Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.0

Kickboxer: Retaliation Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 16, 2018

Kickboxer is arguably one of the odder franchises that has arisen over the years, not just due to the changes that have been made in the ostensible focal character through the years, but also due to the fact that the series took a rather long “vacation” of over twenty years before being rebooted a couple of years ago with Kickboxer: Vengeance. The first Kickboxer came out in 1989 and helped to establish Jean-Claude Van Damme as one of the leading martial arts action adventure stars of his generation. Perhaps because the first Kickboxer did such an estimable job in raising Van Damme’s profile, he declined to participate in Kickboxer 2: The Road Back in 1991, necessitating a shift from Van Damme’s character of Kurt Sloane to Sloane’s brother David (Sasha Mitchell), who then “took over” for the subsequent Kickboxer 3: The Art of War in 1992 and Kickboxer 4: The Aggressor in 1994. Even David Sloane was missing in action by the time The Redemption: Kickboxer 5 trundled along in 1995. Perhaps because that straight to video release didn’t exactly set the world on fire, the “franchise” was put to bed, and had seemingly passed into the mists of history until Kickboxer: Vengeance arrived in 2016. That film re-introduced Kurt Sloane as the focal character, albeit now portrayed by martial arts maven Alain Moussi, a performer who had already earned his stripes (and/or scars) as a stuntman on a number of high profile projects like Pacific Rim, Pompeii and X-Men: Days of Future Past. Van Damme returned in Kickboxer: Vengeance in what might cheekily be termed the "Mr. Miyagi" role, offering counsel and fighting moves to Kurt as mentor Master Durrand.

Kickboxer: Retaliation begins with a fairly gonzo pre-credits sequence that finds Kurt on a train that could have come straight out of the recent remake of Murder on the Orient Express , down to the mountainous setting and huge trestle bridges. Kurt is evidently on a very special train, however, one that features steamy tango dancing with his wife Liu (Sara Malakul Lane), that is, of course, until a number of nefarious villain types break into the car to disrupt the festivities. That then leads to a series of fight escapades that finally finds Kurt and his nemeses on top of train in a torrential downpour. It perhaps makes things only slightly more believable when it turns out this is all a bad (recurring) dream Kurt has experienced in the wake of the events in Kickboxer: Vengeance.

While Kurt’s career with the “WFA” looks like it’s going gangbusters, he doesn’t have much time to celebrate, since within minutes of the actual story getting underway, he’s tased and drugged and delivered back to Thomas More (Christopher Lambert), who is none too pleased that Kurt dispatched with Kickboxer: Vengeance’s villain Tong Po (Dave Bautista). The upshot is that Kurt is more or less conscripted to fight a new mutant sized bad guy, Mongkut (Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson), though Kurt is understandably reluctant to do so. Liu’s desperate straits (which only get more desperate in this film) play into the escapade, but it’s a foregone conclusion that of course Kurt is going to indulge in an epic smackdown of Mongkut, and that he and Liu will most likely live happily ever after, or at least happily until the next sequel puts Liu back in peril.

This is by the numbers storytelling, but it benefits from a generally brisk pace, as well as a number of well staged fight scenes. The franchise continues to exploit “star” power of fighters in various techniques who show up either as bit players or featured players. This film includes the participation of Mike Tyson among several other boxing or mixed martial arts professionals, including Ronaldinho, Fabricio Werdum, Brian Shaw and Wanderlei Silva. The film even has fitful flirtations with actual style courtesy of some fun framings from director Dimitri Logothetis and cinematographer Gerardo Medrazo. The result is occasionally exciting, but it’s pretty relentlessly predictable, down to paving the way for the next Kickboxer installment.

Kickboxer: Retaliation Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Kickboxer: Retaliation is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. There's not much technical data available online about this shoot (that I could find, anyway), but this is a competently digitally captured feature that offers excellent detail levels, at least when the camera calms down a bit and when there aren't deliberate stylistic tweaks, as in the sequence where Kurt has been tased and drugged and the imagery goes a bit haywire (see screenshot 8). Both the pre-credits train sequence, and then a rather long swath of the film later are bathed in a pretty heavy yellow grading that tends to mask fine detail levels (that's especially noticeable in the whole Muay Thai temple sequence that caps the film, since lighting is minimal on top of the grading choices). But in more normal circumstances, fine detail actually pops rather well, especially when close-ups are employed. There's some noticeable banding on display (something that seems to regularly afflict these Well Go USA releases), but on the whole this is a nice looking transfer that should please the film's fans.

Kickboxer: Retaliation Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Kickboxer: Retaliation features an intermittently robust sounding DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. The film's hand to hand combat scenes provide the best use of surround channels, as well as offering a glut of resonant effects, and the reactions of crowds in various "tournament" settings also offer good immersion. The film's fairly laughable dialogue is always rendered cleanly and clearly, though occasionally accents are a little thick (there are optional subtitles for those who require them). Fidelity is fine across the board, and dynamic range rather wide, on this problem free track.

Kickboxer: Retaliation Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Meet the Fighters (1080p; 5:36) features short interviews with the principal cast and crew, and features a banner that lasts the entire five and half minutes of the running time advertising a website where my hunch is they might want to sell you things.


• Trailer (1080p; 1:53)

Note: As usually tends to be the case with Well Go USA releases, the disc has been authored so that the two supplements above follow each other automatically. After the trailer for this film plays, the disc has been authored to move automatically on to trailers for other Well Go USA releases. Those trailers for other releases also play at disc boot up. This is, however, one of the rare Well Go USA releases where I had some trouble getting navigation to work when I played it in my PC drive (which I typically do to check resolutions of the supplements). This disc got "stuck" on various menu items like Bonus or Previews and neither my mouse nor the arrow keys would do anything. Even trying the Main Menu option on PowerDVD only returned me to whatever Menu function I was on previously rather than getting me to the Play Feature prompt. I don't think I've ever encountered this before with a Well Go USA release, but I frankly have found PowerDVD to be one of the glitchier programs I've used, so it certainly could be that, but I thought it worth mentioning in case anyone else experiences it.

Kickboxer: Retaliation Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Kickboxer: Retaliation is a kind of middling effort that has the requisite adrenaline pumping action sequences, but which rarely (if ever) rises above genre formulations to provide anything out of the ordinary. Moussi is athletic and appealing as Kurt, and it's fun to see Van Damme, Lambert and even Tyson show up here, even if the ultimate effect is never very memorable. Technical merits are generally fine for those considering a purchase.