxer (1989)
Sources:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097659
Follow us on the following social media:
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/VintageBurnPodcast/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/vintageburnpodcast/
Keith McCoy Music:
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Inventory
(00:30):
Welcome to The Vintage Barman, this is Kev, and this is Marko, and we're back.
This time we're going to be doing 1989 Kickboxer, featuring the one and only Jean-Claude Van
Damme.
If you guys remember, we did Bloodsport first, and so we just wanted to kind of continue
(00:56):
doing some Van Damme movies.
So here we are.
Sorry it's been a while, life got in the way for a few of us, as always.
We do want to just point out that when we start doing more of these, we're going to
do a combination.
Sometimes it's going to be Marko and me, sometimes it's going to be all three of us with Doug,
(01:16):
and then of course as we've announced, Jay is officially our fourth member, so Jay's
going to be in and out doing different podcasts as well.
So it's going to be a mix of hosts doing this, which is how it should be.
So it should be fun.
We're trying to get this back on track to be more regular.
So for those of you still listening, we really appreciate the content and also you guys listening.
(01:41):
It's really important to us.
Absolutely.
Consistency is key.
So yeah, kicking into this, a little background using IMDb for Kickboxer.
Kurt Sloan is the corner man for his brother, U.S. kickboxing champion Eric Sloan.
When Kurt witnesses his brother become maliciously paralyzed in the ring by Thailand champion
(02:04):
Thongpho, Kurt vows revenge.
With the help of Xin, a kickboxing trainer who lives in a remote area of Thailand, Kurt
trains to fight for his life.
Kurt is Van Damme, obviously.
Kurt Sloan, played by Jean-Claude Van Damme.
(02:24):
Eric Sloan is Dennis Alexio, a real life heavyweight American kickboxing champion.
So he actually does know how to fight in the movie.
He's probably the best fighter in the movie by far.
Who goes to Thailand to fight kickboxing without actually doing any Muay Thai research, only
(02:45):
to get his ass beat and paralyzed.
We did find that fascinating.
This guy spent zero time actually studying Muay Thai, but thought he would go to Thailand
and beat whatever Thai fighter they put in front of him, which is a completely different
style of kickboxing.
Yeah, of course.
Because in 1988 or 89, whenever this came out, videotape wasn't a thing.
(03:07):
No research.
No research.
I found that hilarious.
But the movie still rules.
The movie still rules.
Marco and I were actually, when we were doing a little bit of research, we were laughing.
So the main villain here, Tong Po, we didn't even realize he's actually not even Thai.
Or Asian.
Yeah, or Asian.
His real name is Michel Kesey.
(03:27):
He actually grew up with Van Damme.
They were friends.
Where did you say he grew up?
Belgium, Brussels.
In Brussels.
So friends with Van Damme, childhood friends.
He made an appearance in Bloodsport 2.
So not Bloodsport 2, sorry.
In the original Bloodsport.
Also, yeah.
And yeah, but we were just like, what?
(03:48):
This dude's not even Asian, which is insane.
So whether it was prosthetic use or just really good makeup to make him look like he was actually
Thai, it was kind of interesting.
Yeah, this little paragraph here, it says, Tong Po is played by Michel Kesey, a childhood
friend who was not Thai, but wore makeup to look the part.
(04:09):
So that's all I can really find about it.
Very interesting.
You're telling me that, well, I get it.
So Van Damme and him were friends, so it was like he wanted to help his buddy out in the
movie scene.
But you're telling me that you couldn't find an actual decent Thai villain?
Sure.
I mean, you know.
You couldn't find one in Thailand?
You know, I respect him for putting his friend on.
(04:30):
But I get it.
Yeah, no, I get it.
That's why he did it.
And the guy probably really trained with him.
That I didn't look into it, but I'm guessing, because it looks like he does know how to
fight in the movie.
You could tell he knows all these posture and stuff like that.
Well, they do.
And part of the background from Michel Kissy, they actually trained a specific type of karate
together as kids.
So, yeah, it does make sense.
Not only were they friends, but they also did martial arts together.
(04:52):
So it makes sense.
But it's just so funny.
Out of all the places, you know, you can't find an actual Muay Thai fighter.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Play the villain.
I mean, you know, the fighting is pretty unrealistic in it anyway.
I mean, there's no defense ever.
No defense.
You know, you're just quintessential bad martial arts movie play.
(05:13):
Like, you know, when you hit somebody in the chest 10 times and they don't do anything
at all, you know, it's you kind of like, oh, boy, this is this is it's so bad.
It's good.
Well, just to give you an idea of what the movie is about, it starts with his brother
fighting in America.
He beats the crap out of some dude.
And then, you know, he talks about going to Thailand and fight their champion or whatever
(05:36):
and doesn't take it seriously.
It's the most arrogant character ever.
Right.
It's Dennis Alexio.
And he's meant to be played off as an arrogant fool.
And he's just talking like, like, he cannot be beat.
There's nobody that could stop him and, you know, typical stuff.
And then when they they finally go over, Jean-Claude Van Damme goes to get his brother ice.
And then he sees Tong Po kicking like a real pole, like something that holds up a building.
(06:00):
And he's making the what is it like?
The ceiling shake.
Yeah.
The drywalls falling apart.
That's what it is.
Right.
And then he hits it with his elbow a couple of times when he sees Jean-Claude behind him
watching and you realize how serious this guy is.
So it's actually a great scene in the movie.
Yeah.
But then he ends up going back and said, you can't fight this guy.
(06:22):
You know, you don't know what he's like.
You don't know.
You don't know the style.
And his brother is just so arrogant.
He's like, yeah, whatever.
I'll go and beat him.
I'm the best.
Don't worry about it.
It's going to be another just another match.
Like it's going to be fine again.
Which is funny.
You're not too hard into it, but you're like, if you are an actual U.S. champion kickboxer,
you are definitely going to study a different style of kickboxing.
(06:43):
It's a whole different world.
Especially one that uses, for those of you that don't know Muay Thai, unlike traditional
American kickboxing, which is just boxing combination of using feet, they can use elbows,
you can use knees, you can trap, you can grapple.
So you can do way more things.
(07:06):
Like I said, we were talking about this, too.
There's Sanda, there's Dutch kickboxing, there's American, but Muay Thai by far is the deadliest
of kickboxing.
So it's super funny.
This guy goes to Thailand and doesn't think to research any of this, even in the ring
during the match.
He's just like, he threw, he hit me with an elbow.
He wants to use street fighting techniques.
OK, it's not street fighting, bro.
(07:28):
It's Muay Thai.
It's funny, like watching this as a kid, you know, I never put it together.
You know, like that, how arrogant and like how different it is.
I mean, growing up now, I know a little bit about Muay Thai.
It's just such a different game.
And it's just amazing to me, like it's such a hole in the movie.
But you know, it's what makes it fun.
These 80s action movies are always fun.
They have lots of holes.
(07:48):
I forgot how much of a prick his brother was.
We rewatched some of that this morning.
I'm like, man, this guy's such an asshole.
I mean, that was he did a really good job of portraying just like that selfish, arrogant
brother.
And you could tell Van Damme's supposed to be the more charismatic, caring brother of
the two, trying to look out for his big brother.
(08:09):
That's, you know, you know.
And it's funny because I don't know when we put out Bloodsport that had to have been
close to a year ago, I feel.
And we were going to do both back to back months.
But we ended up, you know, life got in the way, as we were saying earlier, and we
didn't get around to it.
So even then, when I watched it, I don't think I noticed it.
But today, for some reason, it was so glaring, it really sticks out.
It makes you almost not feel bad when he gets his back broken in the ring.
(08:34):
Yeah, and that's what happens.
So he fights, you know, even though Van Damme, you can see the forewarning right before
shadow with him, you know, kicking the drywall and telling his brother, don't do it,
man. You don't know the style.
His brother says whatever.
You go to the match and his brother just gets annihilated.
And then, of course, what wouldn't happen in a real time fight when his brother's on
(08:58):
the ground, Tong Po lands a really nasty elbow right to his back and breaks him.
So again, that's not something that would happen in real time fighting.
