The Van Dammeathon - "Bloodsport"

Two movies in, and we're at the stone cold classic (I know he'd done cameos in other movies before these but I'm not covering those), and to be honest I'm as surprised as you are that we've hit it this early. You cannot tell the story of "Bloodsport" without breifly going into the tale of Cannon Films:
Iconic doesn't do them justice. When you think of 80s trash, nonsense and the sort of old movies people would parody and cuts clips out of to describe the excess and ludicrousness of the era, Cannon is probably who you're thinking of. Weirdly Cannon started as the kind of studio we need in the ecosystem: odd outsiders who'd take risks, gamble on foreign films and weird projects in the 70s with musicals about the garden of Eden, Dutch thrillers, all sorts of strange things we don't really get in the mainstream. Hell, they distributed "Joe" which is supremely underrated, horror classic "Blood on Satan's Claw" in between various sexploitation movies and cheap action junk. They made a fair bit of money with knockoffs (like the telepathic shark movie "Mako: The Jaws of Death") and the classic standbys of sexploitation, cheap slashers and (quite boring) action movies; then they teamed up with two maniacs named Golan and Globus who supercharged them in the best way possible.
I'd recommend the 2 documentaries on Cannon Films ("Electric Boogaloo" is the better of the two) but in short: make 'em cheap, make a striking poster, get fading stars or unknowns and make them fun. And if you want to REALLY make it? Pump out knock offs which will look good on the video shop shelves. It bloody worked: I love this 80s era of carnage, chaos and candy coloured poster and box art. It is the perfect setting for getting some friends round, having a few beers, and enjoying a good bad time. "Revenge of the Ninja" is a personal favourite (check out Junta Juleil's Culture Shock for a far funnier breakdown on that movie than I could ever do), "Seven Magnificent Gladiators" (a rip off of, you guessed it, "On Golden Pond"), "Exterminator 2" and the actually quite good, Oscar nominated "Runaway Train". We owe them a debt we cannot repay for "Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2", "American Ninja 2", "Masters of the Universe" and "Cobra".
"Bloodsport" is peak Cannon films.
Released in 1988, it was based upon the life of martial artist Frank Dux (allegedly...) and has the perfect shitstorm of chaos for a Cannon film: a hungry young star, a catching title (seriously, top 10 movie titles ever, alongside "Manborg", "Robocop", "Surf Nazis Must Die" and "Bloodfist"), low budget, violence, cheese, chaos, and a cool poster no matter which one you go for. You see this thing on a marquee or on the shelf of a video shop? You're in there. I know I am.
It's called fucking Bloodsport!
Anyway on with the show!
Premise:
Van Damme plays Frank Dux (pronounced like the old term for fisticuffs and not the animal, surprisingly, and yes they do make that joke), a budding young martial artist in the Legion, flees his military base to Hong Kong, where he will participate in a secret martial arts tournament known as the "Kumite" to honour his dying mentor Tanaka.
And that's it! Honestly, perfect. It's simple, to the point, and lean: it allows us to focus on the martial arts and athleticism, the highlights and strong points of Van Damme this early in his career.

If you were to ask for a typical Van Damme premise, the stuff where he'd excel, or ask me to come up with a "Van Damme" movie: it'd honestly be that, every ingredient from the Legion base, the underground tournament, the globe-trotting martial artists and all!
Premise: 5
A great start so far, but the devil is in the details:
Execution:
Honestly, it's simple but effective stuff, it works cometently enough. Director Newt Arnold (who worked on the fucking Godfather 2) does a good job with the framing and set up, and the story by Shedon Lettich and Frank Dux works. We open on a montage of martial arts:

From our leading villain, no less. But more on him later.

To this nice little mirroring, good job movie!
Then whatever the fuck this is...

The less said about this the better. It was a different time! It was... 1988? Fuck me...

