Kicboxer: Vengeance (2016)

Kickboxer: Vengeance (2016)

Starring: Alain Moussi, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Davi Bautista, Sarah Malakul-Lane, Gina Carano, Georges St-Pierre, Darren Shahlavi

Director: John Stockwell

Action Director: Larnell Stovall

After watching Kickboxer: Vengeance, I am convinced that the movie is a product of the 1980s in the sense that you cannot to do the same thing in any other time. Either that, or director (and former actor) John Stockwell (Into the Blue; Dark Tide) is simply not a very good director. The Kickboxer reboot was announced in 2013 and early on, it was rumored that it would be helmed by Hong Kong actor-turned-director Stephen Fung. This was shortly after Fung had done the Tai Chi Zero/Hero duology. I almost wish he had stayed on board, given the final product we got.

Fung was still associated with the project as late as 2014, when Alain Moussi, Dave Bautista (who was about to hit it big as Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy), Georges St-Pierre were announced in the cast. Apparently, Fung wanted the film to be “dark and gritty,” whatever that would mean in a Kickboxer film. By the middle of 2014, Shu Qi was rumored to be in talks to play (presumably) the love interest while J.J. Perry was said to be onboard as fight choreographer. That was exciting in itself, considering the job Perry had done on Undisputed II: Last Man Standing. Turns out that J.J. had passed the job onto Larnell Stovall, who had been on J.J. Perry’s team and was choreographer of Undisputed III: Redemption, on which he had done a superlative job.

At about the same time, Jean-Claude Van Damme had not been cast yet. In fact, there were rumors that mentor/trainer role would go to Tony Jaa himself. There were even rumors that Scott Adkins would show up in a fighting capacity at some point. That was followed by the “will he/won’t he” rumors of whether Dave Bautista would be playing Tong Po or an original villain. It appears that first he would be playing Tong Po, then he denied it, and finally confirmed he would. A few months later, Scott Adkins announced that he had turned down the role of Eric Sloane, the main character’s brother, based on the small size of the role. Given Adkins’s popularity at the time, and knowing what we do about how little Eric is in this version of the movie, I understand why. 

By the end of 2014, more changes were being announced. First, Tony Jaa announced that he was pulling out due to scheduling issues, presumably on SPL 2: A Time for Consequences. That was probably for the best, given the size and fight time of the role. More unfortunate was that Stephen Fung had left the project and was replaced by John Stockwell, whose previous foray into action was directing Gina Carano in In the Blood. Filming started in December of 2014. At the time filming started, Jean-Claude Van Damme was announced to play the mentor. And we learned that Thai supermodel Sara Malakul Lane would play a detective on Tong Po’s trail. That was a departure from Mylee, the rural shopkeeper from the original. Both Gina Carano and Darren Shahlavi were announced to have signed on within the same week.

There were some problems early on in the shooting, stemming from a fiancier pulling out of the film and there not being enough money to pay the crew. Thankfully, the producers were able to find a replacement and by February 2015, they were able to pay everybody and continue production. The rest more or less went off without a hitch, with filming being divided up between New Orleans—Dave Bautista’s scenes were shot there in order to avoid scheduling conflicts with Bautista’s other projects—and Thailand, where most of Van Damme’s scenes were shot.

The film starts in Thailand with our hero, Kurt Sloane (Alain Moussi, of Jiu-Jitsu), showing up at a secret Muay Thai compound in the Thai hinterlands looking for Tong Po. He claims he wants to train there and faces off with one of the students, Kavi (Georges St-Pierre, Batroc in Captain America: The Winter Soldier), in order to prove his worth. That evening, Tong Po (Dave Bautista, of Killer’s Game and Skyfall), shows up to give his students a demonstration. Later that night, Kurt sneaks out of his bedroom with a pistol, intent on killing Tong Po.

Cue a flashback. Three months earlier, Kurt was in the States with his brother, Eric (Darran Shahlavi, of Ip Man 2 and Tai Chi II), celebrating the latter’s recent karate championship victory. During the festivities at the family gym, they are visited by a fight promotor named Marcia (Gina Carano, of In the Blood and Haywire). Marcia informs Eric of a fight opportunity in Thailand that promises a 400K fight purse just for participating. Kurt does not like the idea, but Eric thinks it’s a good opportunity to buy the property where their gym is and be set for life. Eric eventually leaves for Thailand. Three months later, Kurt receives a plane ticket in the mail and an invitation to watch the fight.

Kurt arrives in Thailand just in time for the fight. Actually, he arrives as the fight is underway. Given that he got the plane ticket earlier, how could he be late for that? Anyway, Kurt can only watch helplessly in horror as Eric’s opponent, Tong Po, not only gives him a sound beatdown, but snaps his neck, killing him instantly. The police, led by Detective Liu (Sara Malakul Lane, of Sharktopus and Jurassic City), show up to disperse the crowd. Liu has been meaning to arrest Tong Po on murder charges, but can never get enough witnesses for it. Liu wants to keep Kurt around as a witness, but her boss, Tran (Hawn Tran, of Eat Brains Love and Haunting on Fraternity Row), demands that Kurt be sent back to the States immediately. Hmm….

