| Bloodsport (1988) Cast:Jean-Claude Van Damme,Donald Gibb,Bolo Yeung,Forrest Whitaker,Norman Burton,Leah Ayres,Roy Chiao,Phillip Chan Some truly exciting fightscenes alone make Bloodsport the price of a rental as Van Damme flies to Hong Kong to compete in a tournament called The Kumite where martial artists have come to compete and fight each other sometimes to the death. Jean-Claude Van Damme is appealing but is smartly given a few lines to say and his true talent is when he fights in the ring (Especially against Bolo Yueng) Bloodsport without a doubt remains one of Van Damme' s best movies. .Bloodsport if anything was a welcome change of pace in a slew of awful martial arts movies, which even went so far to cast a gymnast as a martial arts hero, nobody at the time were really taking martial arts movies serious, the US that is. Martial arts movies typically went two ways, Karate Kid formula and Chuck Norris, Bloodsport not only helped put martial arts movies on the map but actually overshadowed Norris' lame martial arts movies. Alongside with American Ninja, Bloodsport featured guys who looked more polished than Chuck Norris and here is why Bloodsport did so well, that being said for the genre Bloodsport is an excellent martial arts movie, everything about it is extremely well done, including the fightscenes. If one can get by fact that Jean-Claude speaks with a hilarious accent, you will indeed find a lot to enjoy here. Not surprisingly Bloodsport has become a genre classic, which helped Van Damme reach the heights of popularity. D.Newt Arnold *** |