5 Questions: Kickboxer 3: The Art of War

From the classic Jean-Claude Van Damme original, to the recent reboots starring the phenomenal Alain Moussi, to the Sasha Mitchell sequels in between… the Kickboxer franchise is one that is both near and dear to my action loving heart.

But after recently revisiting Kickboxer 3: The Art of War I could not help but paraphrase the Talking Heads and ask… how did we get here? And that was just the first of many questions I found myself asking about a movie that seemed to go way off the Kickboxer track…

1. When did David Sloan become proficient in the use of automatic weapons? 

In Kickboxer 2: The Road Back, it takes a lot before “Mr. Laid Back California” David Sloan (Sasha Mitchell) breaks down and agrees to fight Tong Po in the ring. Mind you this is the same Tong Po who killed BOTH of David’s brothers following the events of the original Kickboxer, but it isn’t until Tong Po kills David’s former friend/student Brian “The Hammer” Wagner (Vince Murdocco) that David gives Tong Po the fight he wanted.

Fast forward to Kickboxer 3: The Art of War and a lot has apparently changed in the year since we last saw David. David and his trainer Xian (Dennis Chan) have traveled to Rio for a championship fight and they end up befriending two homeless kids who tried to rob them, Marcos and Isabella. When Isabella is abducted by the evil Mr. Lane, David wastes no time buying some guns and hunting down and killing those responsible for her abduction. So a young teenage girl he just met 24 hours earlier gets the extreme knee jerk reaction, but when his own brothers are killed in cold blood that was not enough to set him off?!?

2. What was with the Super Mario get up?

Maybe more baffling than David’s sudden love of guns, was his decision to wear a pair of Super Mario style overalls on the plane from Los Angeles to Rio. At least he had the good sense to change before he and Xian went out and about in Rio.

3. How badly did the guy who played the police sergeant want to be Yaphet Kotto?

I got a really strong vibe that Milton Gonçalves, who played the police sergeant in Kickboxer 3: The Art of War, was doing his best Yaphet Kotto impersonation every time he showed up on screen. I don’t blame Milton for wanting to be the Brazilian Yaphet Kotto and felt he did a much better job as the poor man’s Yaphet Kotto than Richard Komar, who played the pedophile serving pimp Frank Lane, did as the poor man’s Martin Kove.

Speaking of the Frank Lane character, I felt like he was one of the weakest links in the film and I really would have liked to have seen a larger role for Ian Jacklin. Jacklin played Martine, the Argentinian kickboxer that David Sloan came to Rio to defend his title against. But as he proved in Ring of Fire II opposite Don “The Dragon” Wilson, Jacklin has enough swagger that he could have played the main villain in the film and not just a secondary player as he was in Kickboxer 3.

4. Was that the worst delivery of a line in action movie history? 

I am sure I have said this before on the site, but even the biggest budget action movies aren’t known for their Oscar worthy performances. So the bar can be set pretty low when you are dealing with a direct to video action movie.

Still every now and again, even with the bar set low, you can get a guy like Manitou Felipe who shows up and just stinks up the place with his performance. Felipe played Machado, a young fighter who stops by David Sloan’s charity exhibition match and asks if David would do him the honor of being in his corner. I am not sure it was the worst delivery of a line in action movie history, but it is damn sure a contender. In Felipe’s defense it was his first acting role ever, so there is a chance he got better as time went on… he certainly couldn’t have gotten any worse.

5. Why is Michael Worth featured on the DVD menu? 

Are my eyes deceiving me or is that Michael Worth (Fists of Iron), featured on the left side of the menu screen of Artisan’s Kickboxer 3: The Art of War and Kickboxer 4: The Aggressor Double Feature DVD release?

Michael Worth is definitely menu screen worthy, but he should probably actually be in at least one of the two movies on the disc in order to make it to the menu. Maybe the folks over at Artisan are visually impaired (did they think that was a picture of Sasha?) or maybe just like me, they simply want to see Michael Worth in more action movies.