Kurt manages to skip his flight and remains in Thailand, which brings us back to the opening scene of the film. Anyway, Tong Po has Kurt arrested for attempted murder, but Liu is able to step in and whisk him away to the compound of Durand (Jean-Claude Van Damme, the original Kurt Sloane), the Muay Thai master who had trained Eric prior to the fateful fight. Kurt demands that Durand teach him, too. Initially, Durand is reluctant, but the two square off and I guess Durand sees the “warrior spirit” in him and agrees to train him. From there, the film more or less follows the general template of the original: training, fight at a club, more training, fight against other Muay Thai fighters, more training, finale.

There are some kinks in the formula. Like I said, instead of the mentor’s niece, the love interest is a female detective. Sara Malakul Lane is a beautiful woman and has a great body, but the love is very much “it’s in the script.” The first training montage has a completely random love scene spliced in the middle, although there has been absolutely no build-up to them falling in love or previous romantic chemistry beforehand. In the original, there was a gradual build-up to Kurt and Mylee falling for each other, plus some things happen to the latter that serve as the impetus for Kurt overcoming Tong Po at the end.

There is also addition of the Kavi character, played by Georges St-Pierre. He is Kurt’s first opponent at the Tong Po compound and is later kicked out. Durand lets him stay at his place on the condition he assist Kurt in his training. But there comes a point that he disappears from the story and reappears at the climax, with his arm inexplicably in a cast, yelling “Naht Suu Kao!” (or “White Warrior”). This is obviously a reference to the original film, but there is no reason for Kavi to do this (unless he is playing a Thai person). In the first Kickboxer, “Naht Suu Kao” was a nickname given by Kurt’s master after his first official win. Here, it shows up only to remind us that the filmmakers watched the original.

The new films axes the original crime bosses whom were the backers behind Tong Po. They were scum, but they did the fights in a legal and legitimate manner. This film places the fights in an underground / illegal context, all staged by a seedy promotor. I’m not sure if that is less or more believable. I think less so, since outfits like that depend entirely on money from betting. And since Tong Po is undefeated, I think there would come a point that nobody would bet against him anymore. Even Undisputed II brought that idea up, which is what led the Russian jailers to bring in George Chambers as a suitable opponent for Boyka. By having the fights as legit in the original Kickboxer, you could see the huge crowd draws as a way not only keeping the Law out of their business, but guaranteeing income on the bouts themselves.

Speaking of bouts, how do the fights fare? Well, they were not as good as I was hoping. Some of the problem is that they are over-edited in a number of places. It doesn’t reach The Bourne Supremacy levels, but it is distracting. The choreography ranges from “typical 90s Van Damme movie” to something a little closer to what Larnell Stovall did in Undisputed III. This is the weird part, Moussi has some great moves and is a talented fighter. No doubt about it. But his fights seem to be missing a real sense of impact. On the other hand, Van Damme fights quite a bit in this, and though his onscreen style hasn’t changed from the 1990s, he sells the impact a lot more than his more youthful co-star does. What this film has over the original is that there are lot more fight scenes in total. The original had two fights with Eric Sloane, the infamous juke box fight, and two tournament fights with Kurt (including the finale). This one has a fight scene every 5-10 minutes, which is appreciated. 

The original film also establishes that Xian’s tutelage was more than enough to prepare Kurt for Tong Po. There is a scene before the climax where Freddy Li (Lee Ka-Ting) goes to his boss to ask for a loan to make a bet with. When Freddy informs him that Kurt has been training under Xian, the boss’s smirk turns into a frown. Moreover, Freddy is worried enough that he has Eric Sloane kidnapped in order to use as leverage against Kurt during the final match. It is only Eric’s rescue and arrival at the match that turns the tide and shows us that Kurt was more than a match for Tong Po to begin with.

In this film, Kurt Sloane and Tong Po have a lengthy final battle, which is played out in stages: open-handed, with broken glass (a reference to the original), and then with weapons. The film has Tong Po winning throughout the entire match, only for him to suddenly get a final adrenaline rush when he’s near death and make the comeback. This happens in a lot of movies to varying degrees of believability (with Tapped Out being at the bottom), but I think the original film did it better. The suspense was built on “will Kurt survive long enough for his brother to be rescued?” Here the suspense is, “When will Kurt figure out that he’s better than his opponent?” It doesn’t fully work in this case.

The original Kickboxer is an American martial arts classic. I would not have been remade otherwise. This one has a few good fights, but otherwise is a mediocre movie. I appreciate that it followed the general template of the original while doing things different along the way. It’s that those changes turned out to be to the movie’s detriment. I can only wonder if things would have turned out better with Stephen Fung at the helm.