Visiting and Revisiting: Bloodsport (1988) Pt. 2

[This is Part 2 of our discussion of Jean-Claude Van Damme's Bloodsport (1988). If you missed Part 1, click here to get caught up before reading this part.]

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.

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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!

Visiting and Revisiting: Bloodsport (1988) Pt. 1

Rik: Welcome to the next edition of Visiting and Revisiting! Since the last movie we covered – Starcrash – Aaron and I decided to stop splitting the individual parts of Visiting and Revisiting between our respective websites, and actually start a separate blog expressly for this column. If you have enjoyed our discussions of various films in the past, we hope that you will continue to visit this site, and if you are new to our writings about film, we welcome you to take part in the discussion by leaving comments on our posts.

This is the first part of our two-part discussion about the 1988 "martial science" classic, Bloodsport, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme in his first big starring role.

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Rik: By the late 1980s (and for the bulk of that decade), I was definitely getting more and more into martial arts films. I thought that I had seen most of the major science fiction classics by then, and while horror was more prevalent in my local Video City, I too had gone through most of the bona fide classics (that were readily available on VHS) and was really just picking through the bones to find a decent film here and there. But martial arts as a genre were still a fairly untapped resource to me. However, I kind of got into them the "white guy" way, which was, sad to say now, Chuck Norris films. I saw his early flick Good Guys Wear Black in a theatre back in 1979 after I saw Siskel and Ebert feature the film on their show. I don't remember their review, and I think the show was actually about "Stars of the Future" or something similar; I just remember seeing Chuck kicking ass in a clip on their show, and knowing right then that I had to see Good Guys Wear Black. 

I had seen Enter the Dragon by this point, as well as the other major Bruce Lee films, and while I loved them all, Bruce was already a few years dead. For me, without much knowledge of the genre in those pre-internet days, the implication at the time was that kung fu movies died with Lee as their master. I did not know about the Shaw Brothers films or the wide variety of other chopsocky flicks in the world. Asian films, apart from Godzilla movies, were fairly unknown to me in general. I would not really know anything about samurai films, apart from John Belushi's spoof of them on SNL, until I saw Shogun (the NBC mini-series) and Shogun Assassin in the same year (1980). I would get acquainted with Jackie Chan in The Cannonball Run and The Big Brawl, but I had no idea he would ever blow up across the globe like he did eventually. It would be a few years before I started running into his films again. I hate to bring even a smattering of racial identity to this, but for a too skinny, blonde white kid to see someone like Chuck Norris come along and kick serious booty, it was a big deal to me then. (I have since grown up and such things do not matter to me anymore.) I did not connect Norris to Return of the Dragon either; seriously, I did not actually know his name until Good Guys Wear Black. After that, I went to every Norris film that came out up through the second Delta Force movie. Then I went cold on Chuck, and that has pretty much remained constant through today, which is great, because he and I will never come close to sharing the same opinion on anything.

I also started going to anything in the theatres with martial arts in it: Sho Kosugi's Enter the Ninja series, Hollywood pastiche/tribute films like Big Trouble in Little China and The Last Dragon, Jackie Chan’s first foray into the U.S. market, The Big Brawl, and even low-budget films that you can't believe made it to a U.S. theatre like Tongs. Hey, standards often had to be low in order to see martial arts on the big screen. And on video? For every horror science fiction flick I was renting, I was also getting a martial arts film beside it. I watched everything that I could, and it is seriously astounding that I never made the leap into trying out karate or another form on my own. (The truth is, I am remarkably uncoordinated to be able to participate in any form of athletics outside of bowling or darts, and at the time had no muscle on my body whatsoever. I also have shyness in social situations that kept me from joining a gym or a dojo at all.)

And when Jean-Claude Van Damme came along? Well, I did not see Bloodsport in a theatre, and am unsure if it even played in Anchorage. If it did, how I missed out on it I’ll never know, except to say I was probably in a play at the time. I saw it first on video, but once I did, that was it. I had found my new action hero. I will also admit that there was a bit of a man-crush as well, before that term had really come along. He was just too pretty, and normally this would have made me believe he was mere fluff and not worthy of serious attention as an action guy. But he kicked major ass, or at least gave the impression that he did, and you really believed that he could fight his way out of any situation. And he was just immensely pretty, and… and… what are these strange feelings coming over me once again?!!

