You Break My Record, Now I Break You!

The Intro

I love watching good movies. A great deal of my free time has been spent hunting down copies of critically acclaimed films like The Godfather, The Silence of the Lambs, The Dark Knight and others.

During one of my scouring sessions, I came across JCVD in a Time magazine article. I discovered that it stood for Jean-Claude Van Damme and was honestly stunned by how Time magazine heralded his performance as the second best of that year (after Heath Ledger’s portrayal of The Joker). I mean we are talking about The Muscles from Brussels himself, deliverer of accent-heavy lines and mediocre acting.

I did a bit of research and found out that Time was on the record for stating that Van Damme “deserves not a black belt, but an Oscar.” Also, Van Damme was nominated for Best Actor by the Toronto Film Critics Association Awards as well as the Chlotrudis Awards. A couple more looks around the interwebz and I discovered Rotten Tomatoes gave JCVD a Certified Fresh rating (knowing RT, this is certainly no small feat). I guess that last bit did it for me. I’m a sucker for highly-praised films, so I decided to look for a copy.

While waiting for my copy to arrive, I decided to watch another Van Damme movie in order to remind myself why I have such a poor opinion of his acting. Little did I know I was in for one of the most hilarious walks I’ve had down memory lane.

The Movie

I was looking through Van Damme’s filmography and saw Bloodsport. Of all the Van Damme movies I’ve seen so far, this one is probably my favorite. The thing is, aside from loving good movies, I also have a special place in my heart for bad movies with cult followings. Bloodsport fits the latter category too perfectly. Besides, I also wanted to watch it for the lulz.

I can’t remember how many times I’ve seen this film, but since I was 8, I’ve seen it on Betamax, VHS, LD, VCD, DVD and probably Blu-ray and UMD in the future. If you think I’ve wasted a lot of time for just one movie, then I should also tell you that I’ve seen this movie on cable a couple of times too. There’s this friend of mine who used to text me when Bloodsport was on Cinemax and we’d watch it separately, meet up later on and celebrate the sheer campiness of the film by doing splits in the same manner Van Damme does in the movie.

The story is allegedly based on real events in the life of Frank Dux. But everybody else thinks it’s bullshit, and so do I, so there’s not much point in talking about the real Dux here.

The Characters

Frank Dux, played by Van Damme, is a Koga Yamabushi Ninjitsu (not stated in the film, but I’m a geek) expert wanting to honor his master by winning the Kumite, an underground, no holds barred martial arts tournament his master won many years ago.

Ray Jackson, played by Donald Gibb is the Donkey to Frank Dux’s Shrek. Whether the studio consciously decided to add this character for comic relief is still unknown to me. Van Damme’s Belgian accent while playing an American character provides enough comic relief that lasts the entire film. Oh yeah, Ray is also a Kumite fighter.

Janice Kent, played by Leah Ayres, is our hero’s love interest. She’s a journalist who wants to get a scoop on the Kumite. Has nice legs too.

Chong Li is the main antagonist of the story. He is played by Bolo Yeung, who in my opinion, makes the best martial arts villain ever. He is the reigning Kumite champion and seems to enjoy breaking people in half and looking absolutely evil while doing so.

Agents Rawlins and Helmer, played by Forest Whitaker and Norman Burton respectively, are two agents sent by the US Military to bring Frankie boy back. Did I mention he went AWOL from the US Military?

The rest are a bunch of scrubs whose roles read “get beat up.” Being a typical Filipino, I should mention that there is one character here played by our kababayan. Sadiq Hossein, an Arabian Kumite fighter, is played by Bernard Mariano, a Filipino actor. I guess with the number of Filipinos working in the Middle East, people now have an excuse to start confusing them for actual Arabs.

The Story

The story begins with Frank Dux going AWOL from the military to compete at the Kumite in Hong Kong. His tough-as-nails commanding officer is not too pleased with this and sends agents Rawlins and Helmer after him. Apparently, the US government has spent lots of money on old Frankie boy here and they couldn’t risk him getting hurt, so it’s up to our bumbling agents to bring him back via incapacitating him with 50,000-volt tasers. How the writers missed the irony is beyond me. And how the US Military couldn’t alert airport security to not allow Dux from leaving US soil is as mysterious as the mysteries of the universe itself.

Anyway, Frankie boy visits his Shidoshi, Senzo Tanaka, before leaving for Hong Kong. Here we see (apart from Van Damme’s apparent difficulty in acting) a series of flashbacks on how he was trained to float like a butterfly and sting like a Tomahawk cruise missile. Parts of the flashback show a teenage Frank (Pierre Rafini) in one of the most laughable acting jobs I’ve seen. And by laughable, I mean I had to pause the movie, get to the hospital, get the nice man with the stethoscope to take out my funny bone, find out that funny bone is actually a pun and has nothing to do with laughing, come back and still find myself laughing at the sheer awkwardness of his performance. You’d get the impression that the kid playing the young Frank didn’t even wanna be in that movie; that his parents just forced him to be there ‘cause they want him to be a big star one day. But anyway, the training montage with Van Damme as adult Frank is one of the most impressive I’ve seen as far as martial arts films go. Here, he does complete splits in what seems to be an omen that says there will be more splits to come (not just in this movie).

Back to the present, he bids farewell to his ill sensei and promised him to bring honor to the Tanaka clan for training him and having treated him like a son. Awwwwww. It’s in serious moments like this that I have to remind myself that Van Damme was a ballerina from 16 to 21 years of age. It’s an amusing but necessary distraction if your intent is to watch Van Damme act and come out of it with intact sensibilities.

