Hall of Fame: Tong Po

The Bulletproof Action Hall of Fame has already seen its share of legendary characters inducted over the years: John McClane, John Rambo, Han Solo and Chewbacca. But when we decided that it was time to induct our first villain, the conversation went all sorts of different ways. Most debates concerning the greatest villains of all time start and end with Darth Vader. But we aren’t talking about some laser-sword, no blood shedding website where you can get by killing little kids and elderly men. We deal in action! If you want to get over with us as a true villain then you have to learn not only how to kick a man’s ass, but also how to kick his brother’s ass. But that’s not all. To be one of the elite villains of the action genre, you then need to travel across the globe and kick the ass of the baby brother. Ladies and gentlemen, when and if Darth Vader ever fights through three branches of a family tree, let me know and we’ll induct him into our Hall of Fame. Until then… shut your holes and bask in the glory of Tong Po.

Tong Po makes his first appearance onscreen in the first Kickboxer movie in the series, and he does so in a way that leaves a similarly puzzled expression on the face of everyone watching. You have to admit that walking by his “dressing room” and seeing him kicking the shit out of this pillar would not exactly leave you with a whole lot of confidence in the fight. I’ve used a similar tactic when interviewing for jobs in the past but it has never quite impressed my potential supervisors the way that it does Van Damme. Maybe it’s a cultural thing?

While it’s far less effective in an interview, denting up a part of the buildings foundation in one hell of a way to intimidate Kurt and Eric Sloane. Tong Po makes short work of Eric Sloane in the ensuing fight, beating him so badly that he’s wheelchair bound for the rest of his days. That result causes little brother Kurt to become the main avenger for his brother. He’s totally and completely driven. He moves in with his trainer, runs away from hungry dogs with raw meat tied to his waistband, and gets into drunken bar fights with locals to hone his skills. One might say that he only lives to face Tong Po.

Tong Po, on the other hand, is too busy living the life of a Muay Thai champion. He parties it up, bagging random women and kicking it with all his evil brethren before finally realizing that Kurt might not be the pushover that his brother was. Sure, Tong Po ended up kidnapping Kurt’s lady friend as a bit of insurance, but it’s arguably the same thing that caused Kurt to fight like he had the devil in him during the finale and ultimately lead to Tong Po’s demise.

Fast forward a couple of years and Kurt and Eric Sloane are both dead. It didn’t have anything to do with secondhand smoking or the amount of head injuries they had sustained over the years. The Sloane brothers were straight up whacked by Tong Po in a parking lot. That’s right. The great fighter that had never been defeated shot and killed two men getting into their Volvo’s. It’s a move that sets up the story for the second installment in the Kickboxer series; Kickboxer 2: The Road Back.

Tong Po has less screen time in this iteration but we already know that he’s a bad dude who hates losing. An overly long setup between Tong Po’s moneyman and the youngest brother of the Sloane dynasty sets the table for a final showdown between Tong Po and David Sloane (Sasha Mitchell). Despite Albert Pyun’s sometimes weird camera angles during fight sequences, David ends up felling the beast that is Tong Po and regaining the revenge that his brothers had sought in the first film.

But wait… he really didn’t! Tong Po returns in the fourth film in the series, Kickboxer 4: The Aggressor, and now he’s some drug lord with an army of thugs and some underground fight tournaments happening in his backyard. The character of Tong Po, always played by Van Damme’s real life buddy Michel Qissi to this point, is now played by one of Van Damme’s other friends by the name of Kamel Krifa. The prosthetics turn Tong Po into a cross between one of those lifelike sex dolls and the current face of former Chicago Cubs slugger Sammy Sosa. Needless to say, it isn’t a good look. This time, though, Tong Po has kidnapped the wife of David Sloane and now, failing to recognize the man who caused him so much pain in the past, allowed David to infiltrate his home to take out Tong Po. David reemerges from obscurity and beats the tar out of Tong Po once again. This time in a much more convincing manner but like the villainous creature that he is, Tong Po slithers away before he can be finished.

For many years, fans of the franchise were left with a bad taste in their mouths. Tong Po was still roaming freely and the fifth film in the Kickboxer franchise murdered David Sloane in the opening minutes. The real tragedy, though, is that Tong Po wasn’t the man behind the killing. The series went a completely different direction and put the starring role on a young Mark Dacascos. There are many worse people you could choose to star in your martial arts movie but how dare you kill off David Sloane without having Tong Po be the man to do it?

Thankfully for action fans the world over, a recent reboot of the Kickboxer franchise has breathed new life into the evil Tong Po. Now I would contend that Dave Bautista is no Michel Qissi when it comes to playing the role of Tong Po, but you could also choose much worse than having Big Dave in your movie. Bautista’s recent successes with Marvel and the James Bond series was clearly a driving factor in him getting the role but it gives us an amazing chance to see a continuation of the character that I love to fear. Tong Po, you murdering rapist, welcome to the BPA Hall of Fame.