Bloodsport – While everyone else on the Internet was watching the 1980s tribute/crazy Internet-age re-imagining of the 1980s Kung Fury, I instead watched an actual film from that same time period! Hurray for me!
Weirdly enough, I remember this film being one of the few kung-fu/fighting movies I was not allowed to watch, although my parents don’t seem to remember that. Frankly, I didn’t remember this cult hit in the least. At the same time, I was morbidly curious: how did Jean Claude Van Damme suddenly become a star? Bloodsport, supposedly, held the answer.
And what an answer! Based upon the possibly real/maybe not exploits of renowned martial artist Frank Dux, it involves an underground full-contact fighting tournament where people fight. Seriously, that’s it.
Bloodsport is a pretty awful film, I think; it sketches the broad lines of a kung fu film (training, being the best, motivation for revenge I guess? But then they throw that into the latter half of the film, which means zero build-up), but only sketches the broadest of lines for characterization purposes. Everyone fits into an archetype, but they don’t bother to actually explore any of them. Why is there a romance subplot in this film that goes nowhere? Why is he an army guy on furlough (and, additionally, how does this make the plot more interesting)? Honestly, asking such questions should tell you to set your personal bar low from the get go.
However, I am truely surprised that Jean Claude Van Damme barely knows how to act, at all, in Bloodsport. JCVD, far from being charismatic, looks like an attractive Belgian dude completely outside of his element. I can’t remember the last time I saw such stilted and weird acting in a film; even the possibility of bladder punches and split kicks for reasons that make no sense can’t make up for his total lack of awareness as to what someone SHOULD do while being filmed. Well, when he’s not screaming in slow motion for half the fight scenes. Whoever decided that everything should take place at half speed, especially looking at Van Damme’s surprise face, clearly did not know what was happening.
That’s not to mention the fighters he goes up against, which strike me as part of the inspiration for just about every fighting game involving a world tournament (consider that Bloodsport came out in 1988). Stereotypes from around the globe fight in glorious battles with fake blood, and absolutely zero unrealistic choreography (i.e., there wasn’t any other than “fight and don’t hurt each other”, since there seems to be no stunt doubles). The African guy fight like a monkey, Arab guy obsessed with money, and barrel-chested Chinese rival guy who likes to maim and kill his opponents for reasons that they don’t explain (humanizing a villain, after all, doesn’t happen in the 1980s). In a phrase, the whole atmosphere comes from a culture and set of ideals I feel like I never knew.
And yet, I can’t help but say I enjoyed it thoroughly. To me, I feel like I am viewing some strange cultural artifact, and boy does that ever make me laugh. At the same time, it’s weirdly ambitious. What other film trusts an audience enough to just roll with a 15 minute flashback which occurs for seemingly no reason? Bloodsport sure does! What movie would cast Forest Whittaker as a bumbling dumb “government agent” who, with his partner, apparently can carry 50,000 volt tasers around Hong Kong but not guns? Also, can you really deflect a taser using a garbage can lid? Or break the brick on the bottom of a stack of bricks without touching said brick (well, you can’t make it explode, but crack it? Sure!)? Bloodsport likes to answer all the questions I didn’t even know to ask!
I apologize if I sound sarcastic, but all of this reminded me of a time where we didn’t need complex explanantions for everything. This guy is good; this guy is bad. This guy wants to fight for his master; this guy just likes fighting for the sake of fighting. Hong Kong is a place where Asian people bet on sports where people might dies with giant red pieces of paper and other stereotypes fight for their amusement I guess. Also, nobody bothers to stop anyone from being killed, even if one guy is clearly a sadist who wants to kill people. Bloodsport, like many action movies of its period, says “these questions are really, truly, unimportant; just watch the big white dude crush the other guy’s head with his skull and be entertained!”
There’s a time and a place for everything, I suppose. Sometimes you can watch something with zero intellectual content and be entertained. I am perfectly fine with that. Apparently enough people liked this film that it grossed over ten times its production budget, and I can’t blame them! I like it too!
