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Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Kickboxer Series (1989 - 1995)

An American action series directed by Mark di Salle, David Worth, Albert Pyun, Rick King and Kristine Peterson, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme.
A man's brother is injured in a Thai boxing match and he trains with an old man to get revenge. Then it all goes down the toilet.
This series had a great start, faltered in #2, came back with drama/comedy in #3 and then died. I can't believe someone re-booted it (2016, 2018, 2020) after what a disaster #5 was. The first one is a classic. It has style, the viewer cares about the characters and there are extended training scenes. The second was annoying at best, but there was a kid with a King Diamond shirt (image) in the beginning. The third resurrected the series. There was a large sub-plot about kidnapped girls, but the main plot was about the hero, the old man and 2 kids. Sasha Mitchell did a great job in his role as David Sloane. He was expressive and charismatic. He was not so great in #2 and #4. Speaking of #4, it was one of the worst films I've ever seen. The main plot of the tournament would have been fine, but there was this added thing with an abducted wife, a ninja and an EXTREMELY graphic sex scene. If it were not following such crap, #5 would have been terrible. I thought it was really boring. The moral of the story here is to watch #1 & #3, but not the rest. I'm rating the whole series o.k. because of the wildly variable quality.

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