Extremely cliched, full of stereotypes, but enjoyable

Rating: 5/10 (16 May 2020)

I like how the movie's called Kickboxer, but it's about Muay Thai, and Van Damne resorts to karate and taekwondo techniques in the ring. That leads me to a big problem with this movie: Van Damme's character doesn't really have arc. He starts off as an accomplished karate practitioner (like Van Damme himself) and doesn't seem like he needs any more training to beat Tong Po. The movie tries to make it seem like he's not flexible and has to work his way up to a complete split, but earlier in the movie he practiced his form in various types of kicks, and at one point not only throws a side kick above his head, but chambers it up and down in a slow and controlled manner. As someone who's trained in various martial arts for years, I know from experience that throwing a side kick that high requires a lot of flexibility and control, and Van Damme's technique is impeccable from the start.
But this is Muay Thai, not karate. For the sake of the story, Van Damme should have to learn clinching, elbows, and roundhouse kicks to the thighs to beat Tong Po. Instead, we have two scenes of Van Damme in the ring, a warm up round where he annihilates the dude, and the final match between him and Tong Po. Both times he wins with hook kicks, side kicks, traditional punches, and other karate/tkd techniques.
Beyond that, an even bigger problem with the film is how shallow the writing is. Tong Po is written to be literally the most unlikable bad guy ever; he's unfair in the ring, collects protection from the townspeople, and rapes our generic love interest. I keep calling Van Damme Van Damme because, while he's an impressive martial artist, the dude can't act his way out of a wet paper bag and lacks the screen presence of someone like Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, or Michael Jai White. At least he's better than Steven Segal. The only memorable character is our Mr. Miyagi stand in Xian Chow, who's genuinely charming and likable. I'd say Kickboxer has more competent story structure and technical aspects than his previous vehicle Bloodsport. Bloodsport at least knew it's story wasn't it's strong point, and made a good third of the runtime tournament matches. It still has issues like a thin plot and lots of bad dubbing, but it's more enjoyable to sit though than Kickboxer. Whichever you think is better will ultimately come down to personal preference.