The typical Hollywood fighting/martial arts flick where we are 100% certain the star will win at the end follows a certain structure where we see the protagonist go through a gauntlet of villains until the big boss gives him the ultimate test at the end for glory, usually for the hand of a woman or child or some sort of man-splained code that needs sorting. Examples include Bloodsport, Enter the Dragon, Lionheart, Universal Soldier, The Rocky franchise, and so on and so forth.

Now, the one attribute separating many early Van Damme movies from well written martial arts or boxing flicks such as the original Rocky, is that in his efforts as a younger “Muscles from Brussels” there is lack of a common gimmick screenwriters come to over and over and yes, over again. This is a little trick named “Refusal of the Call to Duty,” which, I will say again is present in nearly any movie or story worth a damn. This is the part in the beginning of the movie where the hero is told he or she has to do something, they say no, and then they have to be convinced to go on the journey that will change their life. The convincing comes in many different forms and can be small or dramatic but it is almost always a dire lesson where the hero loses big because he or she refuses to grow up, at least in the action category. The more famous example comes from the Spider Man comic book which has been changed and altered dozens of times since the Web Slinger’s inception. Peter Parker doesn’t want to stop the criminal, yada yada, the criminal kills his Uncle Ben, it is then that Peter decides to become Spider Man but will never come out from under the guilt and shame shadow of his original, stupid choice. Same goes for Mr. Luke Skywalker who like the spoiled brat he is, refuses to help anyone then comes home to find the smoldering remains of his aunt and uncle.

There is much more to the refusal of the call to duty. It is just one part of the mythical Hero’s Journey originally conceived by much research on the part of one scholar, Joseph Campbell and originally published in The Hero with A Thousand Faces.

I bring it up because I find it an interesting thing that most of the Van Damme characters do not go through this period of doubting themselves at all. They continue forward with the knowledge of what they want from the get go. Although they do end up following some of the Hero’s Journey steps like Road of Trials, Kickboxer does not follow up on a large portion of Campbell’s seventeen steps in his monomyth. In kickboxer, we know little to nothing about the character of Kurt Sloane except for his penchant for violence and uncanny ability to withstand pain. Kurt’s motivation is to avenge his brother’s disabling at the hands of the diabolical Tong Po. He knows what he wants, has no doubts in his abilities, goes forward with the proper training, and then, spoiler alert, whips Tong Po’s ass. We are not in it for the acting, that is for damn sure, or the choreography, or the budget, or the special effects. So what then? Is it purely the charisma of Mr. Van Damme himself? Is that all the movie banks on?

During a rewatch of Kickboxer, a seminal ”cool” movie in my childhood, I wondered why the hell any adult would have been able to stomach this drivel in 1989. Does it really just come down to the one good scene where Jean Claude gets drunk in a Thai bar, dances, and then proceeds to whip everyone’s ass? I mean, each time I watch it I do find myself smiling in spite of my own preconceived good taste. But it’s more of a wow this is really bad sort of reaction. There is no real appreciation. I am not watching it and finding any sort of hidden gems. It’s bad all the way around. Cinematography, acting, music, direction, editing, wardrobe even..

So what gives? Who greenlit this turd in the first place and how was it even made, even more questionable, how the hell did it pull in $50 million on a $2.7 million dollar budget and spawn a ton of sequels?

I think it is partly because it was unique at the time and nothing more. First off, Muay Thai was not well known at all in 1989. What? Yeah, boxing with elbows, knees, kicks and trips. Yes, take a Muay Thai specialist and a trained boxer, put them in a ring and watch how fast the boxer gets knocked unconscious by a vicious head kick. Kickboxer banked on this, plus the star power of Van Damme coming right off the success of Bloodsport (1988), another movie with no call to action and a pseudo girlfriend who doubts his abilities a la Adrien in Rocky 2 (1979) and again in Rocky 4 (1985). Second point (or is it third?): The really good martial arts and kung fu movies were not totally known to the American populace at the time. All I knew as a kid was Bloodsport and maybe a Bruce Lee movie or two, but even Bruce’s stuff paled in comparison to the real gold I would find in my adulthood like Drunken Master (1978), Master of the Flying Guillotine (1976), or Shogun Assassin (1980) super low budget movies that combined wit with exceptional choreography, arterial sprays, and clever camera play.

Still, there is something magical about old JCVD we logically cannot put a finger on. This is the “it” factor. Some have it, some do not, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Maybe Mr. Van Damme was banking on the American penchant for unwholesome violence in the form of jumping full split spin kicks and Jean Claude filled that void. Who really knows? Take a muscular foreigner with bad acting and an accent and we all fall in love even if the production is total shit. Sound familiar? This is basically Arnold Schwarzenegger’s entire early career. You could include a portion of Sly Stallone’s stuff in here too. Rambo 2, 3, 4, 5…Just replace the accent with a speech impediment. What does this say about us as a culture? That we enjoy violence (duh) but only at the ground level? I mean, real life violence in mega proportions is perpetrated by every single one of our presidents in the most awful ways possible and we say to ourselves “Just part of the job!” but maybe subconsciously we know our country and all the wartimes efforts behind it fueled by our hard working tax dollars is evil, really fucking evil and watching some dummy beat the shit out of villains from other countries and do it for a good cause helps soothe that awful American guilt. Watching it as adults we laugh because it’s all in good fun but maybe the laugh is nervousness and knowledge of how awful our spoiled asses are.

Your AI generated image for this post, #426, 5/12/25