Here is my review of the movie, Kickboxer, which came out 6 years before I was born. Oh and don’t you dare say that Jean Claude, the man who speaks native French, is French. He is Belgian, and my deepest apologizes to all that I offended in saying that a man with the most french name ever, whose first language is French, is French. He’s Belgian and to say otherwise is ignorant, obnoxious and almost evil of me when I did that yesterday.
Alrighty, so I watched this movie. REaLLY! IT was not a good movie! Lol, not going to lie about that. It was sooo cheesy and silly, BUT…there were interesting aspects to this movie for me, and overall I got more entertainment out of it than I get out of a lot of mediocre movies. I guess the dynamic of Western guys making a movie in Thailand, and clearly not caring enough to ask Thai’s…anything, had me laughing a lot. There is no such thing as spoilers for a movie that came out 17 years before the Iphone, but ok ok, I’ll say it anyway for you: SPOILERS AHEAD
1) What the movie got wrong about Thailand:
Well there’s really no Thai’s in the movie, lol. I’m wondering if that surprises anyone. The master trainer is not Thai, the love interest is not Thai, and…Tong Po is not Thai. Tong Po isn’t even Asian btw, haha. Many of the extras were Thai of course, but not much more than that.
The biggest payoff scene in the movie is when he’s fighting Tong Po at the end, and the crowd suddenly starts rooting for the very not French, Jean Claude. They root so hard for him that they start chanting, “Nok Su Coow” which they tell you means “The White Warrior.” This is a preposterous part of the movie. A) Nok Su Coow doesn’t really make any sense grammatically. I’m not expert at old style Thai, but I asked an old lady and she also said “Nok Su Coow” is not right. It is as if someone asked a Thai how you say “white” and then how you say “warrior” and then just put it together like that would work. It did not work. 2) The Thai’s would never root for the very not French, Jean Claude. You might say, “But Kay, the people backing Tong Po were so bad to the people there.” And I would respond by telling you that is absolutely correct, and yet they still would never root against a Thai EVER, not never and not ever ever. Not in that sport. Muay Thai is 800 years old, and Thai’s have tremendous pride in their sport. Under no circumstance would they ever root for a non-Thai. Sorry.
2) What the movie got right with Thailand
Well they filmed in Thailand, so they got that right. And there’s a couple of training scenes, where Jean Claude (he’s Belgian) was training in sacred ruins that I have taken pictures of and sent pics of!!! So that was kind of exciting for me, that they were training there and I was actually there recently enough to have recognized it immediately. The were actually some really nice shots of the ruins too. I guess money talked in 1989, because there’s no way they would let anyone film a silly movie there ever again.
The muay thai stadium atmosphere was real because they filmed it at a real stadium. That includes the music they play during the fights, which is the same music they’ve been playing for hundreds of years with the fights.
3) Was it offensive?
Some would say the western savior thing is offensive, but I don’t really feel that way. This movie was intended for westerners. If it was about a local guy savior here, nobody would watch it in western markets. So what’s wrong with that? Same with not having Thai’s in the movie, I don’t find that offensive. There probably weren’t many actors here at that time who spoke good enough English. I wasn’t offended by this movie at all. They pick up a “woman of the night” early on in the movie, and well ya, westerners do that here some times, so it’s not inaccurate.
What about the dancing scene?
This movie is not a comedy, but I laughed very loud at the dancing scene, and just didn’t think anything like that was coming! It’s in a random bar, where Jean Claude gets wasted and starts dancing randomly, and then girls in the bar just start dancing with him. His moves are very strange and awkward, though I wouldn’t say he was a bad dancer. Keep in mind that this is not a bar with women of the night; this is supposed to be in the middle of nowhere. So you might be thinking, “well that must be offensive and totally inaccurate, that random girls would just start dancing with him there. Nope. In 1989, this was not the worst looking man I’ve ever seen; I think the most accurate thing in the whole movie is that girls country-wide would join him in dancing if the guy looked like that. The movie was never mean spirited in their interpretation of Thailand and Thai’s, and so it a high grade in this category.
4) The Muay Thai
It didnn’t look that bad to me. And I know what muay thai looks like, I’ve seen fights and I’ve seen training sessions a lot. It is obviously fictionalized version of the sport, but I’ve seen Thai movies that are just as over the top with their muay thai fighting. You can tell that Tong Po and Jean Claude’s brother were legitimately trained fighters. And Jean Claude did not have muay thai moves, but he did seem to have elite athleticism, fitness, and maybe karate. So the characters were believable as fighters.
5) The Romance
It was nice. They did a respectful job with that. The girl isn’t Thai but she could pass for a Thai by looks. She’s a nice looking woman, but you can find a girl like that almost anywhere in Thailand. So it was realistic; a lot of western fighters do come to Thailand and strike up romances with girls just like her.
Bottom Line
Let’s not forget that this is an incredibly silly and cliched movie. The dialogue and the acting were really bad too. Because I know I’m saying mostly positive things about the movie, but it still deserves to be called a no-so-good movie. However, I kind of think it has a little bit of charm going for it. And I didn’t mind watching it at all. It was just more interesting to me than some silly netflix action movie. What I think most about this movie, is that if you are ever with a Thai lady, you should watch it with her. Because she will laugh a lot and you’ll both enjoy the experience of watching it together.