From Cyborg in 1989 through Maximum Risk in 1996, I saw every Jean-Claude film that hit our local theatres. We even formed an unofficial club around seeing his films, wherein we reveled in common JCVD tropes that seemed to pop up in every film: 1) the explanation for his Belgian accent, especially in American scenes; 2) showing off his naked or nearly naked perfectly muscled derriere (or body); 3) the first scene in a film where you can see him visibly thinking through his lines in English; and 4) how deep into the film would we get before he did his trademark splits. And from my first video viewing of Bloodsport up probably through 2005, when I gave away my well-worn VHS copy, it is likely that I saw Bloodsport several dozen times, though the last time I watched it was probably near the end of the '90s. By then, like for many of us JCVD fans, once he started teaming up with the likes of Dennis Rodman, you could smell the decay and desperation, and we fled like rats from a sinking Jean-Claude.

Now, Aaron, how is it you avoided seeing Bloodsport, generally considered to be somewhere in the lower range of martial arts classics, until recently? What's your relationship with Mr. JCVD?

Aaron: For once I have a fairly concrete reason for not seeing one of these films that we discuss. I was ten when Bloodsport came out, too young to see it in a theatre (to answer your implied question, I do have a memory of seeing the Bloodsport poster in an Anchorage theatre; I believe this is accurate, but I have no proof of it), and I grew up in a house without cable. Of course, I had friends and cousins with cable, and I was given a fair amount of autonomy when it came to the movies I rented at this age (it’s likely my mom would have balked at Bloodsport based on the title and cover alone, but it’s equally likely I could have snuck it past her), but it was just something I wasn’t interested in. To be shamefully honest, I was kinda scared of it.

I was a fairly sheltered child, and Bloodsport seemed a bit extreme for me. I, like you, had fallen under the spell of Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee films, and unlike you I actually had joined a dojo for a short, miserable time (it was not the right time or place; later in life I did join a kung fu school and it was one of the most positive experiences in my life). I had even started to get into martial arts through the monumentally crappy -- but still silly and fun for twelve-year-olds -- films of Chinese schlockmeister Godfrey Ho. A surprisingly large number of these films were available for rental at my local Video City, and came in enticing foil-embossed covers for easy detection on the packed shelves. But something about Bloodsport, from the images I’d seen to the things I’d heard from older or braver friends, convinced me that this movie was something new. The destruction in the action movies I had been seeing up to that point were focused on property damage, while Bloodsport promised horrific bodily damage.

And then, when I was at the age and temperament to enjoy Bloodsport, only a few years later, the cultural attitudes had changed and the film seemed laughably outdated. Jackie Chan had burst upon the American action scene, and my growing appreciation of action tended towards Chow Yun Fat, Jet Li, Donnie Yen, and Michelle Yeoh. They were all arriving on our shores to point out how bloated and silly Western action films had become. Stars like Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal were instantly made obsolete, and even juggernauts like Stallone and Schwarzenegger were faced with severely diminishing returns. As you yourself pointed out, JCVD had pretty much been reduced to a punchline, starring in films with notably psychotic sports stars. These films felt inessential and, worst of all to a pretentious teenager, inauthentic.

And so I missed out on almost all of JCVD’s filmography, even though I loved at least one of his films from this heyday: Hard Target. Of course, it was easy to justify that enjoyment by pointing to the involvement of John Woo, a director who had yet to disappoint me in the gun-fu department.  Over the years my opinion of Jean-Claude Van Damme has greatly improved, even if the quality of his films has greatly decreased. Sure, he’s been in a couple of legitimately good movies like JCVD, and he’s popped up in some interesting projects that play off of his outdated tough guy image, but the majority of his films these days are no-budget DTV flicks filmed in dirt-cheap Eastern European locations. But, the thing is, he’s become a fairly decent actor. As his youthful face became more lined, and his physical prowess has diminished (though just barely), his on-screen charisma has actually grown, and I generally enjoy seeing him pop up. This got me thinking I should make an effort to see his earlier star-making films. Whatever my opinion of him was, JCVD was a pretty large pop-cultural figure to many of my generation.