But that's kind of the premise of the movie, where it leads up to the whole point of
Van Damme wanting revenge for his brother.
And so then we get into Van Damme's training and the whole beautiful part of the
(09:25):
80s. There's tons of montages in this.
Rock eagle flag.
There's the eagle in the background.
Or is that an eagle?
There's an eagle, definitely an eagle.
And then there's like terracotta warriors or whatever.
Terracotta warriors.
There's eagles flashing as he's fighting and training Muay Thai.
And it's really about him learning the style of Muay Thai while he's preparing to fight
(09:52):
Tong Po, you know.
And of course, in Thailand, everyone's like, oh, you can't fight this guy.
You don't know what you're doing.
And so the actor that he runs into, I'm not sure what that guy's name is, who basically
helps him throughout the whole movie.
Helps get his brother.
You got it there?
It is.
I think it's Haskell.
(10:13):
Haskell.
Haskell Anderson, the third.
Yeah, he's pretty good.
He plays Winston Taylor.
So Winston's an army vet living in Thailand.
That makes a lot of sense.
That checks out.
And yeah, he tries to help him out really just because, I mean, I think they're supposed
to be American, even though Van Damme is clearly not American.
(10:34):
Him and his brother are just trying to help out some fellow Americans that can't find
their way through Thailand.
And so he sets up Jean-Claude with a trainer.
Obviously, we didn't get a lot of a backstory in the guy, but he's supposed to be old school
Muay Thai, knows like the traditional art, the way it should be done, does old school
(10:54):
style training.
Maybe when we deep dive in a kickboxer two, three and four, I'll explain his backstory
a bit more.
Two, three, four, five.
And yeah, so then he gets him ready to fight Thongpo.
Yeah, I mean, it's a pretty basic plot.
I mean, the mob is behind Thongpo as well.
They create trouble for Van Damme or Van Damme creates trouble for them throughout the
(11:16):
movie, you know, and just to get into like, you know, like what is it going to say?
Thongpo is also involved with them as well.
Right. Yeah. So it's this whole like little subplot where there's kidnappings and there's
essays, you know, there's all types of stuff going on.
Yeah. One of the best but also worst scenes is the bar fight.
(11:39):
Van Damme can't dance.
You'll see what we're talking about.
Also, pay close attention to the awful tank top he's wearing.
It looks like a suspender tank top.
I don't think I've ever seen anything like that.
We again, something we just noticed today.
And I'm like, are those clips in the front of his tank top on?
Did he have maybe just so that he could unclip it to show his abs, whatever he felt like
(12:02):
it, but. To put it back on, terrible shirt, but a great, great scene, because his trainer
after doing so much Muay Thai training, he sets him up in the bar purposely for him to
use his skill just to see how he could actually react in a real world situation using
using everything he's learned.
But he also gets him trashed.
(12:23):
Van Damme cannot play drunk very well.
And he can't cry very well.
Yeah, he can't cry very well either.
But I mean, he's never been known for his acting chops.
He's good. He's good at being serious in the ring.
You know, he's good at, I think, being pretty good when he's upset or mad.
He's really good at splits.
Good at splits.
We get some splits in this.
(12:43):
Cock punches.
Get the Johnny Cage double punch.
Yeah, so I just want to mention, though, this movie, imagine Thailand is the hottest
place, one of the hottest places on the planet.
This movie was literally shot in a 50 day period between June and August.
Oh, wow.
1980 in Thailand.
(13:05):
Imagine how hot that was.
Yeah, that was the other cool thing is you get you get to see some of Thailand in the
movie. You get to see they do go to an actual Muay Thai gym.
Like there's a lot of fighters training kids, too.
I mean, that's also realistic.
You know, in Thailand, a lot of these fighters, they start these kids very young.
I mean, even as toddlers just training a little bit.
(13:25):
So one of the gyms they go to, I mean, there's just like a variety of it's most
children. Yeah, in that scene where Jean-Claude goes like, I want to fight Tong Po and
they're all laughing at him. But it's most of Thai kids at this gym, which is cool.
So, yeah, I mean, and then the whole premise is like, all right, we get to the point of
him training hard enough to be able to battle Tong Po.
(13:48):
He does put in a practice fight to put in a practice fight, but then they go.
It's supposed to be taking place.
The mob says, like, we're going to do with the ancient Muay Thai way.
Definitely not real or in a traditional sense.
So, for example, they do this thing where they're going to wrap their hands in some
(14:08):
type of rope and then put it in glue and use various shards of whatever glass nails,
like all of these other sharp objects.
It's just glass. So it's not real in the undergrounds.
There's so I'll just read.
I got this from Grok.
It's saying, no, modern Muay Thai does not use glass and hand wraps.
(14:29):
It's a myth largely popularized by movies like Kickboxer.
Yeah, I had a feeling.
What was the funny movie, though?
I reference as kids from the 90s.
The Hot Shots.
Hot Shots.
You see Hot Shots, though, as a kid, it reminded me of when Charlie Sheen, they're
making fun of Kickboxer and they have the same fight scene.
And instead of it's like honey.
(14:51):
And then he goes and dip his hands in there.
He's like trying to choose between like gummy bears or chocolate chips.
Yeah, something like that.
Yeah, I've seen that movie so long, but I do remember the scene.
Yeah, every time I see this, I like just go right back to Hot Shots.
It's it's pretty funny.
But yeah, anyway, so what was real, though, was the use of rope bound gloves.
(15:14):
But in the 20s and 30s, fighters had switched over from rope and moved on to hand
wraps, cotton, soft hand wraps or or gauze hand wraps.
What does it say here about that?
So in the 1920s, the 30s, after a fighter died using rope, he got bound in a rope
(15:37):
bound fight. OK, so I guess that's why gloves became mandatory for safety.
Yeah. Interesting.
Yeah. As Wikipedia.
I don't know if that's true or not, but that's interesting.
So, yeah, anyway, I mean, I don't see anybody use rope these days anyway, so they
they they use rope in this movie, I think that was probably the only real realistic
(15:58):
part of it. But yeah, as far as like the Shards of Glasgow and then Marco pointed
out that there are hardly any cuts, even though they're still the last part of the
fight. Yeah.
Yeah. They would have been way more cut.
Oh, yeah. They would have been damaged.
But I do love the whole like set, like the scene, the setting of it, like, like
like with the ring and the fire posts and it's just a circular ring and it's like
(16:21):
it looks like it's done almost like a temple, a temple.
I was going to say that. Yeah.
And it's pretty cool.
The set, the set is great and the soundtrack's amazing in this movie, too.
I think that's like the standout thing for me and watching it now as an adult.
I don't think I noticed it when I was a kid, but man, that soundtrack is good.
That's probably the best soundtrack in any early 80s, like not early 80s, but 80s
(16:42):
Van Damme movie. Yeah.
Good soundtrack. But what I do like about that last fight is the setup of how it's
obviously traditional Muay Thai, but it starts off with just hands and feet.
So it starts off traditional kickboxing, like American, Dutch kickboxing, and then
it moves it or even Sanda, Chinese kickboxing.
(17:03):
But then it moves into then, you know, Tong Po points at the limbs that they use
next. And then it moves into the, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the
limbs that they use next. So they keep adding different limbs to be able to use
within the fight. So it's kind of a nice build up to everything.
Yeah, that was a good catch by you. I did not notice until you pointed out.
(17:23):
When he points, Tong Po points to his elbows.
OK, then he points to knees.
So it's like they're able to start slowly, gradually using, you know, each of the
limbs in Muay Thai. So I thought it was cool.
No, it's a cool catch because like, honestly, like I've probably seen that fight
scene 50 times at least in my life and I've never, never noticed it.
So now I can't unsee it.
(17:43):
So, yeah, it was great.
I mean, like it was fun to rewatch again, especially with the crowd, because last
time I watched it was by myself.
So I was kind of like, you know, half watching it.
But yeah, I love it.
Get a little bit of everything.
This definitely isn't for everybody.
You know, if you don't want to see a dog get stabbed.
He lives, by the way.
(18:04):
There's a, yeah, no animal was killed in the making of this.
