Aaron: The Kumite tournament is the backbone of this movie, and if those scenes don’t succeed, neither does the movie. To that end, each of the combatants is given their own unique style. I’m not enough of an expert to be able to distinguish them by name, but it appears that the filmmakers hired people based on their skill in different styles of fighting. This variety of styles keeps the tournament scenes fresh and interesting, and after awhile you get into the fight scenes because you’re anticipating what it will be like when the different styles clash. This is a pretty common trope in itself, but again it’s so reliably solid a piece of entertainment that it’s still fun to see it executed. It’s satisfying for the same reason video games can be satisfying; it gives the impression of advancing through levels towards the ultimate goal. Outside of our heroes, Frank and Ray, the other fighters are more or less disposable, and you never know who is going to win a particular fight.Of course, there’s one other person who is not disposable: the villainous Chong Li, portrayed by former competitive bodybuilder Bolo Yeung. Bloodsport and Enter the Dragon are probably Yeung’s most famous films here in the U.S., but he was a prolific actor in the Hong Kong action scene for decades, starting with a string of bad guy roles for the Shaw Brothers in 1970, he kept working for decades, sometimes appearing in over a dozen movies in one year. He started slowing down in the late nineties, and has only had a handful of movies released this century, although he does have a small part in an upcoming film featuring those titans of martial arts action: Michael Madsen, Armand Assante, and Peter O’Toole.
Bolo Yeung as Chong Li is a seriously imposing villain, owing to his bulk and some seriously weird demeanor. He constantly clears his nose by shooting snot rockets just before he attacks (which is actually a tic common to this type of fist-fighting entertainment), speaks very little, and when he wins a match he raises his arms in triumph and screams noiselessly. He opens his mouth and makes every indication that he’s screaming triumphantly and working the crowd, but he makes no noise. I’m not sure if it was intentional or not; did he really make no noise during those moments, or did they decide to remove his shouts because they didn’t sound right? At first I thought maybe he was a deaf-mute, but then he speaks a couple lines of dialogue, so that’s not the reason. He’s like Lenny in Of Mice and Men, if Lenny ever realized his strength and decided to get into MMA fighting. There’s something off about him, something seedy and depraved, but when he wins a match he seems somehow innocent and childlike, even though he’s just maimed or killed someone with his bare hands. It’s one of the most unsettling things I’ve ever seen someone do.How did the fighting hold up for you? Clearly there are hundreds of better film options out there if you’re looking for well-choreographed fights, but it was still executed well enough. It’s what I imagine the appeal in pro wrestling is; the fights are staged and not entirely convincing, but the athletic skill involved can still be impressive.
Rik: The fight scenes were an aspect in which I was lightly disappointed in when I watched it again (and again and again) recently. I think the lack of overall excellence in the fight choreography goes hand in hand with the relative cheapness of the whole production. There are a few obvious misses where things don’t seem timed quite right, and there is a sense (for me, at least) where it seems like they just went with the first take to speed things up a bit. The upside in displaying a zillion fighting styles (and in Gibb’s case, a near total lack of fighting style) though is that one can point to this as a reason why things don’t seem as fluid as they might be normally. There are many mismatches, especially when tiny, would-be Bruce Lee types are thrown in the ring with the aforementioned and absolutely formidable-looking Bolo Yeung.
Yeung (aside from Jean-Claude, of course) has always been my favorite part of this film. He is an impressive presence on just a physical level, but then he has that unceasing glare on top of it that gives his character an extra touch of villainy. When I saw Bloodsport the first time, I recognized him instantly from Enter the Dragon, and I didn’t need much more than that to sell me on how dangerous he would be in this movie. But then Bolo truly delivers on that promise with not just his fighting prowess but also, as you mentioned, by making his every second of screen time in Bloodsport as memorable and often as annoying as possible. Unless you outright hate the guy (or this movie) in real life, I think it is impossible to end a viewing of Bloodsport without coming away with the impression that Yeung’s Chong Li is one of the great martial arts villains. He is that great in this film.However, Chong Li (as a character) seems entirely too brutal even for a competition such as this. Since this Kumite isn’t a “to the death” style tournament like you often see in this genre, and is an annually held event that obviously depends on some measure of protection from local authorities or organizations (even if it is, you know, “secret”), I find it strange that Chong would be invited back after gratuitously murdering someone in the ring there a year earlier. After all, there is a fighting association (the IFAA) that sends someone (the “Jackson” character) to help guide the American fighters through the tournament, so there seems to be some oversight involved. And Chong seems fairly intent on killing everyone he meets in the current tournament as well, even if he doesn’t actually murder most of his opponents. However, he does seem to greatly enjoy cracking backs over his knee and twisting necks violently and snapping limbs in ways that look more like pure criminal assault than a regulated sporting contest. (The crowd – and the judging committee, too, up to a certain point -- seems pretty OK with Chong’s exceedingly gratuitous poor sportsmanship, which I also find hard to believe.)
