What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[nicholasrope]

Originally Posted by MrBarlow

Watching the second one now didn't realise there was 5 Kickboxer movies.

4 isn't good, not seen V, Kickoxer II whilst I enjoyed it has a plot hole that annoys me a lot.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by nicholasrope

Thor: Love & Thunder

Thor and Co attempt to stop Christian Bale from killing all the Gods. Looking forward to this one as I like the Thor Films however even though there were some funny moments, it felt kinda clunky.

I do wonder if there is a reason that we haven't seen Shang-Chi and/or Eternal crossovers yet.

As a guess i'd say because they are the films that flopped at the box office, Eternals wasn't even well liked by critics, so in a world where boredom with superheroes is slowly starting to set in they might be seen as slow release box office poison if added to a more favourable source.

[MrBarlow]

Kickboxer 2: The Road Back. 1991.

David Sloan, the younger brother of Eric and Kurt, is manipulated into a match against Tong Po so he can regain his honor.

Set a year after Kurt defeated Tong Po in Thailand, where did this brother surface from? He isn't mentioned in the first film nor the gym where they both ran or talked about. I saw the trailers for this back in the 90s and never got the chance to watch it, 30 years later here I am finally getting to see it.

Dennis Chan returns as Xian with his animal stories he likes to tell, Sasha Mitchell plays David, who is injured after returning to the ring and is trained by Xian to be stronger. Peter Boyle plays the somewhat shady fight promoter who evidently seems to have a heart at some point. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa plays the sponsor for Tong Po with Michael Qissi returnig as the Thai Fighter. Like what Nicholasrope says it does have one or two plot holes, noticeable goofs/errors, at the same time it was entertaining.

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[nicholasrope]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

As a guess i'd say because they are the films that flopped at the box office, Eternals wasn't even well liked by critics, so in a world where boredom with superheroes is slowly starting to set in they might be seen as slow release box office poison if added to a more favourable source.

That's my theory too

[nicholasrope]

Originally Posted by MrBarlow

Kickboxer 2: The Road Back. 1991.

David Sloan, the younger brother of Eric and Kurt, is manipulated into a match against Tong Po so he can regain his honor.

Set a year after Kurt defeated Tong Po in Thailand, where did this brother surface from? He isn't mentioned in the first film nor the gym where they both ran or talked about. I saw the trailers for this back in the 90s and never got the chance to watch it, 30 years later here I am finally getting to see it.

Dennis Chan returns as Xian with his animal stories he likes to tell, Sasha Mitchell plays David, who is injured after returning to the ring and is trained by Xian to be stronger. Peter Boyle plays the somewhat shady fight promoter who evidently seems to have a heart at some point. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa plays the sponsor for Tong Po with Michael Qissi returnig as the Thai Fighter. Like what Nicholasrope says it does have one or two plot holes, noticeable goofs/errors, at the same time it was entertaining.

Attachment 240992

The plot hole that gets me is that Tong Po was able to stroll into a ring at a sanctioned event with Officials there and beat up someone and no security and/or police able to stop him yet they were able to restrain David.

I get that it was a necessary part of the storyline but they could have done the beatdown at a Gym for a sparring session.

Still a good film though, Kickboxer III has a nice change of pace as well as storyline, watch it if you can.

[MrBarlow]

Originally Posted by nicholasrope

The plot hole that gets me is that Tong Po was able to stroll into a ring at a sanctioned event with Officials there and beat up someone and no security and/or police able to stop him yet they were able to restrain David.

I get that it was a necessary part of the storyline but they could have done the beatdown at a Gym for a sparring session.

Still a good film though, Kickboxer III has a nice change of pace as well as storyline, watch it if you can.

Yeah I had to remind myself that it was a fight in America not Thailand, i'm just away to watch the third film now.

[MrBarlow]

Kickboxer 3: The Art Of War. 1992

David and Xian travel to Rio for a Kickboxing exhibition and uncover a child slavery and prostitution ring.

Sasha Mitchell and Dennis Chan return, this time in South America and meet somewhat rich man who promotes fights and has a business thing going on the side which seems to upset our American heroes who try and break it up. Sasha's acting does seem a bit wooden in this but does make up with the big fight. This was one of those that must have went straight to video and for what it's worth this was decent, sadly not available to get number 4 and 5 so Kickboxer: Vengence is up next.