The dog even lives, surprisingly.
And, um, you know, there's a discussion of rape.
You don't actually see rape, but it's implied and said, I thought that was classy.
I feel like we didn't, you know, in this movie, they could have really kind of gone
with that, but it's quick.
(18:24):
It's implied.
You see enough to know without, for me, I don't know about you, man.
I just can't do that type of violence.
Just can't watch it fully.
You know, some movies like Rob Zombie would have had him actually showed the
I can't go that route.
It's just, I mean, it all depends.
I've seen movies where like, I can deal with it.
Like say like the movie revenge, revenge, but then you watch something like spit on
(18:48):
your grave.
It's, it's very hard to watch or last house on the left or something like that.
But, uh, but revenge, I mean, even though you see it, it's just done in a, not as
bad way.
And it's not a 30 minute scene either.
Right.
So that always helps.
But, but yeah, no, I agree with you.
I agree with you a hundred percent.
And I mean, I think too, like, like luckily this is, this is, uh, when Van Damme was
(19:09):
turning into a star.
So it was meant for like a release, but if he was still a B movie star, I guarantee
you that would have been a 10 minute scene with that.
So yeah.
Unnecessary, but yep.
Handle classily.
Yeah, it was class.
Um, so this is the movie that actually like jumped, uh, Van Damme in a
superstardom, uh, like, like Bloodsport put him on, on the level, but like
(19:32):
kickboxers, the one, it had a 1.5 million or so.
I looked it up a minute ago.
I think it was 1.5, 1.7 million dollar budget made 50 million.
Wow.
So in that day, 50 million, I know now today, 50 million ain't nothing, but back
then, you know, 1988 money, that's probably like three or 400 million now or
whatever.
Not probably not that much, but you know what I mean?
That's big.
A hundred and 50 million.
That is big.
Yeah.
(19:52):
Um, so it's, it's, uh, insane.
Uh, the dip, you know, like where this pushed him and then, you know, he went
on to do stuff like Universal Soldier and I'd say right through Street Fighter,
Sudden Death, whatever one was last.
I mean, that dude had a run and it's unfortunate, you know, he had the
problems and he kind of fell off a bit and he started making some really bad
movies and I think action movies kind of changed.
(20:14):
Bruce Willis changed action movies a little bit.
So that's true.
He didn't have to be muscular anymore in the nineties, you know?
So I was just, uh, again, just using Grok here, asking the AI about if this
movie popularized the sport, because I feel like when we watch some of these
movies, we tend to see that, right.
Especially in, in, um, some of these sports, like do movies have an influence
(20:40):
on the popular popularity?
Like for example, Karate Kid did Karate Kid have,
I mean, you know, I will point to this, right.
When Cobra Kai came out and not necessarily when it was on YouTube, right.
But when it was on Netflix, when Netflix got in, I think season three, I did see
an influx of karate studios popping up and there's one even where I live.
(21:02):
And when he's trying to think of the names and he's, he says old school karate
a lot, there's one right near my house called old school karate.
So my guess is with that, they, they brought it back a little bit, but who
knows, I mean, well, it influences kids to want to get into the popular.
So it says, yes, in 1989, the movie kickboxer, a major role in pot had a
(21:23):
major role in popularizing Muay Thai, often called Thai kickboxing in the
film to a global Western audience.
Very, very interesting.
By the way, uh, this is just useless back, but about three to 5% of the
world as a whole only do Muay Thai.
And I didn't know that until I just started doing it.
(21:43):
Seems high to me.
It seems, isn't that crazy though?
Only three to 5% of the world.
It seems high to me.
That seems like a good amount.
I think there's like 7 billion people in the world.
That's a lot of people.
But I would say like, so you would think it would be, I mean, that's
definitely a low number in the, in the U S alone, but like boxing has got to be
(22:04):
higher, you know, those, those stats boxing must be way higher.
I mean, I think at one time it was super at one time, I think it's now it'd be
jujitsu.
Oh, for sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Brazilian jujitsu.
But yeah, I know boxing and like, you know, I grew up watching a lot of boxing.
The nineties was my era for boxing.
A lot of good fighters went through the nineties.
It was a good time.
(22:24):
Unfortunately, boxing has faded over time.
So yeah.
So now YouTube fighters are the tops for, for the West though.
This movie really kind of can't pull the Muay Thai into the mainstream,
which is interesting.
Yeah.
So in growing up or again, where I grew up, there was a gym, it was a fighter
called Dickey Kimber or Kimba.
And he had a gym.
I went to it for a little bit.
(22:45):
I didn't do the kickbox.
I just, you know, went to use the gym itself.
Uh, but he would be there.
He actually fought Dennis Alexa, who plays Jean-Claude Van Damme's brother.
He got his ass kicked because the guy who actually plays, I don't
know if he said that, did we say that?
You did.
You said that in the beginning that he was an actual, actual heavyweight
fighter, American, American kickboxer.
So yeah, he got his ass kicked by him anyway.
(23:06):
So was American kid.
Do you even know, was American kickboxing popular?
Because I, I don't, I knew again, I knew nothing about it.
So boxing never seen any advertising for American kickbox.
So in my sphere is talked about a little bit, again, because Dickey
Kimba's gym was there and he was like a primo fighter.
If you look him up, he was actually like a champ and stuff.
He just couldn't beat Dennis Alexa.
(23:27):
Um, but, uh, so it was in my sphere a little bit, but to watch any of it,
I don't remember seeing much.
Cause I don't think we could really find it.
So I think no.
So when I was at that age, UFC was coming up.
That's when like everybody can fight everybody though.
Yeah.
Like 400 pound fighters against a hundred pound fighters and whatever.
We fought four times at a night, old school UFC days.
(23:48):
So that's what was becoming popular in boxing.
But kickboxing, I just don't remember ever seeing, you couldn't find it.
That was it.
Uh, there's also, um, the scene during his training where he's kicking the palm tree.
You can actually see that a lot of videos today from Thailand, but most of the
trees are either like dying trees or they're already cut down palm trees that
(24:11):
they kind of stack up against the real tree to use as shin conditioning.
That is a real thing in Thailand.
Um, it's, it says here that, uh, this iconic scene, the use of the palm tree
for shin conditioning, uh, or the final fight inspired many people to seek out
Muay Thai gyms in the late eighties and nineties because of that.
(24:34):
That's ridiculous.
I'm sure it did.
It's it's crazy.
Those guys are, that guy's kicking a palm tree.
I definitely want to do that sport.
Yeah, because that's what you want to do.
Um, the film mixed in real elements.
Some actual Thai fighters appeared early on when it was shot.
Uh, did you do, including the exaggerated glass and hand wraps finale?
(24:58):
Yeah.
I love how it says that, uh, Grok says that it wasn't a hundred percent accurate.
Muay Thai.
No, of course not.
No shit.
Yeah.
So yeah, there's like no defense in it.
There's actually the warmup fight he has in it.
Basically they just lift their arms so they can allow
themselves to be kicked in the sides.
This is referred to as Hollywood kickboxing.
(25:21):
It's actually movies in general.
I mean, you watch Rocky.
There's no defensive Rocky.
They just clean each other clean.
Yeah.
So this is his big break movie from everything I'm seeing.
This is the one that really pushed him into like popularity.
You know, like, like I said, blood sport kind of put him on the map
and this one's the one that pushed him over the top.
(25:41):
You know, it was originally supposed to, you know, this is fitting.
I just found a fact here.
It was originally supposed to be starring Chuck Norris.
Oh, RIP Chuck Norris, by the way.
Good time for us to do this.
Yeah.
We can do a little Chuck Norris segment.
Why not?
That's um, yeah, that's it.
So it's supposed to be Chuck Norris.
I, I think that would have changed the movie.
Oh yeah.
(26:01):
The acting would have been even worse.
No, no offense, uh, Chuck for us in peace.
Yeah.
He was a very wooden actor, but Chuck knew his thing.
Cause he just knew how to kick ass.
And that's what you needed in a movie.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You're right.
I mean, yeah, it would have been a different movie.
I feel like, I mean, how familiar are you?