And then there is that brick scene, which seems to be a bone of contention with anyone who disputes Frank Dux’s claims of authenticity. Jean-Claude has to prove himself worthy of entry into the Kumite by smashing (with a single blow) through a pile of bricks, but can only break the bottom one on the stack. This is supposed to be a big deal, and apparently no one has ever done such a thing before. Jean-Claude succeeds mightily, crushing the brick with a grand explosion of force and brick dust that leaves everyone with their jaws agape. It’s an impressive enough feat that even people in the film are left somewhat in doubt, leading one villainous jerk to get dangerously close to Fox in Socks territory when he scoffingly says of Jean-Claude, “He’s the American shithead who makes tricks with bricks.” The “trick” is a technique often called “the death touch” and the real-life Dux has apparently performed a similar though not quite exact feat in public and on television over the years. The outcome in the film is, of course, silly beyond measure, but it is one of those “buy-in” moments where if you believe the hero can do this, then you have to believe everything he does that is yet to come. And boy, did we ever buy into the exploding brick trick…
Aaron: I’m just going to say this about the sometimes unconvincing fighting and frequently silly machismo: it fell on the right side of the divide between enjoyably cheesy and obnoxiously stupid. I never bothered to think about how realistic that brick scene was; I took it to be just your typical bit of martial arts mythologizing, along the lines of the “Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique” in Kill Bill, or any variation of a near magical martial arts move. The movie that keeps coming to mind as I write this up is Blind Fury, where Rutger Hauer plays another white guy who attains a legendary level of skill and defies the laws of physics and logic at every turn. That film, as ridiculous as it was, was based on one of the films in the long-running Japanese franchise, Zatoichi (Zatoichi Challenged, to be exact), so this is all part of the tradition. As for Chong Li, you are quite correct in finding him too brutal for this film. He’s imposing in a way the rest of the film never quite attempts, and is actually more in line with what I expected from this film when I was younger. When he blinds Jean-Claude by blowing powder in his eyes, though, he becomes the ineffectual cartoon villain the film seemed to require. I’m confused as to how this worked, however. There is a referee in the fight, and Chong Li makes no attempt to disguise his actions as he grinds up a piece of chalk and blows it into Jean-Claude’s eyes. I can only assume no one stopped the fight because they are all terrified of Bolo Yeung in this role. Then, bizarrely, Chong Li mostly steps back and allows Jean-Claude time to clear his eyes. He makes some jabs at him, but keeps backing off for a while when it’s clear he should just go in for the kill.Aside from Chong Li, though, this film is lighter and more fun than I expected, as I said earlier. However, there were some various attempts at actual comedy that never quite landed for me. I didn’t hate them, but they left me more baffled than amused. Chief among the things I found baffling were the not-quite-competent-yet-not-quite-bungling pair of American officials tasked with tracking Frank Dux down in Kowloon, stopping him from fighting in the Kumite, and transporting him safely back home. Played by Norman Burton and a young Forrest Whitaker, this pair seems like they’re supposed to be the comedic relief, but they never really do anything funny. A lot of their business has the structure of comedy, but isn’t actually comedy. Like the way Burton constantly cuts Whitaker off in conversation; it seemed to be setting up a “good cop bad cop” dynamic between the two of them, with Whitaker as the polite, understanding officer who gets people to open up to him. But, no… Burton is as polite as Whitaker; he just keeps interrupting him. Or that scene where they eat at a waterfront restaurant, and Whitaker is handling those chopsticks like an 8-year-old who’s never seen them before. There’s some dialogue and action that I guess is meant to convey how crazy the food is in China, but even the local cop (and one disinterested dog) seems to find it disgusting. Then again, everyone in the place appeared to be Caucasian, so possibly they’re eating at a location that the locals have convinced the tourists to eat at, so they don’t overcrowd all the good restaurants.
And then, what may be the most famous moment of comedy in the film: the chase scene through Hong Kong where Burton and Whitaker try to capture Jean-Claude, who is clearly in peak physical form and will have no trouble avoiding these soft, pudgy desk jockeys. And in fact he outruns them effortlessly, literally running circles around them as he leads them through Hong Kong, always stopping just long enough for them to almost catch up. It’s groaningly unfunny, in a way that actually manages to be kinda funny again. Plus, it gives us a nice segue into one aspect of this film we can’t not discuss: the soundtrack. This scene features one of those cheesy late-eighties synth-driven rock songs that must have been a requirement for this type of film for a few years. There are, to my memory, three vocal tracks that are all pretty awful, but again, fell on the right side of cheesy for me. Nothing I’ll go out and buy, but Fight to Survive, with its repeating chant of “Kumite! Kumite!” has snuck its way into my head, to the extent that I’ve caught myself several times repeating the chant in rhythm to the song under my breath.
