Bloodsport

In this episode, Anna and Derek discuss the cult classic, Bloodsport (1988), starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. Kumite! Kumite!

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Anna Keizer and Derek Dehanke are the co-hosts of ‘80s Movie Montage. The idea for the podcast came when they realized just how much they talk – a lot – when watching films from their favorite cinematic era. Their wedding theme was “a light nod to the ‘80s,” so there’s that, too. Both hail from the Midwest but have called Los Angeles home for several years now. Anna is a writer who received her B.A. in Film/Video from Columbia College Chicago and M.A. in Film Studies from Chapman University. Her dark comedy short She Had It Coming was an Official Selection of 25 film festivals with several awards won for it among them. Derek is an attorney who also likes movies. It is a point of pride that most of their podcast episodes are longer than the movies they cover. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Hello and welcome to 80s movie montage. This is Derek Danke.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

And this is Anna Kaiser.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

And this is a podcast where we talk about movies from the 80s with montages because why not?

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

And I don't need any other reason, do you?

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Couldn't have said it better.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

No.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

No.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

So thank you to everyone. Look, we know that at least 10 people listened to our email.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

We got the email that we got at least 10 people.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

And I only probably caused that to trigger twice. So thank you, all eight people. You guys are the best? You are.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Our favorite listeners.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

We had a call to action for people to let us know who they identified most with the cast of the Breakfast Club. And because of the timing of when we posted that versus when we recorded this, we actually don't have any of that feedback.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

But no. So it's the next time. Yeah. Sky's limit. And if we don't, we might just make it up. Yeah. Sure, because you won't know. You won't know. You guys don't know. Yeah. This might also be the perfect time because I did not do this last time. This might be part of the reason why we did not get that feedback. I didn't actually list our handles. Um but we just did information. We are on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. And guess what? The handle's the same for all three, so it makes it real easy. It's at 80smontage pod. So 80s is the numerals 8 and 0 with the N for 80s. Um montage and then POD pod. So you can find us with that handle at any of those three places.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Perfect. So what are we got what uh movie are we talking about this week?

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Um well, Derek, it's actually a movie that you picked.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Oh, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

So I think you you uh deserve to give the the intro on it.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

So today's movie is a cult classic, and you already know what it is because you've clicked on the podcast, so you you've already seen the title. Uh but it is 1988's Blood Sport, Jean-Claude Van Damme's, I guess, first big feature in the US at least.

SPEAKER_04 2:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Uh where he played as the real person, Frank Dukes. Frank Dukes may have had some not so real stories. But either way, we'll get into that. It made for what I think is a phenomenal, and by phenomenal, I mean it is a motion picture.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Yeah. So we have just said that uh this was your pick. Why was this your pick? Give us a little insight.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

So this was my pick because when we started uh I guess conceiving this idea of having a podcast for for you know 80s montages, uh I wasn't even sure that Blood Sport was from the 80s. In 88, you know, it's on the tail end of things. But you know, this movie I think was on TBS or TNT, or maybe it was before TNT, but it was on every week. So my friend and I would watch this, and it's it's kind of ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

There are Oh, kind of?

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Yeah. Kind of ridiculous. There are a lot and and actually this is the first time that I've watched it. You know, we we rented it through Apple to watch, and it's the first time I think that I've ever watched this without it being on TV. Oh I got so used to hearing like the the dubbed out swear words that it was kind of shocking. It wasn't it wasn't the blood that shocked me or the sport, it was the swearsies.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Got it. And this, folks, was just the first time, period, that I'd never seen this story.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

You've never seen any of it before.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Never saw a single frame.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

But you've you'd heard of it.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Sure. Yeah. Sure. Uh, but no, had never seen it before, and it was an experience. Very excited to talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

So let's get into a little bit of uh of this movie. So directed by Newt Arnold, and we certainly have a lot more information on him. Uh starred Jean-Claude Van Damme as Frank Dukes again. Donald Gibb as Frank's buddy Ray Jackson, and you may remember him as Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds. And you especially might remember him from that because he's essentially the same character. Same dude. Graduated from college, I think. I don't know. There were sequels to the nerds movies, but I didn't watch that.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Yeah, and actually, uh, I think he was in the second and fourth, I think they had a fourth Revenge of the Nerds.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

In between those, Ogre took a trip to Hong Kong to participate in an underground, full contact martial arts tournament. And it's actually kind of strange to say full contact martial arts tournament because that's basically UFC without the underground. Yeah. This was UFC before the UFC was the UFC.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

You know what I was thinking about earlier? This in a way is like the predecessor to Fight Club. Because nobody's supposed to talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

It's the first and second rule. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

So we also have Leah Ayers as Janice the Journalist. Not her, like Janice is her name, but I don't know what her last name was, so I just call her Janice the Journalist. That works. Norman Burton, who I think I've recognized from other other films, and also Forrest Whitaker, uh that is Academy. Academy Award winning Forrest Whitaker as the two gentlemen that I just call the army guys that are constantly on Frank Duke's room.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

Do you really explain why they're coming after him?

SPEAKER_01 5:33

We're we're not sure. Uh Roy Chow as Tanaka, Frank's Shidoshi or coach, who is also in the opening of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

Yeah, Lao Che.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

So I mean, this guy acts his ass off. He's best.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

He's great. I mean he's for sure my favorite part of the film.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

In a movie that is very ridiculous, he tries to give it some dignity. He d he does. Um I mean, he also tries to quarter Frank Duke, but oh yeah. So honorable mention to Bolo Jung, who played Chong Lee. So I guess more than an honorable mention.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

Oh, he has a very, very big role in it. Yeah. He is the But he doesn't have a lot of lines. He has a lot of peck flexing.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

He he probably moves his pecs more than he moves his mouth to deliver lines.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

For sure. And and the arm raise. The arm raise uh to incite the crowd. That's that's his other thing.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

I mean, I my shoulder hurts just watching him move his arms up and down demonstrably to But I said this when we were watching the movie.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Sure, the guy has some muscle. He's got a little baby fat too. He could afford to drop a little.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Frank Duke's famously. He's soft in the middle.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

He's soft in the gut.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Yeah. Get him in the gut. That's what he said.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

We'll get to that later, folks.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

So to contrast a little bit with our uh our last podcast, where we we started off with The Breakfast Club and we commented on how the opening credits were literally just credits and music. And you sit there and you kind of wait for that directed by. It does. But Blood Sport, it just gets you right into the action. Immediately. Immediately. I think you have an overhead shot of Hong Kong, and then it's just random fighters around the world and their various training methods. A guy's putting his knee through a board repeatedly. Uh some other guy, I think Chong Li, is busting some massive ice blocks. Some guy is jumping probably 30 feet straight into the air into a tree where he's knocking, I think, I don't know, were they were they coconuts? I think they were they had something like tied to the branch of the tree.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think they were coconuts.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