You know, I'm a little bit older than you.
So I grew up watching a lot of this stuff on TV.
I don't know if it correlated into your time, but did you see
(26:23):
a lot of Chuck growing up or no?
No, just, was it a Walker, Texas Raider?
So you got like the later Chuck, the hit man, maybe, but that was, that
was like seeing it pop up on TV.
And I knew he, who he was from that.
Yeah.
Obviously I know he was part of the group.
Like you put them in the category of Van Damme and Schwarzenegger
(26:43):
and Stallone and Chuck Norris.
But I really, I personally, I can't think of a movie that stands out to
me that's like a Chuck Norris film.
I know he was in Expendables, right?
Sure.
Sure.
Yeah.
I think they put them in there, but no, for me, so for me, I can go run
through a few of them, the Delta Force, which is awesome action movie.
The only thing that bothers me about that movie is like, they have
the same song throughout it.
(27:05):
There's no variety in the soundtrack.
So every time it comes on, it's like like every time, but it's cool.
It's about a quick thing on that.
It's about like somebody takes over a plane and his Delta Force, you know,
terrorists take over the plane, his Delta Force has to just basically take it over.
But the terrorist is Middle Eastern played by Robert Forster.
(27:25):
If you don't know who he is, he's in Jackie Brown.
He's Jackie Brown's love interest in that movie.
Who's a total white guy, by the way, back in the day when he used to do all that.
Yeah, it's hilarious.
But anyway, so anyway, rest in peace to him, man.
Delta Force, Evasion USA, A Silent Rage, which actually the movie I suggest.
It's actually like a slasher movie.
(27:46):
Pretty good.
It's like one of his like few, like almost horror titles.
Interesting.
Yeah.
So, you know, good guys don't wear white.
The Octagon for the end.
The rest of the movie sucks, but the end rules.
But anyway, rest in peace Chuck.
Yeah, rest in peace Chuck.
That's so interesting.
He should have been in Kickboxer.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He was definitely in for the role.
Another kind of shout out in the realm of Muay Thai.
(28:08):
Check out Ong Vok from 2003 with Tony Jaa.
That's a really good movie.
More traditional to actual Muay Thai versus Kickboxer, which, again, they're
considering Hollywood kickboxing.
But yeah, if you love Van Damme, you can't go wrong with this movie.
Did you like it better than Bloodsport?
No, I like Bloodsport a little bit better as far as just the whole premise.
(28:33):
Kickboxer has better, like you could tell it's higher budget and you can also, the
soundtrack is way better than Kickboxer.
Agreed.
But if you watch both of these back to back, you're definitely going to do what
I've done, which is fucking mix the movies up and start getting parts.
I was saying to Marco as we were watching this this morning, I'm like, wait a
minute, is this, isn't this Bloodsport?
No, wait, isn't this part?
(28:53):
I thought, I thought the glass handwrapped part was actually in Bloodsport.
No, he uses the powder.
That's right.
He uses the powder in Bloodsport and it's the other guys, Bolo Young.
Yeah, Bolo Young.
So he's the reason I would put Bloodsport over because I like absolutely adore Bolo
Young.
Bolo Young.
So when I was younger as well, I used to collect martial arts VHS bootlegs.
(29:18):
So I would go to downtown crossing in Boston.
There was like a little shop up these stairs.
It was like this little thing you buy like three bootlegs.
I think it was three for 10 bucks if I remember right.
So I'd always buy two.
I would choose and then I would ask the guy to choose one for me because the guy
knew his shit.
And so he gave me a Bolo Young one called Chinese Hercules.
One of the times, not my favorite of the suggestions he ever gave, but I fell in
(29:41):
love with Bolo Young.
So I bought like all these, I think Chinese Samson was another one with him in
it.
So I had all these Bolo Young movies and he was just one of the greatest villains
of that time.
Very quiet, but he's so imposing.
He's also in Into the Dragon, right?
We did a review on Bloodsport already, like we mentioned earlier.
Check it out.
You know, Marco talks a lot about Bolo Young in that too.
(30:02):
So obviously I don't even have to ask you.
I wasn't gonna ask you out of these two movies, who your favorite villain is.
It's Bolo Young.
He's just one of my favorite people in general.
I do think this dude, Michelle Kesey, he did a great job playing.
Absolutely.
No, man.
He's pretty good.
Tom Poe is pretty convincing, you know?
(30:23):
Yeah.
So this movie led to, I think it's four or five direct-to-video sequels.
None of them, unfortunately, brought back Van Damme.
I think he might have like a tiny part in two where he kind of passes the baton,
but I haven't seen that movie in so long, but I feel like I remember something like
that, but I could be absolutely correct.
Yeah.
Tell us about the actor that kind of takes over the Van Damme role.
(30:44):
So it's Sasha Mitchell.
He's known, what he's mainly known for is being coding on the sitcom Step by Step,
where he plays like this totally like dullard of a human being.
He's funny in it, though.
I remember loving him as a kid.
And then when he did, I remember seeing him in Kickboxer 2, we rented it and I was
like, I can't believe that Sasha Mitchell kicking ass.
So it's funny that he went from being like this goof on a sitcom to that, or the
(31:08):
other way around.
I'm not sure what came first.
They were around the same time.
And then, but the thing that bothered me about the sequel is why I never continued
them, because I think I watched two and I started part three, but I don't think I
finished it, was they continued using Tong Po as the enemy.
Now, when you have a, an enemy that loses, why would you keep bringing him back?
He's already an established loser.
(31:29):
So that's, was always my problem with continuing, but I'm not actually going to
make an effort to watch at least rewatch two and maybe try to watch three.
It is interesting that they bring him back, but he's part, as we were talking
about off the podcast, he is part of the mob.
So maybe he takes on more of a mob role.
I don't know what his role is in two, if he's still just a kickboxer and he's
(31:50):
supposed to be, this is his revenge.
Right.
Right.
But anyway, he ends up losing again, you know, and he ends up losing in four.
I'm sure.
I know, I know he's not in three.
Cause we looked this up before we went live.
Four.
It doesn't even seem like it's about real kickball.
It's kind of like they throw in some kickboxing.
It's not, it's more about there's, there's gun violence and there's the mob
violence and then, yeah.
Okay.
All of a sudden, all right, we're going to throw in some kicks.
(32:11):
We got to do side to side.
Yeah.
I know we're doing Van Damme, but I think we should delve into a couple more
action series.
You haven't seen like best of the best.
No, that's like a karate tournament in the first one.
And then the second one, it's a street fighting ring.
And then the third one is a more favorite movie.
So that's what I have, but a long time ago, I haven't seen it since like the
nineties, probably like mid nineties.
(32:31):
Maybe we'll grab some lunch.
And if you have time, we can watch a kickboxer for a little bit, but.
Um, these are available.
If you want to watch these right now, it feels like, uh, Amazon prime's
actually running these for free.
Um, well, if you're Amazon prime subscriber, so you can check these
out without having to pay a dime.
And, um, I think it's all five movies.
(32:53):
So again, we were looking at these and I own kickboxer, but I can see that
at least it looked like two through five.
You could just watch these on prime if you want to give them a shot.
So, yeah, I'm going to guess they're probably pretty terrible,
but I am going to attempt it.
Yeah.
Kickboxers are recommend.
We love it.
Yeah.
Um, it's, it's eighties cheese.
It's everything you want.
(33:14):
And, um, basically any Van Damme movie for me, uh, between like 87 and I'd say
96 or so, except for street fighters are recommended.
So was it Doug that wanted to do, is it time cop?
No, hard target.
He's a big, which is a great movie.
Did Van Damme do time cop?
Yes.
Makes sense.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sudden death, time cop, universal soldier.
(33:36):
Probably a few more.
I'm forgetting, but, uh, all right.
Well, on that note, uh, I think we're going to call it on this one.
And, um, yeah, thanks for your patience.
And again, if you're still listening to us, yeah, as always.
Yeah.
Inventory
(00:30):
Welcome to The Vintage Barman, this is Kev, and this is Marko, and we're back.
