Cheapy video classic

Rating: 4/10 (8 March 2009)

So this would be classic Van Damme. A young man watching his brother getting crippled by a muay thai fighter vows ULTIMATE VENGEANCE! and goes to the villa of a master thai fighter to train for his final revenge in the box. Um, along the way he finds someone to love. Finally, near the end, things are ramped up a bit as his girl-to-be is raped and his brother kidnapped in an effort to destroy his chances against a highly bet-upon contest, but he kicks ass, takes name, gets the girl, all that.
During the watching of most of this movie, I was wondering why so many people buy this movie even to this date, while much better action movies have been made before and since and the deathly 80s pall of egregious music and terrible hairdos makes this movie so laughably kitsch. It's because of the end; I kinda 'smagine most people just skip right to it, as it has some pretty good choreography and the whole ground glass thing adds some nice intensity. The rest of the movie is capable enough, though predictable and in a lot of moments pretty boring. At least they don't waste too much time on dialog, just getting to what needs to be done to get Kurt boy trained for his bigboy fight. Still, the movie could have used a bit more pep and a bit less pizazz.
--PolarisDiB