And and he was honestly just judo chopping the hell out of those things.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Yeah, I mean, look, as somebody who had never seen this movie before and this being the way that you're introduced to it, I obviously picked up on the fact that this was about fighting. And uh so so props. Props to the oh, sorry, spoilers, folks. Um but props to the movie for for doing that. Um, but I will say that not knowing like how these characters are were connected, how these different locations were connected, like it it did seem a bit disjointed. So, you know, we kind of started this trend uh with our other podcast episode, the first. So this is uh we're gonna I I mean I'd like to continue this showing kind of or talking about the effectiveness of the montage.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

Sure. Um this one was I mean, so it it does start with them kind of prepping the tournament stage, and then I think it goes from that then specifically to all the different fighters. So I guess, you know, to the extent the montage was intended to show that there's this tournament, all these fighters from around the world with their own unique and generally ridiculous fighting styles are gonna be joining this tournament. Uh but we go quickly from that to uh Frank, Jean-Claude Van Damme.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Doesn't look like a Frank at all.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

He's just doing it so it it kind of like blends his portion of the montage with all the other training, and so his method of training is to can continuously roundhouse kick a speed bag just over and over again. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

Uh but that comes into play later.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, Frank Dukes is nothing if not incredibly flexible with the kicks. Yes. Yeah. And the splits. So we open with Frank just kicking the hell out of a speed bag. And we know he's in the army, some military, some branch of the military services. We don't really know.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

The US Army. Well, yeah, that is an assumption, but he's in some branch of the US military, and it's also not explained why he has a very evident European accent.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

No, we don't know.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

We don't know.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

His accent changes quite a bit from the young version of Frank that we'll get to in a moment. Oh, to the older version. Yeah. Uh but we find out that Frank, exciting, is about to take a break. He's about to take a trip to Hong Kong. And the army, I'm just gonna call him the army from now on. Let's do it. They might have been special forces. I don't know. But they're like, no, you gotta you gotta talk to uh your commanding officer right now. But Frank says I need a shower. Which is fair because he was training quite vigorously. So of course he runs, he disappears.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

MIA.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

MIA, um absent without leave, if you will.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Uh so then AWOL.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Exactly. And shows up at I guess not his home, but the home of his uh Shidoshi, his coach, Mr. Tanaka. And thus begins what may be the longest flashback in cinema history.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Insanely long.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

We we see a young Frank Dukes and his friends who spot a pretty cool katana blade in the in a house.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Hold up one second. Because when he comes to the house, um Tanaka's wife is basically saying, like, okay, let me go check and see if he's like awake and receive you.

SPEAKER_03 11:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

So during this entire montage, all he is doing is staring at uh how how do you The katana. The katana. Yeah. Um he's just staring at the sword for like a almost 15-minute flashback. 15 minutes for us.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

I mean, I assume for them it was the briefest of moments. Sure. Yeah. Sure. So we see that uh Frank, young Frank, and some friends had broken in and we're gonna steal this sword, and they're caught by Mr. Tanaka and his son, who beats the crap out of Van Damme.

SPEAKER_03 11:52

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Uh the dad threatens this child who had broken into his home with the sword, saying it cannot be stolen, it must be earned, and then proceeds to, in one quick swipe, cut the bill off of his hat. And then he comments that, wow, Frank, you didn't you didn't flinch. You have this fighting spirit. You have the fighting spirit, stranger, child who I just threatened with a sword. So he says that, nothing really happens. Later on, uh, Van Damme defends Mr. Tanaka's son in a school schoolyard fight.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Schoolyard tussle.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

Yeah. Eventually he gets brought into uh the training. He's he's under the tutelage of Mr. Tanaka, the clan Tanaka, and their their fighting styles. Um Mr. Tanaka's son passes away. I'm not sure it tells us how. Also not explained. No.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Accent not explained, son's passing not explained.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

And we'll we'll get to more of the montages later, but just within this massive flashback, there are two other montages. Yeah. It's uh pretty trippy. Shock full of montages. But we we eventually get to getting a reason why Frank Dukes, Van Dam, wants to participate in this underground martial arts tournament known as the Kumite. Kumite.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Yeah. I mean it was I'd probably call training, but it was quite they would for sure see it as training, but I would say that the way that he behaved towards a child is uh more on the abusive side of things, but it would be problematic in today's.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

It'd be problematic. So then we're we're finally in Hong Kong with Jean-Claude Van Damme. I think he's on a bus with Ogre who is Same outfit two days later. Yeah, yeah. Well he had that he he look he had the shower, so he's probably fine.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Good for a couple days.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Yeah. Ogre who is inappropriately trying to come on to this.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Women on the bus in Hong Kong, because that's what you would expect Ogre to do.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Sure, I suppose.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Um it is by far not the most problematic moment of this movie.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

But it is a problematic scene that he is sexually harassing this woman and uh Frank sees this happening, doesn't do anything.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

He says nothing. He does nothing.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Absolutely nothing. No. Um I thought though, you know what? I will say this though, from that one scene, maybe I interpreted his misinterpreted his reaction, but I thought that it was setting them up to be perhaps like an antagonistic towards each other. I I definitely thought that like he, you know, was looking at this guy as very much an ogre type of figure. You know, he's not refined.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

His name was Ray. But he's ogre.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Ogre. Um so I thought that's where the story was gonna go.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

Um, which Boy were you surprised. Oh my goodness. Yeah. I did not expect for them to become their relationship bromance.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

It blossoms into a fine bromance.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

Um, and honestly, not that I really had anything that was pulling me towards Frank to begin with, but I was like, well, that's disappointing that you become friends with this guy who obviously does not think very highly of women and treats them pretty poorly. So, okay, great. Those are my two cents.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

So then they check into the hotel and they meet their um their their kumite concierge.

SPEAKER_04 15:31

Yeah, yeah. I guess. Sweet mullet.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

It's it's a pretty phenomenal mullet. While he uh he helps get them checked in, they have a nice video game moment. We'll get to more. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

That was also very again, not even crack in the top, probably 25 problematic moments. But I was like, oh, so when you're like really good at fighting, that immediately translates into you being really good at video game fighting.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

Yeah, no, I don't I don't think it does, but but it did for him. It did for Frank. I mean, I assume that Frank specifically included that in the story based on his affinity for Tall Tales. Uh so once they get checked in, they uh show up for their registration at the Kumite and for what apparently was a secret underground event. It had a pretty formal standard sign-in process. You know, like you have a sign-in sheet, and you know Jean-Claude Van Damme does not appear to be Japanese.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

He's not going to honor his invitation.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

No, so to prove that he was actually a Tanaka, he had to show them the dim mock, otherwise known as the death touch. So apparently the death touch is when you can break a brick. Break a bri not just break a brick, but the selected brick. So you have a stack of bricks, pick one, no harm will come to any other brick, but the one brick. But the one. Yeah. So the music gets pretty serious. We have a pretty sweet slow-mo. Slow-mo karate yell, and then uh Frank is able to smash the correct brick.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

And I once broke a wooden board in my seventh grade PE class.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Was it like a a thing?