I’m not going to draw this out anymore; I loved Bloodsport. It was ridiculously entertaining, owing to a reliable story structure familiar to any kung fu fans; young fighter enters a not-so-secret tournament to avenge the honor of a loved one. Underestimated by the established fighters, he inevitably battles his way to a showdown with the villainous reigning champ. It’s such a reliably satisfying story arc that it’s still being used in dozens of films every year, with little deviation. It really only requires, to be successful, any two of three things; a charismatic hero, colorful villains, and well-choreographed fights. Bloodsport has the first two, and is fairly accomplished with the third. At least for a low budget, independent, American film about martial arts.

Rik: I, too, love Bloodsport, though my estimation of it as a film – already fairly rated in the middle range and mostly tongue-in-cheek -- has come down a little bit with my most recent viewings. I think that at one point I could just look at this as a great martial arts flick with a few plot issues that bothered me, but now the restrained budget and the straining at the seams of the picture are far more obvious to me, though not enough to make me turn against the film, and stop seeing it as a really fun, kind of stupid action flick.

You are also correct about Jean-Claude having grown as an actor over the years to where he is a reliable presence onscreen, even if he doesn’t get much in the way of big screen work these days, outside of appearances in things like The Expendables 2 (which I admit that I haven't seen yet). I would love to see him make a big screen comeback in the manner of Liam Neeson, who became a true action star about the same age that Jean-Claude is now. While Neeson is a much better actor, of course, Jean-Claude already has action credentials, and is still fit enough that he probably pull off ridiculous action scenes far more believably if he got the chance.

But let’s put aside the Jean-Claude talk for the moment and discuss the plot of Bloodsport. The film is built around one of those mysterious fighting tournaments that are supposed to be top secret hush-hush and only whispered about in the lightest of whispers but that everybody and their blind, deaf, and dumb dog seem to know is happening. In this case, it is a tournament called the Kumite, which is really just a term used in karate for training against an adversary, and used quite frequently at that. But in the world Bloodsport, the very word seems to invoke immense awe and respect, and refers specifically to a highly revered but dangerous tournament to which several dozen adversaries will travel around the world to take part and hopefully defeat the rest of the field to be crowned champion.

Bloodsport is the purportedly true story of Frank Dux, who in our real world is a martial arts instructor and fight choreographer in California. Everything that happens to Dux in the film – his military service, his undercover intelligence work that makes him far too important an asset to the military to possibly lose his life in the fighting arena, and his eventual victory at the Kumite – have all been highly disputed over the years, and the articles written by such sources as the LA Times and statements from other doubters supposedly exposing Dux as the basest sort of fraud have brought about lawsuits from Dux for slander and libel. There have been books written about his claims, and he too has published his own autobiography refuting the accusations. I don’t know enough about any of it to really say where I stand on the issue; all I know is that in 1988, more so than today where everything is suspect when someone claims “true story”, we really believed that Dux was some sort of superman after seeing Bloodsport. What is your take on Dux’s story and his possibly amazing adventures in the real world, Aaron?

Aaron: I can honestly say that the thought of digging through Frank Dux’s story and learning all the details and trying to parse what’s truth, what’s exaggeration, and what’s an outright lie, fills me with a deep sense of exhaustion. What I can tell you is that when that end title came up, telling us that the preceding story was based on the true exploits of Frank Dux, followed by a list of his Herculean labors… well, I just assumed that was a load of bullshit. We could spend a few dozen pages just bringing up how ridiculous Frank Dux’s (real or imagined) exploits are – and a quick Google search shows me many have already done so – but I couldn’t care less. Not that that’s a deal breaker; I’m used to ignoring a film’s claims to reality, and I generally just take it to be marketing bluster. But it has given me a rather dim view of the real life person Jean-Claude is playing. I’ve been in enough white-guy dojos, and spent time around enough Westerners who take martial arts way too seriously, to know that anyone who proudly makes those types of claims would be a real bummer to spend any time around. I immediately thought of Danny McBride’s character from The Foot Fist Way, and if that film isn’t familiar to our readers, I’d advise them to just imagine any Danny McBride character as a martial arts instructor, and that’s what I assume Frank Dux is like in real life. Had I seen this movie when it came out, I likely would have just thought Frank Dux must be the coolest guy in the world. As a skeptical adult, I have trouble buying any of it.

