[yasr_overall_rating]
One year after finding vengeance for his murdered brother, MMA champion Kurt Sloane finds himself back in Thailand – kidnapped and imprisoned there by a powerful gangster. His only shot at freedom is to win an underground death match against a 400lb killer enhanced with state-of-the-art drugs.
Jean Claude Van-Damme has a reputation to cinephiles as the French OG of low(er) budget action movies. You know what kind of movies I’m talking about: a whole lot of fighting and not a whole lot of plot. But that’s okay! The genre, as a whole, has been around long enough that we naturally expect a thin strip of plotting to dot the otherwise busy landscape of elaborate fighting sequences. The Kickboxer movies are an exemplary standard of this genre. They were back then and this current reimagining is now. Suffice to say, “Kickboxer: Retaliation” does a whole lot of kickboxing and not a lot of plotting, all for the better.
Did you know Muy Thai comes from Thailand? I did. I also learned it through the speed-addicted kinetic photography in this film. Whether we’re speeding past the Royal Temple or boating through the river, it’s coherently and wholly embedded in Thailand. Ironically, the villain is American, the hero is American, the two instructors (JCVD and Mike Tyson of all people) are American/French, and several cohorts are American. All of the extended characters are Thai: protagonist’s girlfriend, the evil boss’ second-in-command. Even the majority of spectators are Thai. What does it say that our heroes have to be white, and the support characters are all Thai? Hmmmm…
Right off the bat, you know you’re in a highly stylized film. I actually wondered if I missed something important. Which I did. I missed all the other Kickboxer movies. Admittedly that put me on my back foot for watching, but the good thing is, there’s not a lot to catch up on. Apparently, Kurt Sloane’s brother died fighting a Thai fighter in an underground death match so Kurt killed him in the first movie. The second movie is about a fight organizer who kidnaps him and forces him to fight a drug-enhanced human being to keep his title as underground fight king. He spends like a quarter of the movie in prison and then he creates elaborate maneuvers to escape ultimately ending with him fighting a dude he has no chance of beating.
Like I said, we don’t go to these movies looking for intricate character work. They are (and have been) all about the fight choreography. I’m no expert in elaborate fight sequences other than the occasional Jet Li film and all of the Furious Franchise, but I don’t think that precludes me from saying these sequences satisfied. Every kick, punch, dodge, swipe, scrape, and ass-whopping, audibly makes its presence known. Visually too since the post team clearly added chalk clouds of blood sprays to highlight the severity of their fights. Whether it’s through the jailhouse, on top of a train, or in a tiki-torch-lit death ring, the sequences balance fighting with minimal gymnastics.
Say what you will but this movie’s edited with such intensity and severity that you can’t look away. You’ll miss a great punch. In fact, the value of the dollar in Thailand (where it was CLEARLY shot) is abundantly clear through the impressive production design and cinematography. Every shot seeps neon colors into its framing whether it’s the harsh sun inside a prison, the torch lights of a fireside pit, Bangkok at night, or more. Say what you will but the best description of this movie is colorful in every sense of the word.
Is this movie insane? Yes. So are so many other movies. Want to watch bikini-clad ninja women try to kill our hero with swords in a UV-lit hall of mirrors? Want to see Mike Tyson fight JCVD? Want to see all kinds of intense fighting in all manner of variable set pieces? This movie’s got it all. I hate to call it the Furious Franchise of Muy Thai since Furious movies are so nakedly emotional. Trust me when I say this movie lives and dies by its fight sequences and it breathes life.
Available on Digital, Blu-ray Combo Pack & DVD March 13th from Well Go USA