SPEAKER_00 17:24

It was what were we learning? Part of a class? It was part of our class. But uh, so you know, I feel like that I did feel very bonded to Frank in that moment, because like I really understood, really got where he was coming from with that, because I too had to prove your worth.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

So so he does that, and and they all accept, like, okay, you're fine, you're good, you're good to go. Uh, at which point Chong Li ominously says, Hey man, those bricks, they don't fight back. He doesn't say it like that, but that's the the essence of what he's saying. Chill just went down my spine. Yeah. Uh yeah. I mean, I have I have in my notes, I have Chong Lee alternatively titled Mr. Peck Man and also Crazy Eyes, but I'll refer to him as Chong Lee as much as I can, but he did have some crazy eyes.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Crazy eyes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Yeah. Uh so after this registration, we get back to the hotel where a group of other fighters are essentially threatening to sexually assault Janice the journalist. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

And it's it's a real It is a real hard watch.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Yeah. Uh Frank basically says, hey man, we can't fight about this. We can't fight about the fact that you're about to uh potentially kidnap and sexually assault this women.

SPEAKER_03 18:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

So why don't we just uh we'll settle it with a bet. If I can get this coin out of your hand, I think that's what the bet is, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Yeah, like if he can grab it before he closes his his palm.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

Which is basically kung fu. The show kung fu. Is it? I don't know. When when when you snatch this pebble from my hand, then then you are where that comes from?

SPEAKER_00 19:08

See, this is not my world. This is not my uh wheelhouse of film.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

So not only does Frank get the coin out of his hand, but he replaces it with another coin. And so the guy at first is like, ha ha ha ha ha. You you lose, which might be his only line. Might have had one other line.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

They're in they're in the ring together, and he's gonna be a little bit more. Where he also says you're gonna lose.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Uh yeah. So his eyes open wide, and he's astonished with the amazing speed of Frank Dukes. Uh Frank saves the girl. I am positive that this has to be part of like the fabricated, or potentially fabricated uh part of this whole story.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

But believe nothing.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Either way, uh he saves the reporter, and uh everyone moves on with their life.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

I mean, look, I will give this to the film. It's a pretty straightforward film. It it does not deviate at all from what the the main through line of this movie is, which is him competing in this competition for the honor and pride of the Tanaka clan. And, you know, good on them, I guess, because they they move they move it right along.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

So he uh I I think she tries to get him to let her in or give her information about the tournament, and he You can't. He can't talk about the kumite.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

So first real kumite, you don't talk about kumite.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

So now we're we're about a little under 40 minutes into the movie, and the kumite finally begins. The tournament is about to begin, and immediately someone gets bloodied up, and Ogre looks over to Frank and says, That's why they call it bloodsport. So thank God we get the title of the movie. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

I mean, I don't know if it happens as much, but I think it happens in Breakfast Club, like I think literally the last line of the film where uh where he goes, sincerely, the Breakfast Club.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

I'm always a fan of movies that get the title in there somehow. It may have been a little forced in this one.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

So unnecessary in every every sense, but whatever.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

Um so Ogre then fights, and he I think he just gets like hit in the nose and flips out and throws a guy out of the ring after patting him in the head and points right to Mr. Peck Crazy Eyes Chong Lee and says that he wants I want you. To which the guy kind of looks around like, what do you Who is this guy? Who is why is Ogre here? What what is happening?

SPEAKER_00 21:48

Um So then uh Chong Li fights. We see a lot of just a lot of fighting, as you would maybe expect from a movie called Blood Sport. Well, it's a lot of rounds.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

The whole thing is a fight. Chong Li fights, he wins, he shakes his pecs around a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

Uh and then Karate Kid.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

A little bit of a lot of it's like a tournament. So you keep having these people matched up against each other, and then you know, whoever wins, they move through to the next round.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Guess who Frank fought in his first match? Uh I've already forgotten. It was the coin guy. It was Mr.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

That was the first guy? Yeah. Okay. I mean, look, I'll be real honest, like, there's so many fighting sequences that like it's hard to keep track, especially if this is like first viewing for somebody.

SPEAKER_04 22:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

So it's hard to keep track of. I mean, look, they gave us that that gift of a montage at the beginning to get us some familiarity. And then uh, you know, the kidnapping prevented by Frank. And then that same guy is uh is is pummeled by Frank.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

So lots of s lots of fighting on day one. Um and when when does uh is it after the first like because this tournament isn't a tournament that lasts very long, right? It's just a because actually It seems like it's three days long. Yeah, because uh the I mean they're technically FBI. I know you were calling them army guys, but they are they do call themselves FBI. Oh I think I'm pretty sure they keep referring to them, which again, I was like, I don't understand why they're going after this one guy, and um they do catch up with him.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

They do immediately after the first round.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

Yeah, they get him and they say, like, we gotta take it back. And and they just say these cryptic things like where I think one of them says something like, We can't afford to have you get hurt. So I'm like, who is this guy?

SPEAKER_01 23:39

They make it they make it seem like Frank is like the ultimate weapon.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

Yeah, yeah. And um Which he is. But uh he gets away another I I don't want to like steal your thunder here, but like probably the most ridiculous and fun of the montages.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

I just called it the chase montage. The chase montage. Where he he makes it real clear that look, we get it, Jean-Claude Van Damme. You're an accomplished martial artist and athlete, and Forrest Whittaker has an Academy Award, although he did not have it at this time. There was no way they were to keep up with him. So they're they're running around the city of Hong Kong and he's mocking them and you know, egging them on to chase them. And that goes on for a little bit with a pretty fantastic song.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

And if I may well, yeah, if I may, um, I'm just gonna tell everybody right now, definitely check out the work of Paul Herzog, who seems to be the guy behind the songs that uh there folks, there's there's so many montages, um, but there really are. But um Paul does an admirable job of uh creating songs to go along with these different ones. So there's like and they're all again, the movie stays on point, doesn't doesn't pivot, and also the song's very much to the point. The first one is Fight to Survive. Um I think that's during probably the first day of fighting, the montage of all of them going through their different um That's the song with Kumite actually actually in the song. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

And then um the one where he's running away from the FBI slash army guys is uh Steal the Knight.

SPEAKER_04 25:17

Is it?

SPEAKER_00 25:18

Um I think so. Okay. What do you have?