This time we're going to be doing 1989 Kickboxer, featuring the one and only Jean-Claude Van
Damme.
If you guys remember, we did Bloodsport first, and so we just wanted to kind of continue
(00:56):
doing some Van Damme movies.
So here we are.
Sorry it's been a while, life got in the way for a few of us, as always.
We do want to just point out that when we start doing more of these, we're going to
do a combination.
Sometimes it's going to be Marko and me, sometimes it's going to be all three of us with Doug,
(01:16):
and then of course as we've announced, Jay is officially our fourth member, so Jay's
going to be in and out doing different podcasts as well.
So it's going to be a mix of hosts doing this, which is how it should be.
So it should be fun.
We're trying to get this back on track to be more regular.
So for those of you still listening, we really appreciate the content and also you guys listening.
(01:41):
It's really important to us.
Absolutely.
Consistency is key.
So yeah, kicking into this, a little background using IMDb for Kickboxer.
Kurt Sloan is the corner man for his brother, U.S. kickboxing champion Eric Sloan.
When Kurt witnesses his brother become maliciously paralyzed in the ring by Thailand champion
(02:04):
Thongpho, Kurt vows revenge.
With the help of Xin, a kickboxing trainer who lives in a remote area of Thailand, Kurt
trains to fight for his life.
Kurt is Van Damme, obviously.
Kurt Sloan, played by Jean-Claude Van Damme.
(02:24):
Eric Sloan is Dennis Alexio, a real life heavyweight American kickboxing champion.
So he actually does know how to fight in the movie.
He's probably the best fighter in the movie by far.
Who goes to Thailand to fight kickboxing without actually doing any Muay Thai research, only
(02:45):
to get his ass beat and paralyzed.
We did find that fascinating.
This guy spent zero time actually studying Muay Thai, but thought he would go to Thailand
and beat whatever Thai fighter they put in front of him, which is a completely different
style of kickboxing.
Yeah, of course.
Because in 1988 or 89, whenever this came out, videotape wasn't a thing.
(03:07):
No research.
No research.
I found that hilarious.
But the movie still rules.
The movie still rules.
Marco and I were actually, when we were doing a little bit of research, we were laughing.
So the main villain here, Tong Po, we didn't even realize he's actually not even Thai.
Or Asian.
Yeah, or Asian.
His real name is Michel Kesey.
(03:27):
He actually grew up with Van Damme.
They were friends.
Where did you say he grew up?
Belgium, Brussels.
In Brussels.
So friends with Van Damme, childhood friends.
He made an appearance in Bloodsport 2.
So not Bloodsport 2, sorry.
In the original Bloodsport.
Also, yeah.
And yeah, but we were just like, what?
(03:48):
This dude's not even Asian, which is insane.
So whether it was prosthetic use or just really good makeup to make him look like he was actually
Thai, it was kind of interesting.
Yeah, this little paragraph here, it says, Tong Po is played by Michel Kesey, a childhood
friend who was not Thai, but wore makeup to look the part.
(04:09):
So that's all I can really find about it.
Very interesting.
You're telling me that, well, I get it.
So Van Damme and him were friends, so it was like he wanted to help his buddy out in the
movie scene.
But you're telling me that you couldn't find an actual decent Thai villain?
Sure.
I mean, you know.
You couldn't find one in Thailand?
You know, I respect him for putting his friend on.
(04:30):
But I get it.
Yeah, no, I get it.
That's why he did it.
And the guy probably really trained with him.
That I didn't look into it, but I'm guessing, because it looks like he does know how to
fight in the movie.
You could tell he knows all these posture and stuff like that.
Well, they do.
And part of the background from Michel Kissy, they actually trained a specific type of karate
together as kids.
So, yeah, it does make sense.
Not only were they friends, but they also did martial arts together.
(04:52):
So it makes sense.
But it's just so funny.
Out of all the places, you know, you can't find an actual Muay Thai fighter.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Play the villain.
I mean, you know, the fighting is pretty unrealistic in it anyway.
I mean, there's no defense ever.
No defense.
You know, you're just quintessential bad martial arts movie play.
(05:13):
Like, you know, when you hit somebody in the chest 10 times and they don't do anything
at all, you know, it's you kind of like, oh, boy, this is this is it's so bad.
It's good.
Well, just to give you an idea of what the movie is about, it starts with his brother
fighting in America.
He beats the crap out of some dude.
And then, you know, he talks about going to Thailand and fight their champion or whatever
(05:36):
and doesn't take it seriously.
It's the most arrogant character ever.
Right.
It's Dennis Alexio.
And he's meant to be played off as an arrogant fool.
And he's just talking like, like, he cannot be beat.
There's nobody that could stop him and, you know, typical stuff.
And then when they they finally go over, Jean-Claude Van Damme goes to get his brother ice.
And then he sees Tong Po kicking like a real pole, like something that holds up a building.
(06:00):
And he's making the what is it like?
The ceiling shake.
Yeah.
The drywalls falling apart.
That's what it is.
Right.
And then he hits it with his elbow a couple of times when he sees Jean-Claude behind him
watching and you realize how serious this guy is.
So it's actually a great scene in the movie.
Yeah.
But then he ends up going back and said, you can't fight this guy.
(06:22):
You know, you don't know what he's like.
You don't know.
You don't know the style.
And his brother is just so arrogant.
He's like, yeah, whatever.
I'll go and beat him.
I'm the best.
Don't worry about it.
It's going to be another just another match.
Like it's going to be fine again.
Which is funny.
You're not too hard into it, but you're like, if you are an actual U.S. champion kickboxer,
you are definitely going to study a different style of kickboxing.
(06:43):
It's a whole different world.
Especially one that uses, for those of you that don't know Muay Thai, unlike traditional
American kickboxing, which is just boxing combination of using feet, they can use elbows,
you can use knees, you can trap, you can grapple.
So you can do way more things.
(07:06):
Like I said, we were talking about this, too.
There's Sanda, there's Dutch kickboxing, there's American, but Muay Thai by far is the deadliest
of kickboxing.
So it's super funny.
This guy goes to Thailand and doesn't think to research any of this, even in the ring
during the match.
He's just like, he threw, he hit me with an elbow.
He wants to use street fighting techniques.
OK, it's not street fighting, bro.
(07:28):
It's Muay Thai.
It's funny, like watching this as a kid, you know, I never put it together.
You know, like that, how arrogant and like how different it is.
I mean, growing up now, I know a little bit about Muay Thai.
It's just such a different game.
And it's just amazing to me, like it's such a hole in the movie.
But you know, it's what makes it fun.
These 80s action movies are always fun.
They have lots of holes.
(07:48):
I forgot how much of a prick his brother was.
We rewatched some of that this morning.
I'm like, man, this guy's such an asshole.
I mean, that was he did a really good job of portraying just like that selfish, arrogant
brother.
And you could tell Van Damme's supposed to be the more charismatic, caring brother of
the two, trying to look out for his big brother.
(08:09):
That's, you know, you know.
And it's funny because I don't know when we put out Bloodsport that had to have been
close to a year ago, I feel.
And we were going to do both back to back months.
But we ended up, you know, life got in the way, as we were saying earlier, and we
didn't get around to it.
So even then, when I watched it, I don't think I noticed it.
But today, for some reason, it was so glaring, it really sticks out.
It makes you almost not feel bad when he gets his back broken in the ring.
(08:34):
Yeah, and that's what happens.
So he fights, you know, even though Van Damme, you can see the forewarning right before
shadow with him, you know, kicking the drywall and telling his brother, don't do it,
man. You don't know the style.
His brother says whatever.
You go to the match and his brother just gets annihilated.
And then, of course, what wouldn't happen in a real time fight when his brother's on
(08:58):
the ground, Tong Po lands a really nasty elbow right to his back and breaks him.
So again, that's not something that would happen in real time fighting.
But that's kind of the premise of the movie, where it leads up to the whole point of
Van Damme wanting revenge for his brother.
And so then we get into Van Damme's training and the whole beautiful part of the
(09:25):
80s. There's tons of montages in this.
Rock eagle flag.
There's the eagle in the background.
Or is that an eagle?
