Classic Movie

Spin kicks, perms and silliness

	It’s got Tong Po in it and more cheesy bits than a west country Ploughmans

The plot: Despite looking like a backward hybrid of Burt Reynolds and Macho Man Randy Savage, recently crowned World Kickboxing Champion, Eric Sloane (Dennis Alexio), is officially one of the toughest nuts in the world. Rather than rest on his curly laurels though and actually try to establish why his brother Kurt (Van Damme) has an odd Belgian twang in his accent, Eric wants to go to the Far East, get all cocky about how great he is and smash some little Thai champion called Tong Po’s head in. Good idea.

So what happens? Tong Po ain’t so little. In fact, he’s harder than a quadratic equation with a pick axe and the fighting sensibilities of a jilted spouse. Anything goes with Mr Po including a warm-up kicking concrete pillars with his shins and eerie pre-fight dancing circa Glastonbury’s Hare Krishna tent. He takes little punishment from the pitiful Eric and then, in a gesture of defiance to loudmouth Yanks the world over, deliberately breaks his back, crippling him for life.

And? The slightly effeminate Kurt gets the hump. He meets a black man with an ace blue Mazda van, wanders about in chinos to various embarrassing power ballads and eventually convinces some outback Muay Thai guru to teach him how to run around in a Pocahontas outfit, kick the shit out of bamboo trees and reach spiritual enlightenment by virtue of an eagle, loads of broken statues and doing the splits.

Why’s it a classic? It’s got Tong Po in it and more cheesy bits than a west country Ploughmans, including the most cringeworthy scene ever where he gets pissed and dances about a bit in a shit bar in some sort of character-building brawl. The funny thing is, he does ultimately get revenge but at the expense of a whole village of innocents and having his sweetheart raped by his worst enemy. That’s not to mention of couple of Freemans catalogue adjustable vests being torn. White Warrior, my arse.