KICKBOXER (18)
D: Mark DiSalle & David Worth
Kings Road (Mark DiSalle)
US 1989
103 mins
Action/Sports
W: Glenn Bruce
DP: Jon Kranhouse
Ed: Wayne Wahrman
Mus: Paul Hertzog
Jean Claude Van Damme (Kurt Sloane), Dennis Alexio (Eric
Sloane), Dennis Chan (Xian Chow), Michel Qissi (Tong Po), Ka Ting Lee (Freddy Li), Rochelle Ashana (Mylee)
On one hand, Kickboxer is the type of action film which every
teenage boy will enjoy, on the other, both time and increased maturity have not been kind to this JCVD blockbuster, which isn't much better than TV movie standard. It's still quite fun to see the
high-kicking Belgian take up the martial art to avenge his brother's defeat and subsequent crippling at the hands of a brutal Thai fighter, but it's also so ridiculously cheesy, that it verges on
impossible to take the film seriously.
4/10