But let’s get back to the movie, where I’m more than willing to accept the events on display at face value. As a first time viewer, with very few preconceptions of the film, there was nothing in the frequent shoddiness to disappoint me. It’s a Cannon Group production, and I’d seen enough of them as an adult (as well as the excellent Electric Boogaloo documentary about the Golan-Globus partnership) to have a clear conception of the resources they were working with. To that end, while the film is cheesy and dated and often cheap looking, it was well utilized and always fairly enjoyable in its faults. I felt the movie got pretty good mileage out of actually filming in Kowloon, although a lot of the shots used could have easily been replicated on a soundstage.

Like you, I found it difficult to decipher just what level of infamy the tournament resided at. It’s spoken of in hushed tones and is apparently not discussed with outsiders, and yet it’s also common knowledge among military commanders in America. It’s being held in the walled city of Kowloon, in a chamber hidden within a maze of back alleys, with ties to the local Triads, and yet it’s also controlled by the IFAA (the International Fighting Arts Association, which actually exists, though seems to be a mainly American organization inspired by, among other things, Bloodsport). At the very least, the tournament had to be semi-public in order for Frank Dux to be an internationally known record holder. And we see this is the case when basically everybody who is not the female reporter intent on writing an expose of the fight is able to just waltz into the arena with no hassle.

Although really, this just added to the sense of fun for me; either as a running joke in the film, or a sign of a rush-job script, it fell on the enjoyable side of bad every time. It was a surprise to me, actually, just how much fun this film is. Clearly the extreme experience I was anxious about as a kid never manifested itself, and it turns out Bloodsport has a pretty light tone, perfect for budding martial arts enthusiasts of all ages. There are a couple of light sexual references, but the dirtiest the film gets is when we see Jean-Claude’s bare ass for a split second after a night of sexual relations that occurred between tastefully discreet edits. The fights have some blood, of course (gotta deliver on that title), but for the most part they’re all pretty tame in regards to actual physical damage. Bloody noses abound, although there is one gruesome shot of a bone protruding from a fairly fake mass of prosthetic makeup. In general this film had a sense of fun I totally didn’t suspect as a child.

Rik: The opening of the film has an extended sequence where Jean-Claude sets a record for longest time spent waiting in a foyer as he flashes back for what seems like half an hour (not really) over his journey from starting out as a callow, brooding youth with criminal tendencies to getting transformed by martial arts master Senzo Tanaka (played effectively by Roy Chiao) into a fighting machine capable of winning an international tournament like the Kumite. 

The training montage built into the month-long flashback is the part of the film where we get crazy scenes such as when Van Damme is suspended upright between several trees with pulleys and ropes tied around his wrists and ankles, and he starts flexing and pulling himself upward until he snaps one of the ropes free from its mooring. I don’t know how I would have reacted to this scene were I seeing for the first time today, but back in 1988, it was pretty convincing to me that Jean-Claude was pretty amazing to behold. We also see the first example of him doing the full body splits, and again, this astounded us at the time. Before we even got close to “real” fighting in the film, Jean-Claude had won us over.

And then there is the post-Star Wars blindness training, where Jean-Claude (I have a hard time referring to him as Frank, his character name, because after all, he is so Jean-Claude), as a teenager, has to learn how to use his remaining senses to perceive the world and eventually fight, you know, just in case some villainous cretin decides to cheat and blind Jean-Claude in the closing match of a big Kumite tournament. (Will that happen in Bloodsport? Who knows?) Jean-Claude also has to learn how to serve tea while blind but even after successfully completing this task and sitting down to enjoy the tea, Senzo sends a hard chop towards Jean-Claude’s face. Even with his blindfold still in place, our hero easily blocks Senzo’s blow. We see that Senzo and his wife (who seems a little too wrapped up in this scene) are both pleased with the progress. When the training montage (and the lengthy flashback) are done, Jean-Claude finally goes in to see his master, who is supposedly old (he doesn’t look any older) and tired and laying in bed. He tells Senzo of the Kumite tournament, and Senzo tells Jean-Claude that his own spirit will fight alongside his pupil. I guess he is dying, but there is nothing else said of this before the film transitions to Hong Kong.