SPEAKER_04 25:19

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

That's what I was yeah. Um and then there's also on my own alone.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

That's the uh the the reflective montage. But is also a recap, kind of. We're we're almost at that point in the movie. As we go into the second round, of course, we get a matchup between Ogre and Chong Li. And of course, it it turns into essentially Game of Thrones with Prince Oberhot versus the Mountain, where like, you had him. You had him.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

It it's completely Game of Thrones. I mean, like, you know, we're seeing firsthand where Game of Thrones pulled some of their inspiration from.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

Indeed. Thanks, George R.R. Martin. We know that you must be a fan of Bloodsport.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Um but real quick, by this second day, isn't Janice is in the ring now because Well, because she seduced Jean-Claude Van Damme, had her sexy time with him. Had sexy time, but he still was like, no, sorry, I can't do this for you, babe.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

It's not clear how she used that sexy time to get into the tournament. She just says something to him to make it seem like she used him to get in.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

Like she's like, This isn't the first time I've gone undercover for the story. So whatever. Yeah. So she's there now. So she's there biting her nails, nervous for her for her new bow.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Well, she she's nervous about that, and she seems somehow hilariously genuinely shocked at the carnage of the tournament. Uh there is blood. Well, she should be. There's blood. Compound fractures. Well, there's just one of those, but it's pretty bad. Uh I I've warned you to look away. And I'm I forgot, I forgot about it until the last second.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

I've Oh my God, this is about to happen. I I appreciate that because that is not something I I need to see.

SPEAKER_01 27:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

Actually, a lot of this movie is not anything I need to see, but But hey. But hey, it happened.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

So we get back to our Game of Thrones comparison, and much like well, it's not he didn't get his eyes squeezed out, so it wasn't exactly like Game of Thrones.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

I mean he got a little boo-boo to the head.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

Yeah. He got his foot well, Chong Li's foot slammed into his head to the point where you thought maybe he was dead.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

That's another thing, too, is that this film really doesn't make it clear for the loser if they are just knocked out or dead. So like I was actually kind of thinking that there already was a body count that was piling up, and that will play in later, but they didn't really indicate to the audience, at least again, for somebody who this is like first-time viewing with zero knowledge of this film.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

So it at the beginning, the they actually do reference that Chong Li had killed someone before in the tournament and watched him die, which I think they're trying to stress that like this guy one is a psychopath, and this tournament is no joke, and you could die, but you're probably not going to because it happens so rarely. Like, here's this one time when we know it happened, and it's from this guy that by a cons is kind of an asshole.

SPEAKER_03 28:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

And just flexes his picks around, killing people. He maybe he just kills one person each tournament. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 28:33

So he gives Ogre pretty bad boo-boo, and uh and he takes uh this is the you know, rubbing the salt in the wound. Oh, he takes his Harley bandana. He takes his Harley bandana. And so um Frank is distraught. Uh Mullet concierge guy has to hold him back. Um and they get him to the hospital.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

Very upset.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

Amazing scene with the doctor where I mean it. I I can't really do it j justice. You really do have to watch the scene.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

Imagine, imagine somebody who has just been slammed down on the ground, probable head injury, um, maybe bleeding on the brain, swelling. Now imagine that guy sitting in a hospital bed with really like nothing but a small bandage around his head to, I guess, denote the fact that this guy, in fact, had a head injury, and a doctor with a stethoscope who is just continuously moving the stuff inch to the right, inch to the left. Is this is this your heart? Are these your lungs? South. I don't know. What am I even doing? He's just standing there. He's just standing there where they're all talking. And in fact, Ray, I think, says something. Is he completely unconscious or does he do it? Oh, he's awake. He's awake, yeah. He's so good. And the doctor's like, You're gonna be out of here in a week. Yeah, he does he does give him the good news, which is that he'll be out of there in a week, which unfortunately is too late to continue competing.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

He's out of the kumite, but he was already out.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

He was knocked out. But yeah, that doctor was all kinds of.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

It was like literally the one doctorly thing he did. You gotta leave. You gotta get out of here. You're upsetting my patient.

SPEAKER_01 30:11

You gotta leave so I can figure out how this thing works. It's a stethoscope.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

So so now the the like ultimate match has is getting set up.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

Like you know what's coming. We get the uh I mean, I I feel like what is it, maybe even halfway through the movie when we get this flashbot flashback montage. So like in case you had not been paying attention.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

There's a flashback of like what happened twelve hours ago.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

There's a flashback of what happened in the movie like 30 seconds ago, I think. And it all culminates with Jean-Claude Van Damme. I don't know if he got a new hotel, if he got an Airbnb, but suddenly he's at the top of a building overlooking the entirety of Hong Kong doing the splits and like doing some strenuous focusing exercises because apparently it's active meditation. Yeah, it's fine to do the splits in between two chairs for the first round, but for the final round, you really need to cement blocks, something a little more.

SPEAKER_00 31:09

Yeah, yeah. And that too. And also, at some point in the movie, I completely missed how this happened. The army guys are now like totally chill with like letting him finish out the tournament, and they actually come to watch him fight.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

So they they try to stop him. So he after he has this like deep reflective moment, he goes back down the dark alley to get to the entrance to the secret underground martial arts competition that literally everyone's getting into at this point. Um and the FBI slash army guys try to stop him and say, Frank, you can't we can't let you do this. Again, for reasons I know. For reasons that we will not discuss here, because look, we o this is a a 90-minute some change movie. We don't have time. No time. Uh they pull out their stun guns and Frank pulls a trash can lid, I think. Yeah? Something that deflects the stun gun pellets or whatever they were. I don't know what they were, but they deflect into the Hong Kong police that the FBI had had gotten for assistance in this matter. That was after I think Jean Cloud Van Am beat down a bunch of the Hong Kong police with just a duffel bag.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

I remember the scene, but I must have blocked something out because I still was like, okay, so now all of a sudden they're just cool with him fighting.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

Well they just they kind of stare give up. They stare off at the at the I guess the the victims of the amazing deflection. He yanks the stun guns out of their hands, and then they're like, you know what? Fine, let's just watch this tournament. So then they sit down with the reporter, with uh Janice the journalist, and they all just like, I don't know, get popcorn, go to the refreshment stands, and they're just like having a good time watching the tournament. They're fully invested. They they are. I mean, the FBI more than we are at liberty to know.

SPEAKER_00 33:03

Okay, so final match.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

Final match is uh, you know, this probably isn't a big surprise, but it's Chong Lee. Oh yeah. Call me. For reasons that I don't know, they changed the format of uh this final match to where before there was a flat platform.

SPEAKER_00 33:21

Literally changed the platform.

SPEAKER_01 33:23

They just kind of dip it a little bit. It is the most, again, for reasons unknown. I think it's that they can have even sicker kick jumps, jump kicks, sure jumps. Holy shit. You know, it it it just adds to the aesthetic of the of the performance of the martial artists. There you go. If you will.

SPEAKER_03 33:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

Um so you know, this is when Sean Lee becomes the Houston Astros of the Kumite. Someone slips a uh what I think was described as a salt pill into his uh his trunks, shorts, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

You also mentioned sand at one point, because I was like, what is that?

SPEAKER_01 34:01

Oh yeah, no, I said pocket sand, which was a uh King of the Hill reference. Oh yeah. Yeah. Um so I didn't know this, but apparently if you crush up a salt tablet and then throw it in someone's eyes, they will go temporarily blind for about a minute or two.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

I mean, he played that so convincingly.