There's an eagle, definitely an eagle.
And then there's like terracotta warriors or whatever.
Terracotta warriors.
There's eagles flashing as he's fighting and training Muay Thai.
And it's really about him learning the style of Muay Thai while he's preparing to fight
(09:52):
Tong Po, you know.
And of course, in Thailand, everyone's like, oh, you can't fight this guy.
You don't know what you're doing.
And so the actor that he runs into, I'm not sure what that guy's name is, who basically
helps him throughout the whole movie.
Helps get his brother.
You got it there?
It is.
I think it's Haskell.
(10:13):
Haskell.
Haskell Anderson, the third.
Yeah, he's pretty good.
He plays Winston Taylor.
So Winston's an army vet living in Thailand.
That makes a lot of sense.
That checks out.
And yeah, he tries to help him out really just because, I mean, I think they're supposed
to be American, even though Van Damme is clearly not American.
(10:34):
Him and his brother are just trying to help out some fellow Americans that can't find
their way through Thailand.
And so he sets up Jean-Claude with a trainer.
Obviously, we didn't get a lot of a backstory in the guy, but he's supposed to be old school
Muay Thai, knows like the traditional art, the way it should be done, does old school
(10:54):
style training.
Maybe when we deep dive in a kickboxer two, three and four, I'll explain his backstory
a bit more.
Two, three, four, five.
And yeah, so then he gets him ready to fight Thongpo.
Yeah, I mean, it's a pretty basic plot.
I mean, the mob is behind Thongpo as well.
They create trouble for Van Damme or Van Damme creates trouble for them throughout the
(11:16):
movie, you know, and just to get into like, you know, like what is it going to say?
Thongpo is also involved with them as well.
Right. Yeah. So it's this whole like little subplot where there's kidnappings and there's
essays, you know, there's all types of stuff going on.
Yeah. One of the best but also worst scenes is the bar fight.
(11:39):
Van Damme can't dance.
You'll see what we're talking about.
Also, pay close attention to the awful tank top he's wearing.
It looks like a suspender tank top.
I don't think I've ever seen anything like that.
We again, something we just noticed today.
And I'm like, are those clips in the front of his tank top on?
Did he have maybe just so that he could unclip it to show his abs, whatever he felt like
(12:02):
it, but. To put it back on, terrible shirt, but a great, great scene, because his trainer
after doing so much Muay Thai training, he sets him up in the bar purposely for him to
use his skill just to see how he could actually react in a real world situation using
using everything he's learned.
But he also gets him trashed.
(12:23):
Van Damme cannot play drunk very well.
And he can't cry very well.
Yeah, he can't cry very well either.
But I mean, he's never been known for his acting chops.
He's good. He's good at being serious in the ring.
You know, he's good at, I think, being pretty good when he's upset or mad.
He's really good at splits.
Good at splits.
We get some splits in this.
(12:43):
Cock punches.
Get the Johnny Cage double punch.
Yeah, so I just want to mention, though, this movie, imagine Thailand is the hottest
place, one of the hottest places on the planet.
This movie was literally shot in a 50 day period between June and August.
Oh, wow.
1980 in Thailand.
(13:05):
Imagine how hot that was.
Yeah, that was the other cool thing is you get you get to see some of Thailand in the
movie. You get to see they do go to an actual Muay Thai gym.
Like there's a lot of fighters training kids, too.
I mean, that's also realistic.
You know, in Thailand, a lot of these fighters, they start these kids very young.
I mean, even as toddlers just training a little bit.
(13:25):
So one of the gyms they go to, I mean, there's just like a variety of it's most
children. Yeah, in that scene where Jean-Claude goes like, I want to fight Tong Po and
they're all laughing at him. But it's most of Thai kids at this gym, which is cool.
So, yeah, I mean, and then the whole premise is like, all right, we get to the point of
him training hard enough to be able to battle Tong Po.
(13:48):
He does put in a practice fight to put in a practice fight, but then they go.
It's supposed to be taking place.
The mob says, like, we're going to do with the ancient Muay Thai way.
Definitely not real or in a traditional sense.
So, for example, they do this thing where they're going to wrap their hands in some
(14:08):
type of rope and then put it in glue and use various shards of whatever glass nails,
like all of these other sharp objects.
It's just glass. So it's not real in the undergrounds.
There's so I'll just read.
I got this from Grok.
It's saying, no, modern Muay Thai does not use glass and hand wraps.
(14:29):
It's a myth largely popularized by movies like Kickboxer.
Yeah, I had a feeling.
What was the funny movie, though?
I reference as kids from the 90s.
The Hot Shots.
Hot Shots.
You see Hot Shots, though, as a kid, it reminded me of when Charlie Sheen, they're
making fun of Kickboxer and they have the same fight scene.
And instead of it's like honey.
(14:51):
And then he goes and dip his hands in there.
He's like trying to choose between like gummy bears or chocolate chips.
Yeah, something like that.
Yeah, I've seen that movie so long, but I do remember the scene.
Yeah, every time I see this, I like just go right back to Hot Shots.
It's it's pretty funny.
But yeah, anyway, so what was real, though, was the use of rope bound gloves.
(15:14):
But in the 20s and 30s, fighters had switched over from rope and moved on to hand
wraps, cotton, soft hand wraps or or gauze hand wraps.
What does it say here about that?
So in the 1920s, the 30s, after a fighter died using rope, he got bound in a rope
(15:37):
bound fight. OK, so I guess that's why gloves became mandatory for safety.
Yeah. Interesting.
Yeah. As Wikipedia.
I don't know if that's true or not, but that's interesting.
So, yeah, anyway, I mean, I don't see anybody use rope these days anyway, so they
they they use rope in this movie, I think that was probably the only real realistic
(15:58):
part of it. But yeah, as far as like the Shards of Glasgow and then Marco pointed
out that there are hardly any cuts, even though they're still the last part of the
fight. Yeah.
Yeah. They would have been way more cut.
Oh, yeah. They would have been damaged.
But I do love the whole like set, like the scene, the setting of it, like, like
like with the ring and the fire posts and it's just a circular ring and it's like
(16:21):
it looks like it's done almost like a temple, a temple.
I was going to say that. Yeah.
And it's pretty cool.
The set, the set is great and the soundtrack's amazing in this movie, too.
I think that's like the standout thing for me and watching it now as an adult.
I don't think I noticed it when I was a kid, but man, that soundtrack is good.
That's probably the best soundtrack in any early 80s, like not early 80s, but 80s
(16:42):
Van Damme movie. Yeah.
Good soundtrack. But what I do like about that last fight is the setup of how it's
obviously traditional Muay Thai, but it starts off with just hands and feet.
So it starts off traditional kickboxing, like American, Dutch kickboxing, and then
it moves it or even Sanda, Chinese kickboxing.
(17:03):
But then it moves into then, you know, Tong Po points at the limbs that they use
next. And then it moves into the, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the
limbs that they use next. So they keep adding different limbs to be able to use
within the fight. So it's kind of a nice build up to everything.
Yeah, that was a good catch by you. I did not notice until you pointed out.
(17:23):
When he points, Tong Po points to his elbows.
OK, then he points to knees.
So it's like they're able to start slowly, gradually using, you know, each of the
limbs in Muay Thai. So I thought it was cool.
No, it's a cool catch because like, honestly, like I've probably seen that fight
scene 50 times at least in my life and I've never, never noticed it.
So now I can't unsee it.
(17:43):
So, yeah, it was great.
I mean, like it was fun to rewatch again, especially with the crowd, because last
time I watched it was by myself.
So I was kind of like, you know, half watching it.
But yeah, I love it.
Get a little bit of everything.
This definitely isn't for everybody.
You know, if you don't want to see a dog get stabbed.
He lives, by the way.
(18:04):
There's a, yeah, no animal was killed in the making of this.
The dog even lives, surprisingly.
And, um, you know, there's a discussion of rape.
You don't actually see rape, but it's implied and said, I thought that was classy.
I feel like we didn't, you know, in this movie, they could have really kind of gone
with that, but it's quick.
(18:24):
It's implied.