Frank arrives in Hong Kong, meets fellow Kumite fighter Ray Jackson and befriends him after beating him in an arcade game. If I was in a martial arts tournament, I’d be wary about befriending other participants since there’s a chance you’d face each other. “No, I can’t hit him…he’s my friend!” There goes your dream of being Kumite champ, chump. They meet Mr. Lin (guide for American participants apparently) and he takes them to the arena where Dux puts his dukes to the use by reducing a brick to smithereens. This gets reigning champ and lord of extinction Chong Li’s attention, which prompts the man-mountain to say the first of his several badass lines: “Very good! But brick not hit back!” Chong Li has an air of chaos and destruction about him. His mere presence is said to make babies cry within a 37.2 kilometer radius. You couldn’t help but start feeling sympathy for Frank. Bolo Yeung is simply good at playing this type of villain. Did I mention that he was 50 years old when this film was made? Yup…badass!

Then we meet reporter Janice Kent who is being coaxed by Sadiq (played by our kababayan…oi, gusto kong bumati kay nanay at tatay at kay ate at kuya…artista na akow!) to join him in his room upstairs for an “interview.” Ah, ladies men. They sure don’t waste time. Frank goes to her rescue by doing a coin trick that seemingly requires a flashback in order to be done properly, making Sadiq look like an idiot thereby hurting our national pride. While all seems well, feminists would probably say Janice went out of the frying pan and into the fire since Frank asked her out to dinner for the following night. And we all know what happens after dinner.

After a scene where Van Damme does more splits, the tournament begins and we are treated to a bevy of fighters coming from various martial arts disciplines. We get to see our main fighters strut their stuff. Ray beats his first opponent, but had to be stupid enough to taunt Chong Li who was quietly watching the matches. Chong Li, however, didn’t beat his opponent. Beating an opponent was too easy…so he broke him instead and also broke the world record for fastest knockout. How much more badass can you get? The first time I saw this guy in a movie (Enter The Dragon), I got the impression that his hobbies include knitting doilies, baking pastries and ripping spinal columns out of people. I heard that he accidentally created the Grand Canyon when he went skydiving but forgot his parachute. Arizona was never the same again. Frank’s match followed afterwards wherein he was pitted against Sadiq, knocking him out by showing him his palm and hurting our national pride for the second time. Damn. Frank beats Chong’s fastest knockout record by the way.

The first day of the tournament ends, Rawlins and Helmer catch up to Frank, he evades them with Ray’s help and goes to dinner with Janice. They had sex (although it’s never shown) and we are treated (whether we like it or not) to a gratuitous display of Van Damme’s butt in the morning after. Belgian Bites were said to be named after those. Either way, I don’t get why they had to show us his butt. Women might enjoy it, but women hardly ever watch martial arts films.

Frank and Ray continue to do well on the second day and we get to see more fight scenes that continue to impress. Ray however, gets broken by Chong in the last match of the day. He gets hospitalized and Frankie boy vows revenge, upsetting Janice, Mr. Lin, the doctor, the nurse and me ‘cause I needed to remind myself again that he was once a wee ballerina. Did I mention that he did a lot of splits again?

On the final day of the Kumite, Rawlins and Helmer are waiting for Frank right outside the arena, and this time they’re ready to use their tasers and are backed by Hong Kong’s finest. Frank, however, stops them with nothing but a gym bag, a trash can lid and shiny leather shoes. He and Chong both reach the finals and in one of the most badass moments in martial arts film history, Chong Li exclaims to Frank: “You break my record. Now I break you, like I break your friend!” This guy really likes breaking stuff…and people too. I bet tanks were modeled after him.

The fight gets off to a good start, but Chong takes out a pill from his sweat-drenched shorts, grinds it into powdery bits with his fingers (badass…normal people can’t even grind anything with their bare hands) and hurls it at our hero’s eyes. Suffice to say, he got lots of cheap shots in on the now visually impaired Frank, Frank channels into his own inner badass, moans for a while, and then starts beating Chong’s ass using repeated jump spinning heel kicks which is also an omen for more jump spinning heel kicks to come in Van Damme’s career. Frank wins the tournament, Janice gets her scoop, the agents bring their man back to the military, and Ray is now fully conscious but still buffoonish.

The Conclusion

First off, Bolo Yeung is a major badass. I now believe steroids are made from his urine.

Second, this movie is Van Damme’s first starring role and is therefore responsible for establishing the Van Damme-isms he likes to use in majority of his films (lots of splits, jump spinning heel kicks, and a Belgian accent for all his American roles).

Third, Belgian Bites were inspired by Van Damme’s ass.

Fourth, while this movie didn’t have much to offer by way of acting, dialogue or plot, its redeeming factor is its fight scenes as well as for having revitalized the concept (since Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon) of showcasing numerous martial arts disciplines in a single martial arts movie. Previous martial arts films usually showcased two disciplines at the most. For these reasons, this movie is a classic in the martial arts film genre and might have influenced things like the Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter and Tekken franchises as well as mixed martial arts.

Fifth, you can already see here that Forest Whitaker has great acting skills. He’s playing a minor role, but he’s doing better than the entire cast. The things he does are very natural and very genuine. I suppose acting skill is inversely proportional to fighting skill in this film.

Lastly, I am now quite eager to see how Van Damme has improved in JCVD. I sincerely enjoy stories of individuals achieving good things. Looking at Bloodsport, it’s kind of hard to imagine him ever getting a Best Actor nomination, but whatever. This guy probably has acting chops that we’ve never seen before due to the kind of roles being given to him…at least I’m hoping so.