While it is immensely clichéd today, as I mentioned, this opening worked wonders on me in 1988 at the age of 24. Jean-Claude – and his very Jean-Claudeness – was sold to me in just a few short minutes. How did you see the training montage opening?

Aaron: If there were one part of this movie I could go back in time to remove or alter dramatically, it would be that training montage. Actually, strike that; the training montage was fine, it was the flashback structure that really just bored me to tears. It goes on for so long, and is for the most part highly repetitive and stilted, that it was clearly included and drawn out to pad the running time of the film. Think of the other big training montages, think of any montage from Rocky, and there’s continual movement and fast paced editing set to some inspirational song. The training montage here is a bunch of shots of people standing around and then suddenly striking out in some seriously unconvincing stage fighting. I won’t deny that Jean-Claude’s freeing himself from those ropes still has some charm derived equally from its badassness and its cheesiness, but everything else just drags on forever. And don’t even get me started on the kid who played young Jean-Claude (Pierre Rafini, in his only acting job). It was clear from his slightly bewildered stare and awkward physical demeanor that this was the mentally challenged kid the older kids keep around only because they can always talk him into doing anything. In a film full of non-actors, this kid manages to stand above the rest.

Luckily this segment isn’t actually that long, it just feels that way. In pretty quick order we’re in Hong Kong, where Jean-Claude has a meet-cute with Donald Gibb (probably still most well-known as Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds) that actually telegraphs their relationship as one of antagonism, until they come to respect each other’s skill at primitive martial arts video games. And after that it’s on to the Kumite. One thing that seemed odd to me, along the lines of not understanding how secret the tournament is supposed to be, is how Gibb got invited to this tournament. This is supposed to be a gathering of the best of the best, world-class masters of a variety of fighting styles from around the world. And then there is Gibb, whose fighting style recalls Mongo in Blazing Saddles. He isn’t skilled so much as big and bulky and able to knock people out of the ring with basic pro-wrestling maneuvers. Jean-Claude had to prove his credentials through a display of genuine skill, but Gibb has done so well that he’s apparently been invited several times.

Rik: I am not a fan of Revenge of the Nerds (unlike a lot of people that I know; somehow that one was lost on me), and so Gibb’s charms somewhat evade me as well. This is not to say that I don’t like his presence in this film, and if I can say one positive thing in defense of him in his fight scenes in Bloodsport, it’s that he has presence. As in massive, hulking presence, where he might terrify you just seeing him as you step into the ring. I admit he is a puzzler. He seems rather out of shape in general, and I can’t imagine he has ever been invited to a fighting tournament outside of a biker bar. That said, he and Jean-Claude do seem to have a bit of onscreen chemistry, and as sidekicks go, he’s a good one to have on your side. But, could this particular character ever gain entrance as a fighter at the Kumite tournament? I highly doubt it. (And yeah… that kid playing the young version of Jean-Claude is truly awful. Thank goodness his film career was so brief.)

[To read Part 2 of this conversation about Bloodsport, click here.]

Visiting and Revisiting: Starcrash (1978) Pt. 2

[This is Part II of a two-part discussion about Luigi Cozzi's 1978 Italian "rip-off" of Star Wars, Starcrash. To read the first part of this article click here.]

Rik: The chief influence of this film is clearly George Lucas' Star Wars; that cannot be denied. But there is a huge dose of the legacy of the late Ray Harryhausen at play as well. Stop-motion animation, not even close to being as fluid as Ray's patented Dynamation process, plays a big role in this film in a couple of scenes. The one that played a big part in coaxing me to the theatre was the sword fight between Hasselhoff and a pair of robots that look like Gyro Gearloose from the old Uncle Scrooge comics constructed them. They even look like they have stylized duckbills. Hasselhoff picks up Gortner's lesser form of lightsaber (it now reminds me more of the way that a Schwartz was used in Spaceballs) and has a battle against the extremely jerky, sword-wielding automatons. The swordplay is actually surprisingly engaging, even if the animation is definitely and expectedly subpar to its influences (most definitely the skeleton fights in Harryhausen's films).