The rest of the soundtrack, from Paul Hertzog, is some fairly low-key synth work that ties it quite distinctly to a specific time in the American film scene. Hertzog had a pretty brief film career, working on only seven film scores (two of which were for JCVD films, the other being Kickboxer) before retiring to become a high school English and music teacher. Time will tell which of his professions had the larger impact on the youth of America.
What are your feelings on the soundtrack? As someone who saw this movie several times during JCVD’s heyday, did you ever own a copy of the soundtrack?
Rik: If I had been aware that a soundtrack was available, I possibly would have bought it, though I would have hardly ever listened to it except to make fun of it or to annoy someone. I am very rarely a fan of synth-driven soundtracks at all – there are exceptions, like John Carpenter or Tangerine Dream, but even there, synth soundtracks don’t have a lot of replay value for me – so I doubt that I would have rushed out to buy the soundtrack unless there is a really great song or two that I just had to have in my collection. Bloodsport does have that song, but I wouldn’t call it great, not with a straight face anyhow. Fight to Survive is the sort of anthem – along the lines of Eye of the Tiger, but much, much cheesier, like if John Waite had a baby with Steve Perry – that is perfect for training montages and Parker and Stone parodies. The singer sounds so puffed up and convinced of his own cool; I mock the film, but like you, the Kumite chant (and the chorus of the song) always gets into my head when I am watching the film, and I can’t help but love the song in spite of itself.
I suppose that if the film took place anywhere but Hong Kong, I might be more forgiving toward the chase scene through the city. But it is in Hong Kong, and because of when it was made, it is hard for me not to compare it to the type of chase scenes that Jackie Chan was filming in Hong Kong around the same period. It is a totally unfair comparison, because Van Damme and Chan are very different types of entertainers, martial arts being their primary genre notwithstanding. Still, Van Damme is running around in supposedly comic fashion in the streets and alleyways that pretty much belonged to Chan at the time; thoughts of Chan’s Keaton-style stunt work where he runs through crowds and leaps from bus to bus and over or through obstacles can’t help but come to mind. The chase here almost feels like a game of hide and seek where the parent or babysitter kind of makes it a bit easier for the kid to find them, even though they will find ways to draw out the game a bit longer just to eat up time. I can’t help seeing Burton and Whitaker as a couple of toddlers that Van Damme is teasing along the way as they struggle to walk across the room towards him. Having just given The Gumball Rally another watch for the first time in decades, I must add that a little Norman Burton goes a long way for me; he is the least successful part of Gumball, and if the kid playing the young Van Damme didn’t already take the crown, Burton would have it locked down in Bloodsport as well. (Plus, he is the worst Felix Leiter of all time...)I believe that the powder that Chong Li uses is supposed to be a salt pill that he crushes after previously hiding it in the wrap around his midsection. There is definitely a bit of Luke Skywalker Jedi sense at play in the blindness scenes, and I do find it hard to swallow that Chong Li couldn’t have just flown at Jean-Claude full force and knock him into submission easily. But, we must have our heroes, and so I am willing to suspend disbelief to allow for Jean-Claude to have some sort of crazy spider-sense that allows him to not just block nearly every blow from Chong Li, but to have enough skill to blindly pummel the murderous fighter into the mat thoroughly.
