Archive: Bloodsport – 80s awesomeness

Source: Gisoku no Jutsu
Original post date: 2 May, 2007

Last night the original, uber movie, Bloodsport, was on Foxtel. After the atrocities of Mortal Kombat (shonky) and American Ninja (uber shonky), I was all prepped to giggle at Van Dammmmmmmme’s break-through martial arts flick. Now, ever since I saw Street Fighter, I’ve consistently found the man amusing. True, he could beat my head about by boxing my face with his feets of fury, but he’s fun to pay out. What I wasn’t expecting when I sat down to watch Bloodsport is that I’d admit to actually enjoying it, and not just because I thought I’d giggle like a schoolboy. Last time I watched the movie was about 13 years ago – I was 11 at the time and away on camp; in a stroke of luck, the cabins we were staying in actually had a telly, which of course we were told we couldn’t use by our teachers. However, in our favour, the assigned parent to look after the cabin was actually my Dad, who didn’t seem to mind having the boys staying up late watching a martial arts flick. That’s not surprising though, ’cause my Dad is uber. Needless to say we enjoyed the late night movie, and happily enjoyed watching cartoons the next morning while eating brekky (Captain N and Ren & Stimpy – awesome!!)

Anyway, the point is – its been 13 years since I last saw the movie, and the only thing I remember is that a dude gets kicked in the shin so that a chunk of bone pops out his leg, hence to an 11 year old boy, its an awesome movie. So I was expecting it to be pretty bad, but I was pleasantly surprised. Van Damme couldn’t act and his English is sloppy, but his form is brill, and he’s a real lean fighter, not the muscle-job he became later on (again, I always think – Street Fighter). He also doesn’t say “Do you want go with me?!?!?!” whilst doing a silly army-man speech or have Kylie Minogue in a daramtic acting role by his side, so that probably helps, too. Hmm, gotta find that one cheap on DVD and write a blog on it methinks.

So yeah, really surprised by that one. Was made in 1987 according to the film’s credits, and the choreography was pretty good, the ‘mystical far-east’ factor wasn’t too overwhelming, but thumbs down on the flashbacks and stuff at the beginning of the film – a bit stilted, but oh well – training montages were fun, if a little cliched (but aren’t they all?). Oh, and Stan Bush did the vocals on all songs; fellow geeky people will recall he also sang the vocals for “You’ve Got The Touch” ( … or maybe it’s just “The Touch”) from the 1980-something cartoon, Transformers: The Movie (as opposed to Michael Bay’s extreme, explosions, stuff blows up, attractive women Transformers movie coming out soonish). Props to my Wife – I was so enthralled with the movie I wasn’t exactly the most rivetting company for the evening, and yet she still sat with me and watched the movie all the way through and got up to let the dog out as needed. I think that means I’m due to watch an Elvis movie or something now – that’s our deal, if I put her through the task of watching a (possibly shonky) martial arts flick, she gets to pick an Elvis movie or musical for me to watch with her 🙂

Outside of all the movie-related uberness this week, I’m stoked to say my ankle and stump continue to heal up nicely, and I’ve started doing leg stretches and leg lifts almost every night in prep for karate next week. On the MySpace front, I’ve finished up the code and just have to put the finishing touches on the background. Shouldn’t be far away now!

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