SPEAKER_01 34:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:23

I mean, that was that was true, true acting.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

So Van Damme is stricken blind. Fortunately, we are taken back to yet another flashback because guess what? He was trained in the art of being blind by Tanaka. He he blindfolded him. He essentially is trained in the Jedi arts. Yeah. It was the equivalent of putting the blast shield blast shield. Yeah, exactly. Um, you know, including sitting down at the table, preparing the table, and then Tanaka trying to like backhand him, and of course, Van Damme blocked it. So we see we see a little bit of a flashback on that. We realize, oh, he he was always gonna win. He uh blindly starts countering all of Chung Li's moves. The crowd is just actually laughing, which I thought was a strange reaction, but they're just they found it all kind of hilarious.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

They like caught them uh in a moment where they didn't know they were gonna be on camera or something. Like it was just straight up chilling. I was like, I feel like laughter is not the appropriate response to this.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

Did they even know that he was stricken blind? Were they wondering?

SPEAKER_00 35:27

Like why you'd think that they'd have some reaction shots or some some commentary or dialogue, whatever, saying, like, what's going on with him, or like, why is he acting that way, but nothing. So I have no idea if they ever really realized the extent of his uh temporary blindness.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

So he does recover. He does not only defeat Chang Li, but he forces him to say Mate, which is, I guess, their equivalent of tapping out. Uh Frank, Jean-Claude Vadem, brings the good news to uh Ogre, who's sitting in a hospital bed drinking a beer, unclear who brought him the beer. Uh he shows up to the airport, uh, and I think one of the last lines is the FBI slash army guy saying, Glad he's on our side. Still not sure what that means, what capacity he's on our side.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

It ends as enigmatically as it starts.

SPEAKER_01 36:23

And so with the end credits, I think the end credits provide us quite a nice uh transition into some fun facts and notes about this film, which was was always initially advertised as being based on the true life events of this Frank Duke's character.

SPEAKER_00 36:39

Aaron Ross Powell Okay, real quick though, before we get into uh these end credits and fun facts, so this is a film that you've said you had seen all the time television. This was probably the first time in a long while that you've seen it just like start to finish. Um so like what did you come away with? Like, was this did you see it through new eyes? Uh was it just like any other viewing? I mean, what was it for you?

SPEAKER_01 37:10

So I think watching it on uh cable on TBS, which is where I probably watched it 99% of the times I've watched it, those commercials kind of help break it up, break up how ridiculous it is. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 37:22

You know? It's like digestible. Any little chunks of this movie. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:25

Watching it from start to finish, all in one big uh chunk, was was interesting. Um look, it's it's a ridiculous kind of like cult following type of fighting movie. For sure. It actually inspired characters from from now popular video games. I think Van Dam was one of the characters from or he formed the basis of uh Mortal Kombat.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

Yeah, they it was basically featured off or based off of that character from Bloodscreen.

SPEAKER_00 37:51

Isn't there another game, Street Fighter?

SPEAKER_01 37:53

There is. Okay. Um I don't know if they're based if that's based off him as much. But Mortal Kombat, I'm I'm I'm sure that it's it's based. One of the characters is based off uh Van Damme is Frank Dukes.

SPEAKER_00 38:06

I mean, for me, uh given that I had never seen it before, I really had no basis for comparison. And very truthfully, I mean, there sure there are thousands upon thousands of films, so I'm not claiming to say that I know like a little bit about everything out there, but you know, usually you kind of know a little something about a film before you go into it. There's not much to know. That no, but I I really came in.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

There's so much to know.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

I I I came in with, you know, just nothing. And so now that I've seen it, um I'm glad I saw it.

SPEAKER_01 38:44

Are you?

SPEAKER_00 38:45

Sure. Here's here's why. The reason why I'm glad I saw it is because obviously it does hold a place in culture. Um, like you you just said it's cult film. Um and I will say that as somebody who like loves movies and and you know has studied them and such. Um when you know that there's like a film out there that a huge segment of the population has this love for and you don't know anything about it, you do feel out of the loop. You feel like the the like the kid who you know is picked last on the baseball team or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 39:18

You're you're in the loop now.

SPEAKER_00 39:19

So I'm in the loop now. And and that's really the reason why I was like really glad to finally see this film because now now I know what Kumite is and um I I get some of these references, and um and you know, it was fun to kind of see these appearances by Ogre and uh Lau Che and Um Forrest Whitaker, the only one I'm actually calling by his real name. Um but uh I don't know his character's name.

SPEAKER_01 39:47

I'd have to I'd have to look it up again.

SPEAKER_00 39:48

Um actually, let's see, I think I got it right here. Um they just call him Rollins. Okay. That's all. Um so so from that standpoint it's really cool. And because I knew obviously we were gonna be doing this podcast, uh, you know, I wanted to kind of learn a little bit about it. And what I always find really fascinating is, you know, what about the people behind the scenes? Um it's fun to see those cameos, but um, you know, you mentioned earlier the person who directed the film, Newt. Yeah, Newt Arnold. And so I looked this guy up on IMDb, and I am absolutely floored by the breadth of this guy's work. Um I mean, he had a career spanning multiple decades, and he only actually directed three films. Um Bloodsport was the second of his three films. And but but he has dozens upon dozens of credits.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

Um Are they any films that I would know?

SPEAKER_00 40:45

I think there are, Derek. Um, so he kind of got his start in that part of the industry um in 1967 because he worked on uh let's see, where did I put his information? Oh, there it is. Um he worked on In the Heat of the Night as second assistant director, so Oscar winning in the heat of the night. Um then, let's fast forward a couple years, he's assistant director on another Oscar winner, The Godfather Part 2.

SPEAKER_01 41:15

I've heard of that one.

SPEAKER_00 41:16

Yeah, that one's familiar. Um, and then beyond that, he like I said, he just has all these credits as first assistant director on films like Blade Runner, War Games, 16 Candles, The Abyss, and Rules of Engagement, which that was um that came out in 2000, and that was also the year he passed away. So this guy was working up until the very end of his life.

SPEAKER_01 41:37

He had a prolific career.

SPEAKER_00 41:38

Prolific. And I don't know if you um did you look up any images of him?

SPEAKER_01 41:44

I didn't actually. No.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

This guy was not only a prolific person in the industry, he sported a badass pirate eye patch.

SPEAKER_04 41:53

Oh. Yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 41:55

I'll show you a picture. Um, I mean, I was like, wow, this guy just got that much cooler for me.

SPEAKER_04 42:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:01

So um I am now a big Newt Arnold fan. Um, maybe not necessarily for this film, but I am a big Newt Arnold career fan.

SPEAKER_01 42:10

But also for this film.

SPEAKER_00 42:12

Um so, but beyond that, also being a writer, I look up um who the writer's on this. There's three men who are credited. And again, they each have really interesting different career trajectories.

SPEAKER_04 42:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 42:25

So we have Shaldon Ludditch, which I hope I'm saying all these names correctly. Um, so from what I could tell, he is a guy who kind of was a go-to for these types of films, like the very testosterone-driven type films. He's also the screen, like of his other credits, the one that most um uh tu caught my eye was that he's the writer on Rambo 3. Ah, so so he's like that guy.

SPEAKER_04 42:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 42:50

Um, and then also Christopher Cosby, literally his only credit. So I don't really know what happened to Christopher Cosby. It's all you need. Um yeah, it's what's what more do you need after you've been pro you know one of the writers on Bloodsport? And then lastly, we have Mel Friedman who um had some writing credits, but actually this guy has had a really interesting career um editing in television. So totally different specialty. Um he was an assistant editor on some like huge shows, Roswell, The Guardian, and Breaking Bad. Okay. So like really fascinating. So I just wanted to, those are my fun facts because I am always very interested in that. And a lot of the people behind the scenes on this film had really interesting careers.

unknown 43:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:39

Or continue to do so. Excuse me. And one of your fun facts about Newt, the Newt Arnold, the director, um one of the pictures that he's associated with is Blade Runner, the original Blade Runner. Yep. And so another tie-in between that and blood sport is portions of the film were from inside this Kowloon-walled city, this insanely densely populated area within Hong Kong that has since been uh torn down and and turned into this uh park area, I believe, in Hong Kong. Um but this Kowloon walled city was essentially ungoverned. It was just controlled by by gangs. Um and it was completely so there were like exposed wires. It was it was kind of insane. You can find uh pictures and and videos of from inside the city, but this this area, this Kowloon Walled City, actually provided the inspiration for Los Angeles as it was depicted in Blade Runner.

SPEAKER_00 44:40

That's very cool. That is a great fun fact. You start you're starting strong. Okay, so I started What else do you got?

SPEAKER_01 44:49

Jean-Claude Vadnab, I think we mentioned that this was his uh first big role and as a reward, he was nominated for a uh was it the Razzie? The Golden Raspberry.

SPEAKER_00 45:00

Oh, that was his reward.

SPEAKER_01 45:01

Yeah, yeah. Oh he did not win it though.

SPEAKER_00 45:04

Really? It was it was he had I think a pretty strong shot.

SPEAKER_01 45:07

Who who So the Golden Raspberry nomination for the worst new star ultimately went to Ronald McDonald as himself in the movie Mac and Me.

SPEAKER_00 45:17

I feel like I don't know if that's a how I mean I'm really wondering about the judging on this. I mean, we're getting real serious real quick about Razzies, but like how can you get a Razzie for playing yourself?

SPEAKER_01 45:30

Well, and also how does Ronald McDonald play himself? Yeah, I have questions about this.

SPEAKER_00 45:34

Did you ever see this? I never saw Mac and Me. I don't think I did either. And I don't think I need to. It's not gonna be on this podcast. It's uh sorry, spoiler folks. You're if you're waiting on Mac and Me, it's not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 45:45

So we have uh a few smaller facts. Sure. Jean-Claude Van Damme of of all of his splits, his his split fame, seven splits in this movie. Seven.

SPEAKER_00 45:56

Wow, okay, wait, seven.

SPEAKER_01 45:58

So there's one during the the training montage, the beginning of the film.

SPEAKER_00 46:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 46:03

There's one in the hotel room, there's a couple during the fights, there's one overlooking Hong Kong.

SPEAKER_00 46:08

Oh, we totally You know what we skipped over?

SPEAKER_01 46:12

What do we skip over? The dick punches. Well, I mean, we're gonna get to the dick punch.

SPEAKER_00 46:17

Oh, okay, okay, great.

SPEAKER_01 46:18

Okay, because doesn't he do a split while he's giving it's a combo split slash dick punch to end a match.

SPEAKER_00 46:25

Impressive.

SPEAKER_01 46:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:26

Yeah. Uh sorry for for the families listening to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

I mark it as explicit.

SPEAKER_01 46:33

All right. There is a fucking dick punch in this. So uh Ray Jackson, the ogre, basically, at no point in this movie, based on a martial arts tournament, does he ever display any recognized form of martial arts?

SPEAKER_00 46:50

No.

SPEAKER_01 46:51

At no point in the film.

SPEAKER_00 46:52

No, no, he doesn't. I agree with you.

SPEAKER_01 46:55

It was not in his wheelhouse. I don't think he needed it. It worked fine without it, but couldn't he have learned something? I mean Could they have got him to do maybe that was a stylistic choice. Just be an ogre. Just pound your fist down in the guy's head.

SPEAKER_00 47:08

Is it fair though? I mean, like, um, is it Frank who fights the guy who kind of looks like a sumo wrestler?

SPEAKER_01 47:14

Well, that's the dick punch.

SPEAKER_00 47:16

That's right. Yeah, I mean, that guy doesn't really do anything that I would call martial arts. He's just another really big dude who uh Frank, you know, he tries out it oh, when we were watching it, it reminded me a lot of the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, where Indy is trying to take down that huge German outside by the airplane.

SPEAKER_01 47:36

And he gets the uh the bear hug where he's getting his ribs crushed.

SPEAKER_00 47:40

And he's just, you know, both Indy and Frank, they're trying all their different moves, nothing's taking this guy down. And so that guy, all he does is like rely on his bigness. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:51

Um so And that's I think revealed in that opening montage when his skill, you know, there's ice block crushing and board splitting. His talent is that he picked up a really heavy bag and threw it at some guys that he was trading with and then laughed at them because the weight of this bag knocked them over. Cool. So you kind of got a sense of what his skill set was. He's just like a big guy. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:18

I mean, it's like um Andre the Giant-ish. Yeah. He didn't really have moves because he couldn't have moves because some for his size, but sure. But that that's just it. You're somewhat limited when you're that big. I mean, again, if you put I'm I'm sorry, I'm never gonna probably call him by his real name, but like if you put Ogre next to Andre the Giant, he'd probably be dwarfed. But still, I think that guy was like 6'4 or something.

SPEAKER_01 48:40

So he was but he was no giant.

SPEAKER_00 48:41

Andre, what was he, 7'2?

SPEAKER_01 48:44

He was big. Speaking of Giants, Frank was I think a big fan of Giants because in that flashback scene, he's wearing a San Francisco Giants hat. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 48:56

And okay.

SPEAKER_01 48:58

And a New York Giants jersey.

SPEAKER_03 49:00

What?

SPEAKER_01 49:01

Which I don't know if I I don't know how that happens. Is he just a fan of teams with Giants in their name? Did somebody somebody was in charge of making this decision?

SPEAKER_00 49:11

For sure somebody was in charge of that. And somebody failed. For sure they failed. Yeah. That uh I don't think that was intentional.

SPEAKER_01 49:19

Um but it was amazing. And it kind of fit young Frank. I think they're probably fine who the costume designer was on this, but um because young Frank seemed kind of clueless.

SPEAKER_00 49:28

Yes. He you know who he reminded me a lot of? Um, what's his name? Dustin Diamond from uh Save by the Bell? Screech.

SPEAKER_01 49:36

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 49:37

Didn't he kind of have a little bit of that look?

SPEAKER_01 49:39

He wasn't he didn't have that energy though.

unknown 49:41

No.

SPEAKER_01 49:42

Screech had some energy.

SPEAKER_00 49:44

Yeah, that's I mean, that's the main point there is that at least Screech had energy. This kid, I mean, I don't know where they found this kid. I mean, I don't mean to, you know, be throwing shade here, but he That's fair. He's never gonna be called up for a retroactive Academy Award.

SPEAKER_01 50:01

One more fact that will, I think, will lead us into some discussion on the actual montages in this movie. Sure. The flashback that we have talked about excessively, it runs in at about 10 minutes and 50 second 56 seconds, making it I if it's not still, it at one point was the world's longest flashback event in a film ever. Yeah, I think. Maybe this is the movie. I don't know. What's happening?

SPEAKER_00 50:32

I mean, kind of like in a weird way. Um, oh gosh. What was the um Christopher Nolan film? Memento.

SPEAKER_01 50:40

Yeah. That would be a real tough mashup between Bloodsport and Memento.

SPEAKER_00 50:45

A side-by-side comparison.

SPEAKER_01 50:46

Asking a lot of the people. So, like we said, the first montage in this movie is the intro, which, you know, it does its best to let you know that, hey, this movie's gonna be about a martial arts tournament. Here's us setting up the floor, and also here's some various fighters from around the world doing some kick-ass things.

SPEAKER_00 51:05

Yeah, I mean, it gets you into the movie, like you said. Um, it picks up the energy right away. Uh, like I mentioned earlier, I'm not sure if it was done in the best manner because it's quite confusing for somebody who doesn't have any context for this film. So so it's fine.

SPEAKER_01 51:25

Then we get a couple more montages within that massive flashback, both with young Frank fighting with Tanaka's son, and then after Tanaka's son's death, and I apologize, I do not I can't remember his son's name. Uh, but then uh I guess current age, Frank Dukes training with the dad to kind of take up the mantle of the Tanaka family name, their fighting style.

SPEAKER_00 51:50

I mean, here's the thing like I I'm not like uh unir unilaterally I said that okay. Um I got that out. Um against flashbacks. Obviously, sometimes they can be really effective. Um I felt like that was really clunky, and that's just them trying to push through a ton of exposition, which like I mean, off the top of my head, I don't know how else you do that, but I I think for sure you don't do it with a 10-minute long flashbackslash montage. So um it it really it I mean it's like what within two minutes of the film starting, you go from like the opening montage into this like ridiculous flashback.

SPEAKER_01 52:39

It doesn't take long for him to, yeah, for us to see kind of the introductory fighters, then him and like whipping around that speed back before he's at Tanaka's house, and then we're thrust into this massive flashback, which is like the story of Frank Duke's.

SPEAKER_00 52:53

Pretty much I mean, you're getting in a 10-minute, like kind of um condensed version, his upbringing, you know. Um his parents are never mentioned. I mean, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 53:03

Do you see him I think once when when senior Tanaka is talking about the the advantage or what he can bring to the table by by training their son.

SPEAKER_03 53:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:15

Yeah. Very brief. That was all that was all fictional, and that's all stuff that the real Frank Dukes has admitted to being fabricated by the production in order to move the story along. So what it's interesting when you say that it it's felt like it was necessary to kind of move the story along. That's exactly what they were trying for, and I think it was still too long of a flashback. I think there were probably better ways they could have achieved that goal.

SPEAKER_00 53:37

About 10 times length of what a flashback should be.

SPEAKER_01 53:39

Yeah, but that that is the sole purpose of including that. There was no attempted theft of Mr. Tanaka's house, none of that actually happened. They created all that to somehow uh put together this story of how he was introduced to Mr. Tanaka and how he became his coach. So that's uh, you know, amidst all of the things where people question the reality, the veracity of the claims, that at least is one thing where he's gone on record saying, like, yeah, no, none of none of that actually happened.

SPEAKER_00 54:10

Oh, and speaking of veracity of claims.

SPEAKER_01 54:13

Oh, we'll get there.

SPEAKER_00 54:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 54:15

We'll get there. We still have a couple more montages, but we do? Yeah. Of course we do. We have the official kumite montage.

SPEAKER_00 54:21

Talk about them. We let's do it. Let's do it. You want to get to it? I I want to get to it. This is my favorite part of the entire movie.

SPEAKER_01 54:31

Okay. So the end credits. We're back to the end credits. Where there are some interesting, let's say interesting claims. Uh one of which is that he has the world record for the fastest kick. What was that, like 74 miles an hour?

SPEAKER_00 54:49

72, 74, somewhere like that.

SPEAKER_01 54:50

I don't think it it doesn't almost doesn't even matter because I did not see a single radar gun in the in the staging area anywhere within the uh nope.

SPEAKER_00 54:59

Can't I I concur. Yeah. Didn't see anything.

SPEAKER_01 55:02

So in any case, that's a record that he claims to have for the fastest kick at 72 or 74, or let's just make it a jillion miles an hour. Who cares? Uh then also fastest punch. So what I find interesting is that the fastest kick is measured in miles per hour. However, the fastest punch, and maybe this was because fastest punch leading to an I there are all these like like categories and subcategories. Right. The fastest punch is 0.12 seconds. I mean, that's a fast punch. It is a fast punch. I don't even know what that is in miles per hour.

SPEAKER_00 55:38

I mean, I don't know how you did a tenth, a tenth of a second.

SPEAKER_01 55:42

Just over.

SPEAKER_00 55:44

J Right, right. But essentially round I'm rounding, rounding down. Um yeah, that that was fascinating. I mean, all these were like immensely fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 55:53

But then of course, the the note that I know that you want to talk about that we like fell over laughing about. He has a claim of recording fifty-six knockouts in the kumite.

SPEAKER_03 56:03

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 56:04

And so the the note that I found is that based on the way that they create the the um the different roster, the way that they set up the roster, in order for him to have scored fifty-six knockouts in a kumite, in a single kumite year, uh, the kumite would have had to have over seventy-two quadrillion fighters participating it, which happens to be about ten million times the total human population of the earth. So good. That is probably not true.

SPEAKER_00 56:39

I'm gonna go on record and saying that that is a falsehood.

SPEAKER_01 56:42

Yeah, yeah. I don't I don't I don't think it happened.

SPEAKER_00 56:46

I don't think it happened.

SPEAKER_01 56:47

I don't know if any of it happened. And so there's a lot, I don't want to say controversy, because I think controversy suggests that people care deeply about whether it's true or not. But certainly there's been a lot of discussion and articles, uh, claims that articles were written by people who were kind of writing articles for Frank because they were friends of Frank, uh, relationships with Frank that had gone sour.

SPEAKER_03 57:11

Is Frank's still alive?

SPEAKER_01 57:12

I don't know if Frank's still alive. Um let's do a quick fact check on the fly of the life and death of Frank Duke.

SPEAKER_00 57:22

They're referring to him in the present tense, so I'm saying go ahead and say yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:28

So whether or not any of this happened, we're not sure. But it made for one hell of an entertaining movie.

SPEAKER_00 57:35

Uh yeah. I mean, depending on your definition of entertaining.

SPEAKER_01 57:40

Were you not were you not entertained?

SPEAKER_00 57:42

Were you not entertained? Um it's i I got a lot of laughs.

SPEAKER_01 57:48

Um, especially with those closing credits and and also some of the acting and maybe some of the music and a couple of the montages.

SPEAKER_00 57:54

Can we please bring up um Joshua Schroeder?

SPEAKER_01 57:58

We can.

SPEAKER_00 57:59

He was he was a credited I think he deserves a little bit of recognition. Who who did Joshua play? He was one of the two boys that you know broke into Mr. Tanaka's house to try to steal the So they I don't know if he even said anything.

SPEAKER_01 58:13

Maybe he said something when they were scheming on how to steal and get the katana out of the house. But poor Joshua, his name Poor Joshua. It was horribly butchered in the credits. I mean, they We're pretty sure it's him.

SPEAKER_00 58:26

Oh it no, it's him. It's him.

SPEAKER_01 58:28

Are you sure it's not a uh different Joshua where they they did spell this Joshua's name correctly? No. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 58:35

I I'm pretty sure that they just butchered it. Um so Joshua, as most Joshua's are, yeah, is spelled J-O-S-H-U-A. That checks out. So, and this is why I noticed it. I mean, I wasn't like really looking for anything in particular in the closing credits, but I see this name go by, and it's spelled J-O-U-S-H-A. Jucha. Right. Which I'm like, well, that's an interesting name. They made an attempt. And and so I'm like, is that really his name, or did they actually misspell that? And so then I had to go look. That's actually a pretty pretty bad screw-up. It is! And so so I go look it up, and then I realize his la so in the closing credits, his last name, Schroeder, is spelled S-C-H-R-O-E-D-E-R. There's only one E in his last name. So they misspelled both of his names.

SPEAKER_01 59:33

Well, look, as you know, once once a movie is completed, there's no opportunity to correct anything like this. Right?

SPEAKER_00 59:41

Well, it's I feel like it's especially egregious when you get it wrong in the credits. Like the credits is the place where you are like triple quadruple checking to make sure that everything is right. And that's the first time I've seen one. I've seen an error like this. Yeah, right. Um Let's give a little love to Joshua Schroeder.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:04

There you go, Josh.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:05

We love you, Josh.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:06

Good job.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:07

Good job.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:08

So that's that's Bloodsport.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:11

That is Bloodsport.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:12

That is the That is the Kumite. That's Bloodsport. That's Frank Dukes. Whether you believe him or not, that's his story.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:19

Well okay, so here's the question that I'll be asking like with every episode. Okay. And I already I already know the answer to this for you. Are you gonna watch this film again?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:29

So I'll probably see it again. If it's it this is kind of similar to the Breakfast Club, where if it's on, I'll probably tune into Bloodsport and just see what's see where they're at in the tournament. It's it's just a silly movie. I mean, there are certainly problematic parts of the movie as there were in the Breakfast Club that we discussed, probably more so in Bloodsport, just by the nature of the movie.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:53

Yeah, in different ways. I mean, there's some things that we didn't go over because I mean we could we could do a whole separate podcast about things in the movie. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:01

So so we noticed them.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:03

We noticed them. Don't worry. We noticed them. We're not we're not oblivious.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:07

We're not oblivious. We're kind of making the conscious decision to talk about other aspects of the movie because we could spend, again, a whole another podcast about a whole different set of topics if we if we wanted to.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:21

A different way of watching the film.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:23

But similar to The Breakfast Club, I'm probably not going out of my way to see it. There I think there are actually movies on our list that we're gonna get through where I really enjoy them and I'll put them on again. I've seen this movie so many times, I just almost don't need like I I was kind of amazed that I was remembering scenes that were about to come up seconds before they actually happened. Like with the impressive you know, the leg getting broken scene. Um so I I still the I was watching it through those nostalgia goggles. Sure. So I probably had a different experience with it than than you. Would you watch it again?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:57

What do you think my answer is?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:59

I suspect it's gonna be probably not.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:02

You know me very well, husband. So what are we what are we doing next week? Well, here's the thing. Here's the thing though. I'm actually because now that I'm thinking about it, um I okay, so this is this is not usually my deal. I'm not the person who um like I hate the term chick flick. I remember once when I was in grad school, some dude raised his hand in class, was like asking if any chick had ever seen jaws, which was highly offensive to me. So highly offensive to everyone. Right. So I am not that person, but I'm I am very curious about like along, you know, gender lines, how this movie resonates. Um, because obviously it is a heavily male-centric film.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:46

And the few female depictions aren't really great. They're not. Um, so I would be curious um for all you folks out there, you know, if you're a guy, sure, I want to know if like you love this film, but I'm also curious, do you have a wife, a mom, a sister who also loves this film? And if you are that mom, wife, or sister, you know, have you seen this film? Do you like this film? Would you watch it again? Why do you love it? Um so for all the folks out there, if you want to comment on our Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, would love to have you do that and let us know how you feel about this movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:22

And my question is do you think that you could beat Frank Dukes at Karate Champ, the video game that Van Damme and Ogre play at the beginning of the movie?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:32

So there you go. You have two different, two very different calls to action here, guys. Um, both equally valid. I think so. Sure. Um, so you're asking about next week's film, which is my pick. Um this is I'm gonna say, well, I know you love this film. I don't know if anybody could love it more than I do.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:51

Is it Big Trouble in Little China? It is not. Okay, well, I do love that movie, but what is it?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:56

It is I I I would sing it, but I'm not going to to save you all. Is it Pretty in Pink? No. That's a song, though. Yeah, it's a song, right. Um but are you thinking Lady in Red? Because that's like a more famous song about a woman in a certain color.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:13

No, I was thinking of Prince. You were thinking pretty in the because it's a it's both a song and a John Hughes movie.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:18

Okay, I've let this go on way too long. It's The Goonies. Oh, okay. Yeah. I was gonna sing Cindy Little, but I am not going to. Um so I am so excited. The Goonies is truly one of my top three favorite films.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:30

And that is a movie where I will gladly watch it over and over again.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:33

Hey, you're supposed to hold on to that till next week.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:36

Spoilers.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:37

We're gonna have to edit that out. We'll fix it in post. We'll fix it in post. So yeah, so excited to talk about this film. I've loved this film since I was a kid. This is well, I should hold on to this too. I've seen it a lot. I've seen it a lot, a lot. So, guys, thank you again for hanging out with us. Um, we love having you listen along and hope you'll continue to do so. Um, any last thoughts, Derek?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:05

Thank you again for listening. And my only last thought is please tune in next week for the Goonies. In two weeks. Please tune in in the future at a future date to be released by Anna and Derek.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:17

Awesome. All right, thanks. Signing off. Bye, guys.