Where the stop-motion animation really fails for me, however, is in the scene with the giant "female" robot (with titanic, possibly titanium, breasts for some reason -- who knew robots breastfed?) on the beach. The entire sequence is clearly modeled after the Talos scene from Harryhausen's classic Jason and the Argonauts, but it is almost painful to watch, so awkward are the relatively simple movements involved in the scene. You could say that Talos in the original movie was also jerky and awkward, but he was a normally inanimate statue that had just been magically freed from its base. Talos was towering in stature and composed of metal, like the "female" robot here, but its limbs were not built for movement at all, merely to support its mass as a piece of art; hence the jerkiness in its motions. However, Talos is imbued with remarkable life by his creator -- that god being Harryhausen -- and as stiff as he is naturally portrayed, he has clearly been brought to life fully and his muscles and joints move, albeit deliberately, in a surprisingly life-like manner. The robot in this film clearly has working knees and elbows, and therefore it must be surmised that it is meant to walk around and perform its duties, most likely to guard the planet upon which it resides. However, it moves every bit as jerkily as Talos, even more so due to an obvious lower range of talent attempting to duplicate the moves of the great Harryhausen. Of course, maybe the Amazons on the planet were just inept engineers and technicians, and they made a shitty robot that could barely move as required.

Aaron: That giant robot not only had breasts, but large gear shaped nipples, as well! In a good film, striking design choices like that can easily be explained as atmosphere-enhancing aesthetics, but in Starcrash it just made me wonder, while watching that scene, why the guard had been built that way. I suppose the fact that it’s a planet of Amazons might explain why they’d choose a feminine form, but it did seem strangely sexual. And why hadn’t they bothered animating even a basic bend of the arm at least once? The animation looked like something a bright, enthusiastic nine-year-old would make in their backyard. I mean, it’s great looking for a nine-year-old playing with his action figures, but for an actual movie projected in theatres, it’s laughably subpar.

Speaking of references, I really got a kick out of how blatantly they stole the look of the Martian mastermind from Invaders From Mars for that of the judge that sentences Akton and Stella to hard labor for their various crimes. On top of those references already noted, there’s at least one shot that seems to directly echo Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Zarth Arn bears a more than passing resemblance to Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon, and some of the ship-launching sequences look suspiciously like those in Battlestar Galactica. That last one may be nothing more than coincidence considering how close their releases are to each other.

Rik: Starcrash gets a lot of surprising mileage out of just how colorful and charmingly fantasy-like its vision of outer space is. The stars at night may or may not be big and bright deep in the heart of Texas, but they are bigger and brighter here. Every planet, moon, and star is represented in the sharpest of hues, and whatever demerits can be attributed to the film on nearly every other level, one cannot deny that much of the film is very pleasing to the eye. I am only watching the film on DVD, and it is awash in the most brilliant colors, far more than I remember. I can only imagine that the Blu-ray I gave you for Christmas is even more pleasing (not that you have seen the DVD version).

Aaron: I have not seen the DVD as you say, but I have watched some clips online (and on the special features) that feature some of the footage before it was touched up, and the Blu-ray is indeed pretty great looking. Aside from some blurriness here and there as a result of aged film stock, everything is pretty eye-popping. There is one downside to this, however, as the added clarity betrays some of the shots of deep space to look like exactly what they are: multicolored light bulbs placed against a black background.

But yes, of course, the visuals are great fun. The exteriors of the ships are off kilter and interesting (though the ship from the beginning, the one that the emperor’s son escapes from, looks a bit like a guitar frame someone stuck some plastic bits to and then spray-painted grey), and the interiors are full of oddly designed furniture and decorated in primary, often clashing colors.