Something we have not touched on that I want to bring up: the “sex” scene between Jean-Claude and the blonde reporter that he “befriends,” played by Leah Ayres. (Horror fans may remember her as the lead female role in The Burning, an OK slasher film with some great Tom Savini makeup and effects). I put quotes around the word “sex” initially, because we don’t actually get to see any of their assumed romance that involves physical involvement at all. Not even a kiss. Early on in our JCVD worship in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, we were all fairly convinced that Jean-Claude was gay. It was just the impression we gained from watching many of his films early on was that another of the standard elements of a Jean-Claude film was that you never saw him actually get physical with any of his female co-stars. I think maybe Timecop broke us of that impression but it has been so long, I cannot remember which film it actually was or even if this theory would hold water today. (Timecop does have Mia Sara as his wife, so if you were going to break the mold and finally get down onscreen, that’s the film in which to do so.)Aaron: You probably weren’t alone in thinking Jean-Claude Van Damme was homosexual; his first credited onscreen role was as Gay Karate Man in the 1984 film Monaco Forever. Bloodsport's producers stated that they chose Jean-Claude for his ladies man appeal, while also realizing he would appeal to both genders. Women would want him, and men would want to be him, but also be with him. In that light it definitely seems like a calculated choice to downplay his sexuality in this and other films. It now makes sense that Jean-Claude’s most convincing emotional relationship in the film is with Donald Gibb. We’re supposed to understand that he had sex with Leah Ayres, but what we see of their courtship is mostly chaste, and he seems perfectly happy to see her on the arms of another man after their supposedly passionate night. They don’t even share so much as a tender embrace as Jean-Claude embarks for America, only a professional salute across the tarmac. Donald Gibb, on the other hand, is a totally different story. Jean-Claude says, “I love you” to one person in this film, and it’s Donald Gibb, right before he leans in to either kiss him on the cheek or whisper sweet nothings in his ear while Donald lays in his hospital bed.
Rik: Back then, though, we also thought it could be some other reason – perhaps a jealous spouse or girlfriend, or a horrible, real-life STD situation or worse – he never made it on screen with the ladies. And he was so pretty then… is it any wonder we thought maybe there was something Jean-Claude was hiding from us? Which made it especially ironic when we found out gradually that, in addiction to a cocaine addition and bipolar disorder, he was a total horndog behind the scenes all those years, cheating on spouse after spouse (he has been married five times, twice to bodybuilder Gladys Portugues), and even declaring himself a sex addict at one point. And straight as an arrow, it seems. So we had it all wrong. (Can’t blame him for the Kylie Minogue thing, though…)
But this was and is just silly rambling, for the films are the important part. Somehow, despite some rampant goofiness on the part of the script, the music, the non-fighting action scenes, and the casting, Bloodsport still makes me absolutely buy into the Jean-Claude screen persona, and had me jumping on Netflix right away to see what else was immediately available to watch streaming (sadly, just a couple of his later films). He still kicks ass in this movie, and I still think the film is a lot of fun, though perhaps not totally in an intentional way. Seeing Bloodsport a couple of times with fresher eyes has me totally ready to revisit other JCVD films again, especially Kickboxer, Cyborg, Universal Soldier, Timecop, Hard Target, and Sudden Death. Oh, and my personal favorite of the JCVD oeuvre: Double Impact, where he plays equally ass-kicking identical twins, long lost to each other, raised on the other side of the world from each other, that each have different excuses for talking and fighting exactly like Jean-Claude. The film is directed and co-written (along with Jean-Claude) by Sheldon Lettich, who had a hand in Bloodsport’s screenplay. Best of all, there is an even cooler performance from Bolo Yeung in Double Impact. A must.
Aaron: I had heard a few of the stories about Jean-Claude’s public behavior during the early nineties, when he must have been coked out of his mind. These stories acted as another reason I never went in for his films, even once I’d reached the age where I really should have seen them. When this film came out in 1988, it was a pretty big sensation (at least as far as independently produced martial arts films are concerned). There were articles debunking the claims made in this “true” story, lawsuits about those articles, and a slew of knockoffs that flooded video store shelves. It’s amazing how quickly Jean-Claude’s star fell, although it took awhile for the quality film roles to dry up. He was at least a big enough draw to appear in high profile films throughout most of the nineties, but his public profile declined sharply. Yet here, in his first breakout role in the film that jumpstarted his American career, everything is golden. I know it’s all a bit silly and juvenile, and a lot of this film just doesn’t work on a critical level, but it mostly all worked for me, and I’m ready to make a complete turnaround on my previously held opinions about Jean-Claude Van Damme’s films. I’ll admit that a large chunk of my enjoyment is probably not in the manner the filmmakers had intended (I am loath to use the term “ironic enjoyment” here), but part of me actually does buy into the juvenile image of tough guy cool that the film is selling. Bloodsport, for all its cheesiness, intermittently unconvincing fight scenes, completely dated songs, stilted dialogue, unfunny comedic moments, outrageously bad acting, cliché-ridden plot developments, and gaps in internal logic, still manages to kick ass (for lack of a better term). I’ve seen this film twice now in quick succession, and only one of those viewings was for Visiting and Revisiting. It may not be perfect, or even fit the definition of what could be called a "good movie" in many cases, but it is a really fun time that I’m sure I’ll be revisiting again.
Thanks for joining us for Visiting and Revisiting and our discussion of Bloodsport. The next film up for us is the 1999 sci-fi thriller, The Thirteenth Floor, directed by Josef Rusnak. We will see you soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment