This review is of the TV-14 edited version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

It’s time to look at a film that by all accounts should have been really good but instead it fumbled throughout the experience until it crashed in the end. It’s a shame because the template for this kind of film isn’t all that hard to follow. Just deliver with some good fight scenes and you will have a fun revenge film that works all around. The title got sequels so I guess enough people liked it, but it was a big thumbs down for me.

The movie starts with Kurt’s brother Eric deciding to take on the Thailand top kickboxing fighter. Eric has always been the world champion but one guy claimed that Thailand had the real strongest. So Eric shows up and unfortunately he is badly beaten by Tong to the point where he is crippled for life. Kurt’s upset since the guy was cheating but there is nothing to be done since this scene is basically an underground arena. Kurt will have to train with the local elder Xian to get strong enough to avenge his brother but Tong has more tricks up his sleeve. Who will come out on top!?

There’s a lot of problems with this very contrived setup. The first one is that Eric basically just heads off to Thailand to have a fight that is borderline unsanctioned at the drop of a hat. Really, all it takes is one guy mentioning that there is someone stronger and Eric leaves? I find this a bit hard to believe because Eric is so cocky that he would probably insist on the challenger coming to his turf. That’s the way that these things are supposed to work after all. Rocky did it right where after you lose then you go to the enemy turf.

Additionally as the world champion you’d expect Eric to have press agents and a lot of media attention. Surely they would have flagged if something was wrong with the Thailand site right? They would have had their own security and everything. Instead Eric and Kurt were basically by themselves. You could say that they left in absolute secrecy for the fight but I have my doubts on that and the stadium was all set up for the fight so some reporters would have heard about it. The entirely plot just doesn’t hold up when you think about it.

It makes the beatdown frustrating with Tong openly cheating throughout the entire match. The refs don’t care since they were bought off as apparently Tong basically owns the place. Even the cops don’t dare go against him and again…there’s no way the fight would be held in such a corrupt place. It really doesn’t make any sense and will just have you shaking your head the whole time. Then even with the cheating how did Eric go down so fast? I would have liked to have seen him get some hits in.

Of course you know that he’s going to lose the fight but you could still make it a little interesting. The more lopsided the match becomes, the less likely it is that Kurt will be able to convincingly avenge him. I’d expect better from the world champion. As a character Eric was good though. I did like his confidence and ultimately he was ready to support Kurt later on. He was initially reluctant about letting Kurt get into the ring but that made sense since he knew first hand how brutal things could get.

Then the film is goes for extra edge later on as Tong goes after the heroine. The film could have stopped with a threat or something but no it goes all the way with this plot so the damage was already done. Kurt only finds out about this near the very end of the film and of course it’s a moment used to ignite his rage but this is always the lowest hanging fruit you can use. A film should never use this plot because there’s just no reason for it and after a while all the edge only serves to hurt the film rather than help it.

Additionally the film sacrifices any semblance of realism by the end. So Kurt can’t go all out for a while due to some circumstances so Tong is beating up on him for quite a while. Keep in mind that just a few blows were enough to cripple Eric completely. He lands dozens upon dozens of hits on Kurt and those hits are amped up since he rolled his fist inside of glass chunks. So Kurt is really feeling every punch and the guy just keeps landing these blows.

By the time Kurt is able to fight back he should not even be able to stand. I think the movie was going for some Rocky vibes here as the lead would often get beat up over and over again before landing a counter attack but the movies were never this exaggerated. Then the resulting fight is so one sided that it makes 0 sense again. It’s not like Tong lost all of his skills so why he is just a punching bag now?

It’s like this was a super basic revenge story written by someone who just knew the genre but not how to get there. So pick the easy methods to get Kurt really mad, have him get beat up a while and then beat up the other guy. There is no restraint or reason to any of this and so it really doesn’t work. Of course it’s nice to see the villain get what’s coming to him but it sure does take a super long time to get there. Too long if you ask me.

At least one nice thing I can say about the film is that the soundtrack is good. There are a lot of really solid themes playing here and they fit the action scenes. So the movie put in some work there. The choreography can also be good when it’s finally time for a real fight. It’s just a shame that there isn’t much time for that since usually one of the 2 fighters can’t fight back. Either because he’s completely outmatched or because there is a hostage around. Having more actual fights would have been nice.

Kurt’s a good main character and I did appreciate that he did his best to avenge Eric. I would have had him start off with a little more skill just so that it would be more believable in the end though. It was referenced that he knew how to fight a little and was just sloppy but having him land a hit on Tong during his first outburst or something would have gone a long way.

Xian’s not nearly as good. He’s an old master and yet he did nothing to protect his niece when she was being threatened for years? He says he was worried they’d take it out on her but so then you just make sure to finish off all of the villains and keep her close. Not doing anything is of no help. Mylee is also nice enough but she definitely gets the short end of the stick since she is basically used as rage bait here. She didn’t deserve any of this.

Winston is a guy who helps out and gets Kurt on the right track. He’s had a rough past but is doing his best to get past it. The guy delivers when it counts even if it does take a while for the payoff. Finally there’s Tong who makes for a pretty bad villain. The guy isn’t even brave enough to fight his own battles and resorts to asking his goons for help in the end. If he at least had the dignity to fight his own battles and didn’t go after Mylee then he could have been a reasonable villain but in the end it was not to be.

Overall, Kickboxer is a film I would say to avoid. It just gets way too dark during this adventure ad takes things a step too far. If it was satisfied with being a solid action film then that could have really gone over well for the film but instead it even added some animal violence like when the dog was attacked. I’m telling you, anything the film could do to try and give the main character more fuel for rage, it would do it. Truly a shame.

Overall 1/10