You see enough to know without, for me, I don't know about you, man.
I just can't do that type of violence.
Just can't watch it fully.
You know, some movies like Rob Zombie would have had him actually showed the
I can't go that route.
It's just, I mean, it all depends.
I've seen movies where like, I can deal with it.
Like say like the movie revenge, revenge, but then you watch something like spit on
(18:48):
your grave.
It's, it's very hard to watch or last house on the left or something like that.
But, uh, but revenge, I mean, even though you see it, it's just done in a, not as
bad way.
And it's not a 30 minute scene either.
Right.
So that always helps.
But, but yeah, no, I agree with you.
I agree with you a hundred percent.
And I mean, I think too, like, like luckily this is, this is, uh, when Van Damme was
(19:09):
turning into a star.
So it was meant for like a release, but if he was still a B movie star, I guarantee
you that would have been a 10 minute scene with that.
So yeah.
Unnecessary, but yep.
Handle classily.
Yeah, it was class.
Um, so this is the movie that actually like jumped, uh, Van Damme in a
superstardom, uh, like, like Bloodsport put him on, on the level, but like
(19:32):
kickboxers, the one, it had a 1.5 million or so.
I looked it up a minute ago.
I think it was 1.5, 1.7 million dollar budget made 50 million.
Wow.
So in that day, 50 million, I know now today, 50 million ain't nothing, but back
then, you know, 1988 money, that's probably like three or 400 million now or
whatever.
Not probably not that much, but you know what I mean?
That's big.
A hundred and 50 million.
That is big.
Yeah.
(19:52):
Um, so it's, it's, uh, insane.
Uh, the dip, you know, like where this pushed him and then, you know, he went
on to do stuff like Universal Soldier and I'd say right through Street Fighter,
Sudden Death, whatever one was last.
I mean, that dude had a run and it's unfortunate, you know, he had the
problems and he kind of fell off a bit and he started making some really bad
movies and I think action movies kind of changed.
(20:14):
Bruce Willis changed action movies a little bit.
So that's true.
He didn't have to be muscular anymore in the nineties, you know?
So I was just, uh, again, just using Grok here, asking the AI about if this
movie popularized the sport, because I feel like when we watch some of these
movies, we tend to see that, right.
Especially in, in, um, some of these sports, like do movies have an influence
(20:40):
on the popular popularity?
Like for example, Karate Kid did Karate Kid have,
I mean, you know, I will point to this, right.
When Cobra Kai came out and not necessarily when it was on YouTube, right.
But when it was on Netflix, when Netflix got in, I think season three, I did see
an influx of karate studios popping up and there's one even where I live.
(21:02):
And when he's trying to think of the names and he's, he says old school karate
a lot, there's one right near my house called old school karate.
So my guess is with that, they, they brought it back a little bit, but who
knows, I mean, well, it influences kids to want to get into the popular.
So it says, yes, in 1989, the movie kickboxer, a major role in pot had a
(21:23):
major role in popularizing Muay Thai, often called Thai kickboxing in the
film to a global Western audience.
Very, very interesting.
By the way, uh, this is just useless back, but about three to 5% of the
world as a whole only do Muay Thai.
And I didn't know that until I just started doing it.
(21:43):
Seems high to me.
It seems, isn't that crazy though?
Only three to 5% of the world.
It seems high to me.
That seems like a good amount.
I think there's like 7 billion people in the world.
That's a lot of people.
But I would say like, so you would think it would be, I mean, that's
definitely a low number in the, in the U S alone, but like boxing has got to be
(22:04):
higher, you know, those, those stats boxing must be way higher.
I mean, I think at one time it was super at one time, I think it's now it'd be
jujitsu.
Oh, for sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Brazilian jujitsu.
But yeah, I know boxing and like, you know, I grew up watching a lot of boxing.
The nineties was my era for boxing.
A lot of good fighters went through the nineties.
It was a good time.
(22:24):
Unfortunately, boxing has faded over time.
So yeah.
So now YouTube fighters are the tops for, for the West though.
This movie really kind of can't pull the Muay Thai into the mainstream,
which is interesting.
Yeah.
So in growing up or again, where I grew up, there was a gym, it was a fighter
called Dickey Kimber or Kimba.
And he had a gym.
I went to it for a little bit.
(22:45):
I didn't do the kickbox.
I just, you know, went to use the gym itself.
Uh, but he would be there.
He actually fought Dennis Alexa, who plays Jean-Claude Van Damme's brother.
He got his ass kicked because the guy who actually plays, I don't
know if he said that, did we say that?
You did.
You said that in the beginning that he was an actual, actual heavyweight
fighter, American, American kickboxer.
So yeah, he got his ass kicked by him anyway.
(23:06):
So was American kid.
Do you even know, was American kickboxing popular?
Because I, I don't, I knew again, I knew nothing about it.
So boxing never seen any advertising for American kickbox.
So in my sphere is talked about a little bit, again, because Dickey
Kimba's gym was there and he was like a primo fighter.
If you look him up, he was actually like a champ and stuff.
He just couldn't beat Dennis Alexa.
(23:27):
Um, but, uh, so it was in my sphere a little bit, but to watch any of it,
I don't remember seeing much.
Cause I don't think we could really find it.
So I think no.
So when I was at that age, UFC was coming up.
That's when like everybody can fight everybody though.
Yeah.
Like 400 pound fighters against a hundred pound fighters and whatever.
We fought four times at a night, old school UFC days.
(23:48):
So that's what was becoming popular in boxing.
But kickboxing, I just don't remember ever seeing, you couldn't find it.
That was it.
Uh, there's also, um, the scene during his training where he's kicking the palm tree.
You can actually see that a lot of videos today from Thailand, but most of the
trees are either like dying trees or they're already cut down palm trees that
(24:11):
they kind of stack up against the real tree to use as shin conditioning.
That is a real thing in Thailand.
Um, it's, it says here that, uh, this iconic scene, the use of the palm tree
for shin conditioning, uh, or the final fight inspired many people to seek out
Muay Thai gyms in the late eighties and nineties because of that.
(24:34):
That's ridiculous.
I'm sure it did.
It's it's crazy.
Those guys are, that guy's kicking a palm tree.
I definitely want to do that sport.
Yeah, because that's what you want to do.
Um, the film mixed in real elements.
Some actual Thai fighters appeared early on when it was shot.
Uh, did you do, including the exaggerated glass and hand wraps finale?
(24:58):
Yeah.
I love how it says that, uh, Grok says that it wasn't a hundred percent accurate.
Muay Thai.
No, of course not.
No shit.
Yeah.
So yeah, there's like no defense in it.
There's actually the warmup fight he has in it.
Basically they just lift their arms so they can allow
themselves to be kicked in the sides.
This is referred to as Hollywood kickboxing.
(25:21):
It's actually movies in general.
I mean, you watch Rocky.
There's no defensive Rocky.
They just clean each other clean.
Yeah.
So this is his big break movie from everything I'm seeing.
This is the one that really pushed him into like popularity.
You know, like, like I said, blood sport kind of put him on the map
and this one's the one that pushed him over the top.
(25:41):
You know, it was originally supposed to, you know, this is fitting.
I just found a fact here.
It was originally supposed to be starring Chuck Norris.
Oh, RIP Chuck Norris, by the way.
Good time for us to do this.
Yeah.
We can do a little Chuck Norris segment.
Why not?
That's um, yeah, that's it.
So it's supposed to be Chuck Norris.
I, I think that would have changed the movie.
Oh yeah.
(26:01):
The acting would have been even worse.
No, no offense, uh, Chuck for us in peace.
Yeah.
He was a very wooden actor, but Chuck knew his thing.
Cause he just knew how to kick ass.
And that's what you needed in a movie.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You're right.
I mean, yeah, it would have been a different movie.
I feel like, I mean, how familiar are you?
You know, I'm a little bit older than you.
So I grew up watching a lot of this stuff on TV.
I don't know if it correlated into your time, but did you see
(26:23):
a lot of Chuck growing up or no?
No, just, was it a Walker, Texas Raider?
So you got like the later Chuck, the hit man, maybe, but that was, that
was like seeing it pop up on TV.