Rik: As I mentioned earlier, in that attack on the Galactic starship at the beginning of the film, Count Zarth Arn's minions use a weapon that creates a field of floating red spheroids that are undeterred by walls or atmosphere, and simply drift through everything in their path. The red spheroids exert a mind-altering force that serves to drive the crew of the starship mad and ultimately cause the starship to explode. This is the terrible weapon that, later in the film, Stella and her pals are recruited to stop. It is a very simple but weirdly effective scene. The spheroids are never actually touching or even in the same plane as anything else; they are merely superimposed by the filmmakers over everything (according to Starcrash historian and DVD commentator Stephen Romano, the images are of various objects floating in a fish tank). While the effect looks as low-rent and cheesy as anything in the rest of the film, I found it to be one of the more memorable images from the film, and it has stuck with me since that first teenage showing. The same effect is used later in the film, on an even larger scale, when Stella's ship is attacked. This time, the effect grows even more psychedelic, with other elements added to the superimposed imagery. Watching it now, even seeing how simple it is, it kind of holds up for me as one of my favorite moments in the film. What did you think of the use of the red balls?

Aaron: I must admit it didn’t quite affect me in the same way. I agree it’s a nice enough image, and a clever use of their limited budget, but the weapon itself seemed so… ill defined. The characters never refer to globular red balls floating through the ship, and instead repeatedly say they were attacked by groups of monsters. But there’s really nothing monstrous about them, other than how unsettling it would be to travel through space and suddenly find yourself inside a red lava lamp. There was a lack of physicality to them that I found hard to connect with, and I couldn’t really suspend my disbelief enough for them to read as menacing in any way. They do remind me, however, of Rover, that giant white ball that acts as a security system in The Prisoner. That’s a similarly cheap and spherical effect that nonetheless still unsettles me when I see it.

Rik: The Prisoner is such a great show, and yes, Rover has always unsettled me, even to this day. Getting back to the red blobs, I did find it amusing that one of the very first things that Stephen Romano says when the scene pops up is to discount the theory that the filmmakers have merely superimposed an image of a lava lamp over the rest of the film. It made me chuckle because that is what my friends and I have always figured it was over the years.

Watching Starcrash now, Caroline Munro is every bit as lovely as I remember her, but there is an odd thing that must be told about her performance. Even though she is a British actress, Munro's dialogue was dubbed for its Western release by Candy Clark, who was married to Marjoe Gortner, who plays Stella's super-powered sidekick, Akton, in the film. Supposedly, when they redubbed the film, both Munro and her husband, Judd Hamilton (who played the loyal robot, Elle), were not flown over to America to save expenses, and so Clark and character actor Hamilton Camp were used in their places. It's a shame that we don't get to hear Munro's own voice as this is her biggest role in a film, and because I find Clark's line readings to be as off-kilter and often stiff as many of her own performances. Though I do adore Candy Clark in certain films, I don't think she is a particularly adept actress, and her voice doesn't quite match some of Munro's reactions emotionally. That said, the only voice I find annoying in the film is that of Elle the robot. The Texas twang with which Camp imbued the robot in the English dub is quite tiring and ridiculous, and it adds undoubtedly to the film's cheese factor.

Physically, Munro is jaw dropping gorgeous as Stella Star. She only wears her skimpy leather bikini outfit for the first chunk of the film, and as a teen, I was upset that her outfits gets increasingly less provocative as the film progresses. By the end of the film, Stella is completely covered up in a full bodysuit and cape (and ultimately, a space helmet). While one would look at any another movie for its psychological implications (has the hell-bent Stella been tamed by her conversion from bikini-wearing smuggler to demure heroine?), the real reason here seems to be Munro wanting more to wear in the film than just a leather bikini. On one of the audio commentaries, Romano quotes Harlan Ellison as saying that they had to ugly up Munro a bit for the film so that the cameras wouldn't melt. I've looked around to verify this quote (unsuccessfully so far), but I do have to agree that such a thing might have been possible.

Does Caroline Munro affect you in the same way, sir, or is my lingering affection merely a by-product of my misspent youth?

Aaron: All I can say is that Caroline Munro is delightfully cute, and it was a pleasure to spend a couple of hours watching her traverse the stars. I can only imagine what my opinion would be had I been exposed to her in my formative years. However, it saddens me to know that I can’t really appreciate her performance in this film, as her lines were dubbed by someone else. She certainly appears to be giving it her all, but the lines come out a bit stale, which is a problem that affects almost everyone in the cast, even those who were able to dub their own dialogue. You mention in particular disliking Hamilton Camp’s portrayal of Elle, and while I can’t argue with you, I have to say I kind of enjoyed the hillbilly twang he gave the robot. It was such an out of place detail that some part of me loved the randomness of having a robot in this fantasy galaxy speak like an extra on Hee Haw.

