Kickboxer 3: The Art of War (1992)

Undescribable Perfection

The Worst Film Ever

Pretty Good

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Maybe it's because I don't have too much expectation when I approach the 'Kickboxer' series but I have to say that I find all of these movies enjoyable, all things considered. This third instalment is set in Rio which does add a dash of exotic flavour to proceedings. In it, our Kickboxing champion, David Sloan, arrives in Brazil for a competition but soon becomes involved with rescuing a girl from a sex slave racket.Apart from the South American setting, what sets this one apart from the other previous entries in the series is that we now have the kickboxer going around shooting people. The introduction of guns into the mix gives this instalment more of a standard action-thriller feel. There are a few fights but the martial arts side of the story is definitely more marginalised in this one. Sasha Mitchell does have a dopey and personable charm in the lead role; while everyone else does what's expected of them. It moves at a fast pace, it doesn't have any surprises but its good straightforward fun.

Kickboxer 3 takes David and Xian on a trip to Brazil for a tournament. The pair befriends a local boy and his sister who try and steal their camera. They team up and the boy show the pair Rio. While on there, they meet a ruthless player (Lane) who steals women and sell them to buyers, who has his eyes on the boy's sister and takes her. The 3 of them are on a quest to save the girl. But got caught, forcing the player (Lane) to put David Sloan on an extensive training to wear him down to gain inside info to bet his life work against Sloan for the Tournament.This movie is probably my favourite of the series. Everyone expect Kickboxer to be a fighting action film, but I think it leans more of an adventure film, it works really well. The Brazilian backdrop gives it some character. I would recommend for a family to see.

With Kickboxer 3, it's not the fact that the film's plot is so predictable – the opening credits shows a woman fleeing for her life, eventually captured, and shot by the villain who keeps young girls captive for reasons we don't have to imagine. Not ten minutes later, a young girl is introduced as a poor lost soul that David Sloan (the Kickboxer protagonist since the previous film) will inevitably get off the street. Hmmm … I wonder what is going to happen to her. And it's not the fact these characters would earn the screenwriter an F in any competent screen writing class with their grocery list of randomized "character traits" and lack of meaningful development – the fact that the requirements of the prepackaged plot dictates each and every one of the characters in the story.No, the real error lay in the incredibly bland presentation – why the hell would anyone watch a movie that even the most naïve audience member can guess, and the most artistically illiterate can imagine in a more interesting and aesthetically pleasing way? I honestly can't think of a single moment where I admired the visuals, or felt they reflected anything more than an unenthusiastic cycle through the motions. I do, however, vividly recall despising a scene in a police station where throughout the entire conversation every actor's face managed to stay in shadow as though the crew setup their lights about six inches off the mark. Some great scenes have been captured with effective use of, you guessed it, shadows (Werner Herzog's brilliantly photographed Nosferatu immediately springs to mind.); however, here, the shadows are not used effectively. Back to the "plot." In another nails-to-a-chalkboard scene, the filmmakers demonstrate the fact they know what an innuendo is, while simultaneously demonstrating they know not how to pull it off (whether the writer's fault, the actor's, director's – I don't presume to know.) "I'm glad you'll be moving on your way, Sloan. It'd be very stupid to try anything with Mr. Branco and his seven body guards. *Seven* body guards," quoth the detective who sounds just as unnatural and inept as Steve Martin's Inspector Clouseau from the new Pink Panther, "Lovely weather we are having! (wink) I hope the weather continues." Later on, Sloan discovers the identity of the true villain, Mr. Lane (who previously posed as a friend), the audience learns that Mr. Lane knows Sloan will be coming for him. So, the villain sets a trap where he appears to be reading, while guards lurk somewhere else on the premises banking on the belief that good guys do not "shoot first, ask questions later." What I would've given for anti-heroes right about here. There needs to be a parody where the good guys say, "You know, he's just going to pull a gun in the final scene, and we're going to kill him anyway out of self-defense. So, screw it, let's just kill him now, and save everyone the misery of the 3rd act." The grand scheme that evolves from all of these plot tangents comes together in Lane's greedy desire to make a few bucks off a rigged fight. The trick, of course, getting Sloan to play ball. "You can have the girl," Lane says, "if you show up for tomorrow's fight." "That's it?" replies Sloan, "You don't want me to throw the fight?" Lane grins, "No, not at all – I have too much respect for you to ask that." Actually, Lane did ask just that in one of the previous scenes, but now he's content to let Sloan play fair … after forcing Sloan to wear himself out with an unnecessarily stressful workout. Again, the filmmakers demonstrate their knowledge of cruel irony, while demonstrating their ineptitude in convincingly creating it.The screenwriters, editor, and director drive the final nail in the coffin by not putting this lame beast out of its misery and simply ending the film after the climactic match (which, by the way, follows a climactic shoot out.) Sloan, of course, proves victorious, putting Lane in unrecoverable debt from the numerous outrageous bets he cannot pay. Sloan gets the little girl back – it's over and done with, right? Hero wins, villain loses? We can assume a few loose ends get tied up, non? At the expense of pacing and structure, the film refuses to let its audience go until it assures us with a third climactic scene that explicitly shows the villain gets what's coming to him, all the girls he holds captive are set free, and that nice detective is going to let Sloan off the hook. If you're going to go through so much trouble to spell things out, why stop there? Why not have a note at the end of the credits that reads, "the film is over. It is now safe to eject this DVD."

Because every character that was ever in this franchise is apparently dead (and they say squash is dangerous), we get this new bad guy named, of all things, Martine. Will he be able to stop the fury of cousin Cody and some random kid? Will the subplot ever provide any thrills? Well, no on both matters. You know you're not entertained when you wonder where Tong Po went. He wasn't that cool either but the new villains look like they were recruted at a local 7-11. The action scenes in this movie are really boring, especially the actual kick-boxing the title promises is really poorly executed. It's just so obvious the actors aren't touching each other. The writing is as lazy as it can get, our kickboxer even gets to give a moral lesson near the end. Even more sequels follow, I don't think I'll watch them.