One of the highlights of his truly impressive career was the original Kickboxer. It’s cheesy as hell, has amazing fight choreography, and one of the greatest antagonists since Chong Li in Bloodsport. Tong Po was a nightmare of a man! His massive knee and elbow Muy Thai style was so much different from what we had been used to seeing in these flicks that is was pretty shocking how violent it was. Jump ahead 27 years and never did I think I’d be watching a Kickboxer remake, but I am, and surprisingly it’s not terrible!

Kickboxer: Vengeance enters into a world that’s well aware of the Muy Thai style and instead of trying to up the ante with brutality it relies on skillfully crafted fight sequences with a flimsy retread of the original’s story. The film follows the story of fighter Kurt Sloane (originally portrayed by Van Damme, this time by Alain Moussi who is best known as a stuntman) who is seeking revenge for the death of his brother by the hands of Tong Po. Along the way he realizes he’s not good enough and seeks out training by a master, Durand (played brilliantly by Van Damme, frankly this is the sort of role JCVD should be doing all the time!) See how simple that is? That’s absolutely all you need in a revenge flick, just enough story to allow for a few training montages (because who doesn’t love training montages) and a handful of killer fight sequences. One can argue that Vengeance might even be a better film than the original! It cuts a lot of the backstory fat out. We’re given just enough information about Kurt’s Brother, Eric (played by the sadly departed Darren Shahlavi) to let us know how important he was and to give us hints about people we shouldn’t trust. It’s a simple formula and it’s done to perfection in Vengeance.