Okay, now that J.C.V.D. has polished Van Damme’s plaque in the action hero hall of fame I can’t keep running from the inevitable, it’s time to go back and watch those early Van Damme pictures I’ve always ignored. I’ve already seen NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER, his first major role, so I’ll start with BLOODSPORT, his first starring vehicle.
BLOODSPORT is from Cannon, and it’s very much in the vein (get it, vein, BLOODSPORT) as other Cannon chopsocky pictures like AMERICAN NINJA and ENTER THE NINJA, or other ’80s chopsocky movies like THE PERFECT WEAPON. These are stories of goofy white dudes mentored by Asians to take on ancient traditions and become great warriors. They lack charisma, presence and acting ability but are good at martial arts (or at faking them in the case of Michael Dudikoff). In this one there’s not an evil villain to vanquish, just kind of an asshole who’s the one to beat in honorable competition. He’s played by Bolo Yeung of CHINESE HERCULES and ENTER THE DRAGON fame, so he’s mainly a bad guy because of his muscles and his facial expressions:
But Van Damme shows that he is a formidable foe by actually topping Bolo’s insane facial expressions. Without these faces it’s possible Van Damme would’ve never caught on more than, say, Jeff Speakman. I mean check this out:
That’s serious. That goofball there is Van Damme’s character Frank Dux (“like ‘put up your dukes'”), apparently based on a real guy. He’s a soldier for the U.S. who sneaks off to Hong Kong to compete in the Kumite, the legendary secret underground fighting tournament thing. He is pursued by 2 FBI agents (one of them played by Ghost Dog himself, Forest Whitaker) but not to bust him for going AWOL – they just don’t want him to enter the Kumite because he’s so awesome it would be a shame if he got hurt. Also there’s a gal with a bad perm who wants to have sex with him and write an inside story about the Kumite (she succeeds at both [also it shows Van Damme’s ass {SPOILER}]). Meanwhile he has flashbacks where a kid playing Van Damme (accent and all) sneaks into a house to mess with somebody’s samurai sword. He gets caught and leaves without a sword but with a new best friend and a sensei.
Steve James must not have been available, so Van Damme’s supportive buddy is played by Ogre from REVENGE OF THE NERDS. At first it seems like they’ll be enemies, but they bond by playing a karate video game in a hotel lobby. Van Damme is so good at karate that he kicks ass in the video game too. Ogre should’ve challenged him to Super Punch Out to make it more fair.
You know, despite the title this movie isn’t out for blood like most Cannon pictures. I don’t think anybody gets murdered or even cheated. Ogre gets whupped but it’s fair and square, it’s his own fault, and he doesn’t die. There’s nothing to really avenge here. So Van Damme may lack Dudikoff’s vengeful death stare, but he far surpasses him in demonstratable martial arts skill. This really isn’t much of a character, he’s even kind of a dork, but it’s a hell of a showcase for him doing all kinds of acrobatic kicks and especially the splits. I know he did the splits in alot of his movies, but in this one he does them (it?) repeatedly. Tied up in the splits, splits on a chair, splits on the edge of a skyscraper, splits when he kicks and a guy catches his leg. He’s very acrobatic and graceful, but… I mean, I don’t want to nitpick, but I need to point out that his fighting style is pretty girly in this one, kind of like a ballet dancer. The guy’s obviously talented but most of the other guys in the tournament fight in a blunter, less prancy style that looks more deadly. So that doesn’t help.
Okay, I have always been somewhat of a Van Damme skeptic, but at the same time I am on the record as appreciating HARD TARGET, DOUBLE TEAM, KNOCK OFF, SUDDEN DOUBLE IMPACT, and J.C.V.D., so don’t take this the wrong way. But I think that at this early point in his career Van Damme had not distinguished himself as much as some of the other icons. This is 1988, same year as DIE HARD and ABOVE THE LAW. Bruce Willis created an unforgettable character and a template for a wave of imitators. Seagal created his persona, a new style of screen martial arts, and a somewhat unique mix of the cop and martial arts subgenres with ahead-of-their-time politics. Van Damme just did some fancy moves in another generic karate tournament movie.
So he’s still got to prove himself, but if you like this sort of crap it’s an enjoyable movie, so I liked it. It’s by the numbers, but they’re pretty good numbers. The relationship with the Ogre guy is especially great because you don’t see that dude in too many movies.
One silly detail I noticed that made me laugh: in one of the childhood flashbacks you see a little kid wearing a Bartles & Jaymes shirt. Yeah, that was 1988 all right.
So BLOODSPORT isn’t bad, I can see how it helped him become popular. But not legendary. We’ll see how things develop.
July 2nd, 2009 at 5:09 am
Bloodsport is way better than any of the Seagal films. At least Van Damme manages to play diffrent characters from time to time.