Kickboxer3DVDCover.jpg

[MrBarlow]

Kickboxer: Vengence. 2016.

A man sets out on a quest of revenge after his brother is killed in a underground fight in Thailand.

Remake of the 1989 film, Jean Clade Van Damme returns to the franchise name not as a student but as a teacher/mentor to Kurt played by Alain Moussi who brings his own style of fighting to the screen. Dave Bautista plays the Thailand fight Tong Po (and has the Tong Po trademark ponytail) and is able to do decent fight scenes. Gina Carano plays the fight promoter and encourages Darren Shahlavi to take on the prize fighter.

More updated version of the film with the illegal underground fighting circuit and may not have the same impact this but was actually enjoyable and to see JCVD breaking out in a fight and still has the moves. Michael Qissi (Original Tong Po) does appear in a very small cameo role.

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Have a good day all.

[Nordicdusk]

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Ten years after he witnesses his brother get murdered in Thailand Jake is back to avenge his brothers death. Jake is now a cop and is on an undercover mission to bring down an organisation making kung fu snuff films. Haunted by the memories if what happened to his brother at first he turns down the case but after watching one of the films the man who killed his brother appears on screen and Jake knows the time has come to settle the score.

Holy shit the film is so hilariously bad the fights are decent enough but the acting is so shockingly bad the whole film is like an 80s arcade game with Jake looking like the hero in every single beat em up you ever played . He spends most of the film shouting in peoples faces while they try conduct a normal conversation and his constant overly dramatic screams of anguish are just mind blowing . Then there is Billy Blanks matching Loren Avedon every step of the way for crown of worse actor in the film . Towards the end of the film they dont even bother remembering the main characters name and they start calling him Jack instead of Jake
Just to top it off the end of the film they throw in a few random explosions just so our hero can stand in front of the flames with his new gal in his arms

After all is said and done is this an entertaining film? Hell yeah it is it never gets boring at any stage well worth watching if you need a good laugh.

Recommended if your in that sort of mood

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

THE MAJORETTES – Screwball slasher with ultimate zombie ‘Typhoid Mary’ Bill Hinzman at the helm. He doesn’t deliver another ‘Flesheater’ here, which is a pity as I consider that flick to be classic dreck. Instead, TM is pretty much by the numbers (it’s quite telling that its alternative title was ‘One By One’) before it swerves from its cookie-cutter high school stalk’n’kill set-up and flips out into a weird mixture of blackmail-based intrigue and Rambo. I expect the filmmakers were so desperate to make it work that they were just throwing any old shit at the wall to see what might stick (I haven’t read the John Russo paperback so can’t comment as to whether it’s all a dazzlingly intricate plotline that didn’t quite translate), but before the ludicrousness of that last half hour the scant horror moments are sandwiched between lots of scenes where people hang out after gym for a nice long chat. Missed opportunities fade out into the blur as the wheels slowly come off, like the weird religious imagery that accompanies the kills – yet another throwaway, it’s kind of there as a red herring almost. The style is drab and the acting wooden, and it only worked for me on that ‘this is the eighties’ bottom line, notwithstanding an overall silliness that just about kept me in.

CRYSTAL EYES – Interesting Argentinian giallo homage with a serious eighties fixation. It uses that old mainstay, the fashion house setting, to good effect in that it allows for a thorough wallow in excessive visual style. In fact the lush aesthetic of ‘Crystal Eyes’ can’t quite shake the underlying digital production, but that doesn’t stop the film from laying on a string of gaudy, candy coloured set pieces. Tonally, CE seems to alternate between melodramatic screechiness and blissed out flights into pure imagery – it can’t quite square the circle between those two and this affects the pacing, but I was drawn to such atmospheric highlights as a smoky chanteuse in monochrome doing a number on TV, not to mention the mannequin-like killer themselves. There are flaws but who cares when the film is capable of offering up such outrageous contrivances as the Argento crystal plumage-referencing kill at the end, so bluntly and artificially orchestrated that I laughed out loud. Maybe it’s all a bit tongue in cheek, but latter day giallo pastiches have become a bit of an indie staple in the last fifteen years or so and this is a good stab at that sort of thing.

Yet again sir ....