Much better...
The movie is a simple tale of a man entering a tournament, proving his worth, making friends along the way, and defeating a proper dickbag. Classic stuff. We also have a pair of investigators tracking down Dux to bring him back and/or stop him from entering the Kumite in the first place:

But they are really only here to pad the film out to 90 minutes: though it is cool seeing a young Forest Whitaker, already a charismatic actor and the more relaxed, patient of the two. The same can be said of Leah Ayres' reporter: here to spice up the testosterone fest, but she's a likable enough performer. The movie understands what its audience wants: martial arts.
And we get those in spades! They are interspersed with flashbacks to the training, with Roy Chiao as the Master Tanaka

It's good stuff, charming, though nothing you haven't seen before. However, would you want anything different?
It's iconic for a reason and, competently (moreso than many other movies) all of Dux's training comes back later on throughout the movie, like "Lost" but only more mental.
It's earnest, and that's its strength: there's even a Stan Bush theme song during the tournament which is maybe 80% of the reason people remember it.
Cheesy and breezy, great stuff.
Execution: 3.
Now for what I think most people like about the movie: Charm.

The film is so much fun. From being chased by agents to a weirdly upbeat song, designed solely to show off the streets of Hong Kong:

To the delivery and execution of what should be simple beats, the film just feels like a glorious relic of another time. Everybody is playing it so wonderfully, there's a lot of love and enjoyment on screen, par for the course with a Cannon Film. Donald Gibb rightfully steals the show in many reviews as "Jackson", the best friend and supportive buddy character: he's introduced in that montage at the start looking a little crazy, but properly on the bus hitting on a girl with "You wanna get with a big man?" only to immediately understand that silence means no, go back to his beer and bond with Frank over videogames.

Absolute fucking Chad.
He spends the rest of the movie smashing dudes in the ring, being loud, and looking like a deranged wrestler on coke.

Seriously, I love him:

But even the smaller parts are just as fun and interesting: Ken Siu plays the lovable guide and local supporter Lin:

And he's great.
Hell, Leah Ayres' Janice has a quite funny moment where she goes "in disguise" to cover the Kumite and dresses like this:

More is more in this movie, it does not know restraint. Sassy dudes live rent free in my head when they come to see Dux screw up a brick trick:

Everybody is on the same page and I find it glorious: during an early training segment where Dux wears a blindfold to serve tea to Master Tanaka and his wife, we cut to a reaction shot of Mrs Tanaka and I can only describe it as weapons' grade thirst:

Then whilst everything is not at 11 with the acting, the filmmakers make the smart decision to show off Hong Kong and all of its beauty, horror and wonder:

And here where they shoot it like an urban Anthony Wong cop horror movie:

The tourism board should hire these guy, they make Hong Kong awesome.
Charm: 5
I love this movie.
Now we talk about Bolo Yeung.
Villain.
Chong Li is our main bad guy here, the undefeated champion, merciless martial artist, death machine and living embodiment of the Giga Chad meme:

Yeung is fantastic here: I expect nothing less from an alumnus of Bruce Lee movies. He tears his way through the tournament, sneering and boasting and bragging with his facial expressions alone:

A top tier villain, hissably devilish and complete with his own built in scoreboard at the tournament in one of those "Wait what the fuck?" little scenes:

After the cartoonish bully of the last film and the 3 or 4 others in "No Retreat, No Surrender", it's distressingly refreshing to have one guy who just sucks and is good at it.I just wish there were more of him, as he's a fun character and good martial artist. Supremely talented
Villain: 4.
I now come to the tally which is already an impresively top tier 18. But there are bonus points!
Collaborators: We have Sheldon Lettich ("Lionheart", "Double Impact", "Legionnaire", "The Order", "The Hard Corps"), Bolo Yeung ("Double Impact"), Frank Dux ("Lionheart" and "The Quest"), and a cameo from Michel Qissi ("Kickboxer", "Lionheart" and "Kickboxer Vengeance"). That's 4 there.
But wait, there's more!

We also have groin, boy do we have groin aplenty!

A veritable cornucopia of dong, ass and splits are unleashed from this point forward, I warn you now.
Sweet, sweet Van Damme splits and ass.
3 points there.
Thus our final score is 25 points! Great job movie! Will be tough to top this.
I love "Bloodsport", and hope that I've managed to convince you it's the prototype for great Van Damme works, the journey truly starts here.