Kickboxer: Vengeance – DVD Review
Arriving on Blu-ray and DVD this week is “Kickboxer: Vengeance”, the remake of the popular Jean-Claude Van Damme martial arts film from the 80’s. Van Damme returns in a supporting role, this time playing an entirely different character. Fans of the original however will get a nice end-credits nod to the much-loved Van Damme dance sequence.
“Kickboxer: Vengeance” is pretty much the exact same story as before. After his brother is killed during a fight with Tong Po (David Bautista), Kurt Sloane (Alain Moussi) seeks out to avenge his fallen sibling. When his first attempt at revenge fails, Kurt seeks to learn from the man who trained his brother, Master Durand (Van Damme). With the help of Durand, Kurt might develop the skills to take down Tong Po.
“Kickboxer Vengeance” was helmed by actor-turned-director, John Stockwell (“Blue Crush”, “Turistas”) and features an impressive supporting cast. However, I did have some issues with this otherwise mildly entertaining reboot. My first problem is if they were bringing back Van Damme, why couldn’t he play an older Kurt Sloan and change up the story and character names a bit? Have this be a passing-the-torch. I believe the key audience for a new “Kickboxer” movie would be fans of the original. But that’s just my opinion.
Another problem is that they cast Gina Carano but basically gave her nothing to do. I would have loved to see her take on somebody. My final problem with the film is one specific sequence. There is a big fight that takes place in the middle of the street and the brawl makes its’ way to the top of a couple of elephants. I have seen cool martial arts sequences before involving elephants and Tony Ja, but this one uses two very fake looking elephant heads and is completely distracting. If they were unable to make the fight look believable, they should have left it out.
“Kickboxer: Vengeance” isn’t terrible, but it lacks the fun and charm of the original. I am not expecting much from next year’s “Kickboxer: Retaliation”, but I will check it out and hopefully it improves on this first installment.
By: Marc Ferman