And I knew he, who he was from that.
Yeah.
Obviously I know he was part of the group.
Like you put them in the category of Van Damme and Schwarzenegger
(26:43):
and Stallone and Chuck Norris.
But I really, I personally, I can't think of a movie that stands out to
me that's like a Chuck Norris film.
I know he was in Expendables, right?
Sure.
Sure.
Yeah.
I think they put them in there, but no, for me, so for me, I can go run
through a few of them, the Delta Force, which is awesome action movie.
The only thing that bothers me about that movie is like, they have
the same song throughout it.
(27:05):
There's no variety in the soundtrack.
So every time it comes on, it's like like every time, but it's cool.
It's about a quick thing on that.
It's about like somebody takes over a plane and his Delta Force, you know,
terrorists take over the plane, his Delta Force has to just basically take it over.
But the terrorist is Middle Eastern played by Robert Forster.
(27:25):
If you don't know who he is, he's in Jackie Brown.
He's Jackie Brown's love interest in that movie.
Who's a total white guy, by the way, back in the day when he used to do all that.
Yeah, it's hilarious.
But anyway, so anyway, rest in peace to him, man.
Delta Force, Evasion USA, A Silent Rage, which actually the movie I suggest.
It's actually like a slasher movie.
(27:46):
Pretty good.
It's like one of his like few, like almost horror titles.
Interesting.
Yeah.
So, you know, good guys don't wear white.
The Octagon for the end.
The rest of the movie sucks, but the end rules.
But anyway, rest in peace Chuck.
Yeah, rest in peace Chuck.
That's so interesting.
He should have been in Kickboxer.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He was definitely in for the role.
Another kind of shout out in the realm of Muay Thai.
(28:08):
Check out Ong Vok from 2003 with Tony Jaa.
That's a really good movie.
More traditional to actual Muay Thai versus Kickboxer, which, again, they're
considering Hollywood kickboxing.
But yeah, if you love Van Damme, you can't go wrong with this movie.
Did you like it better than Bloodsport?
No, I like Bloodsport a little bit better as far as just the whole premise.
(28:33):
Kickboxer has better, like you could tell it's higher budget and you can also, the
soundtrack is way better than Kickboxer.
Agreed.
But if you watch both of these back to back, you're definitely going to do what
I've done, which is fucking mix the movies up and start getting parts.
I was saying to Marco as we were watching this this morning, I'm like, wait a
minute, is this, isn't this Bloodsport?
No, wait, isn't this part?
(28:53):
I thought, I thought the glass handwrapped part was actually in Bloodsport.
No, he uses the powder.
That's right.
He uses the powder in Bloodsport and it's the other guys, Bolo Young.
Yeah, Bolo Young.
So he's the reason I would put Bloodsport over because I like absolutely adore Bolo
Young.
Bolo Young.
So when I was younger as well, I used to collect martial arts VHS bootlegs.
(29:18):
So I would go to downtown crossing in Boston.
There was like a little shop up these stairs.
It was like this little thing you buy like three bootlegs.
I think it was three for 10 bucks if I remember right.
So I'd always buy two.
I would choose and then I would ask the guy to choose one for me because the guy
knew his shit.
And so he gave me a Bolo Young one called Chinese Hercules.
One of the times, not my favorite of the suggestions he ever gave, but I fell in
(29:41):
love with Bolo Young.
So I bought like all these, I think Chinese Samson was another one with him in
it.
So I had all these Bolo Young movies and he was just one of the greatest villains
of that time.
Very quiet, but he's so imposing.
He's also in Into the Dragon, right?
We did a review on Bloodsport already, like we mentioned earlier.
Check it out.
You know, Marco talks a lot about Bolo Young in that too.
(30:02):
So obviously I don't even have to ask you.
I wasn't gonna ask you out of these two movies, who your favorite villain is.
It's Bolo Young.
He's just one of my favorite people in general.
I do think this dude, Michelle Kesey, he did a great job playing.
Absolutely.
No, man.
He's pretty good.
Tom Poe is pretty convincing, you know?
(30:23):
Yeah.
So this movie led to, I think it's four or five direct-to-video sequels.
None of them, unfortunately, brought back Van Damme.
I think he might have like a tiny part in two where he kind of passes the baton,
but I haven't seen that movie in so long, but I feel like I remember something like
that, but I could be absolutely correct.
Yeah.
Tell us about the actor that kind of takes over the Van Damme role.
(30:44):
So it's Sasha Mitchell.
He's known, what he's mainly known for is being coding on the sitcom Step by Step,
where he plays like this totally like dullard of a human being.
He's funny in it, though.
I remember loving him as a kid.
And then when he did, I remember seeing him in Kickboxer 2, we rented it and I was
like, I can't believe that Sasha Mitchell kicking ass.
So it's funny that he went from being like this goof on a sitcom to that, or the
(31:08):
other way around.
I'm not sure what came first.
They were around the same time.
And then, but the thing that bothered me about the sequel is why I never continued
them, because I think I watched two and I started part three, but I don't think I
finished it, was they continued using Tong Po as the enemy.
Now, when you have a, an enemy that loses, why would you keep bringing him back?
He's already an established loser.
(31:29):
So that's, was always my problem with continuing, but I'm not actually going to
make an effort to watch at least rewatch two and maybe try to watch three.
It is interesting that they bring him back, but he's part, as we were talking
about off the podcast, he is part of the mob.
So maybe he takes on more of a mob role.
I don't know what his role is in two, if he's still just a kickboxer and he's
(31:50):
supposed to be, this is his revenge.
Right.
Right.
But anyway, he ends up losing again, you know, and he ends up losing in four.
I'm sure.
I know, I know he's not in three.
Cause we looked this up before we went live.
Four.
It doesn't even seem like it's about real kickball.
It's kind of like they throw in some kickboxing.
It's not, it's more about there's, there's gun violence and there's the mob
violence and then, yeah.
Okay.
All of a sudden, all right, we're going to throw in some kicks.
(32:11):
We got to do side to side.
Yeah.
I know we're doing Van Damme, but I think we should delve into a couple more
action series.
You haven't seen like best of the best.
No, that's like a karate tournament in the first one.
And then the second one, it's a street fighting ring.
And then the third one is a more favorite movie.
So that's what I have, but a long time ago, I haven't seen it since like the
nineties, probably like mid nineties.
(32:31):
Maybe we'll grab some lunch.
And if you have time, we can watch a kickboxer for a little bit, but.
Um, these are available.
If you want to watch these right now, it feels like, uh, Amazon prime's
actually running these for free.
Um, well, if you're Amazon prime subscriber, so you can check these
out without having to pay a dime.
And, um, I think it's all five movies.
(32:53):
So again, we were looking at these and I own kickboxer, but I can see that
at least it looked like two through five.
You could just watch these on prime if you want to give them a shot.
So, yeah, I'm going to guess they're probably pretty terrible,
but I am going to attempt it.
Yeah.
Kickboxers are recommend.
We love it.
Yeah.
Um, it's, it's eighties cheese.
It's everything you want.
(33:14):
And, um, basically any Van Damme movie for me, uh, between like 87 and I'd say
96 or so, except for street fighters are recommended.
So was it Doug that wanted to do, is it time cop?
No, hard target.
He's a big, which is a great movie.
Did Van Damme do time cop?
Yes.
Makes sense.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sudden death, time cop, universal soldier.
(33:36):
Probably a few more.
I'm forgetting, but, uh, all right.
Well, on that note, uh, I think we're going to call it on this one.
And, um, yeah, thanks for your patience.
And again, if you're still listening to us, yeah, as always.
Yeah.
Popular Podcasts
Hey Jonas!
Hey Jonas! The official Jonas Brothers podcast. Hosted by Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas. It’s the Jonas Brothers you know... musicians, actors, and well, yes, brothers. Now, they’re sharing another side of themselves in the playful, intimate, and irreverent way only they can. Spend time with the Jonas Brothers here and stay a little bit longer for deep conversations like never before.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by Audiochuck Media Company.
Betrayal Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal Team by emailing them at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.