I would like to take a moment to talk about Marjoe Gortner’s character, Akton. As I said, he seems like a Han Solo analog at first, but turns out to be more Obi Wan Kenobi. That may not be entirely accurate, but he’s certainly supposed to be Starcrash’s version of a Jedi master, complete with light saber. But it continually bothered me how little they go into Akton’s powers or background. He just randomly exhibits new powers whenever the plot demands, and while no one ever expects him to have these powers, no one ever questions them either. Discussing plot holes or story inconsistencies seems almost beside the point for this film, though. Starcrash feels beyond criticism, in a way, as if the normal rules of storytelling don’t apply to it. Still, I think a little bit more information about this character would have been much appreciated.

Rik: No one is ever going to mistake Starcrash for Star Wars. But I also think that some of the spaceship design is pretty interesting. One of the ships is even named after science fiction author Murray Leinster, who specialized in pulp adventures such as this (though his works were often more elevated intellectually than Starcrash). By the time I saw this film, I was not only immersed in the technology of Star Wars, but also Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers (I actually watched the TV pilots for both series in theatres). I was swamped with outer space dogfighting, and so when I finally did get to see this film, I had already gotten a bit tired of spaceships due to the over-saturation of the market. Honestly, I really just wanted the film to get to the parts with Stella, so maybe my teenage boy sex drive had overtaken my patience with everything else. Watching the film since, though, I really enjoy many of the ship scenes, especially the quite appropriate design of the evil Count's ship, which looks like a giant, clawed hand.

Aaron: The ships are great, and straddle the line between innovative and old-fashioned. Some of the ships are clearly on tracks, and look like the planes that would attack Godzilla in his early decades, but then some of them are quite interesting and feature more detailed movement. Zarth Arn’s fist-shaped ship (try saying that five times fast) is the clear standout, though it does beg the question; what is that design for? Have you ever wondered why Zarth Arn would need five extendable digits on his space fortress? They don’t appear to provide any protection or added benefits beyond being a cool visual gimmick. Then again, given how flamboyant Zarth Arn is in his fashion sense and demeanor, that would probably be enough for him. In a quick side note, Joe Spinell as Zarth Arn really reminded me of Dave Grohl, which gave me a quick chuckle any time he was stomping around the screen.

Having now seen the film two-and-a-half times, I think I might be done with it for a while. I enjoyed it, but I think I’ll let it sit in my memory for a little while, where I can let the neat visuals and the fun swashbuckling moments overshadow the more perfunctory plot motions. Seeing the film for the first time as a man in his late thirties, I think that might be the best way to experience this film; as a burst of juvenile excitement. Best to allow it to sit in your mind and remind you of how totally awesome sword-fighting robots, spaceship dogfights, and the very idea of ‘the haunted stars’ can be.

Rik: Obviously, the design of Zarth Arn’s fist-shaped ship is so he can pull four of the fingers back to flip the bird at his enemies. He’s just that type of guy. I see your point about Spinell reminding you of Dave Grohl, and I must admit it did cross my mind briefly and made me chuckle a bit. Spinell, as he often does, sort of reminds me of the younger and not yet enormously rotund Ron Jeremy as well.

I, too, am probably done with Starcrash for a good while. Having just watched it about five more times in the past couple of months, I think it is burned in pretty good for the time being. In those two months though, my estimation for the film has gone up ever so slightly, but not so much that I ever forget my long-running disappointment with the film. Loves and hates that stem from childhood or your teen years are awfully hard to shake. I still think Caroline Munro is one of the most beautiful women to ever appear on the movie screen, but I also think Starcrash is well below what constitutes a good film, even on a pure entertainment level. That said, were I ever to throw a video party again (not that I have in the past twenty years), this might be one that I would choose to show everyone a crazy, weird time and allow everyone to riff at will.