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KICKBOXER FROM HELL A Review by 0kelvin back to reviews |
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| Much like I suspected and later confirmed Robo Vampire was, this movie is actually two completely separate movies edited together. One Asian movie and one American movie, which they barely even try to tie together at all. The Asian part takes up the majority of the movie, but the American one is where most of the fun's to be had. I'll probably skim over most of the Asian one, which contains zero kickboxing but a whole lot of spooky music. | |
Just in case you were worried the movie called Kickboxer From Hell with two sweaty, shirtless guys in a posed fight scene on the case didn't have any martial arts in it, they made sure to plaster the words across the cover. |
I bought this movie at the local flea
market. There's really no interesting story behind it, but I have this space
to fill. How about a picture of an adorable robot with boobs on its head and
J. Jonah Jameson's face?
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| The movie begins (and when I say it begins, it does so as soon as you put the disc in, this DVD doesn't have any menus, chapters or anything resembling a special feature) with a girl being chased through the woods. The girl runs through the trees, making sure to scream every couple seconds just to make sure her pursuers have no chance of losing track of her whatsoever. Instead of following the screams, or the path that the girl is running on, the three men chasing her (or rather, walking menacingly through the woods in no particular direction) decide to track her by the pieces of her dress that got snagged on a tree trunk with no branches whatsoever. Oh yeah, did I mention the bad guys all wear potato sacks? Now you know. | |
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It then goes to two
goofy looking guys practicing their
kickboxing in a clearing in the middle of the woods. This is where we meet
our hero, Sean. Granted, this guy could most likely kick my ass, but I'm
quite sure I've never seen a worse actor in my life. This guy finds facial
expressions that I'll bet have never been made by a human face in the
history of mankind. Not unexpectedly, the girl being chased runs into the clearing screaming "Help me! Help me!" Despite the fact that she was yelling her head off and ran at him clearly in his line of sight, Sean doesn't even notice her until she actually runs right up to him and smacks into his shoulder. He then proceeds to completely overact his surprise. |
| After Sean asks the girl
what's wrong, the three potato sack buddies enter the clearing and push
Sean's sparring partner over.
The one I assume is the leader of this little potato sack gang tells Sean
to, "Get lost, asshole! Be clever and don't fuck with us!" Sean, not being
one to take such abuse from a guy in burlap and face paint, comes back with,
"I'm not going to leave this lady behind with you! You get lost, asshole! Is
that clear?" OH! BURN! The potato sack leader has had enough so he decides
to beat Sean up. He's so confident in his kickboxery that he throws his
gardening implement away while his
friend shits his pants in the background. After a
stare-down, the two fight. The fight
scene is competently executed (this is the highest praise you should expect
this movie to ever receive), but without anything resembling style at all.
Sean proceeds to kick the potato sack buddy's ass, and then shows mercy by
not punching him while he's down (this just frames after he repeatedly
kicked him while he was down). The other two advance on Sean, but the leader
tells them to stop and leave him for Lucifer. And then they walk off. Oh
yeah, did I mention Lucifer himself is in the movie? Now you know. After that brief intro that I managed to stretch into four paragraphs, we get the first look at the Asian part of the movie. An Asian couple get married and leave for their honeymoon. Back to the kickboxer! |
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| Sean and the girl (we'll eventually find out her name is Sophia) sit on a couch that I'm assuming is at Sean's place. He asks who those guys were and why they were chasing her. She explains that they were the Devil's disciples. He scoffs at this, but a few seconds later believes her completely for no apparent reason (I'm guessing he wants to get in her pants). Sophia tells him that she is in fact an undercover nun (so much for Sean's plan) and she's been working with her partner to destroy Lucifer, but her partner just left one day and that led her being exposed as the undercover nun she is. Yeah, I'm sure that was how they figured her out, it couldn't have possibly had anything to do with the giant crucifix she wears around her neck. She continues her story, telling him that they want to sacrifice her to Lucifer, to which he responds with, "Oh, that's terrible," laced with enough sarcasm to choke a baby, although I'm not sure it was intentional. |
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Sean tells Sophia to leave the country, but she refuses. She has to stay in the country or else they'll kill her partner Eileen. And Eileen won't leave with her because she just got married and doesn't want her husband to know about her past. Yep, the Asian woman who got married in the scene before this was Eileen, and that my friend is the only tie between the two storylines whatsoever. We go back to the Asian couple walking down a beach. Eileen talks about how she was glad she gave up being an undercover nun to be with him, despite just seconds earlier Sophia said she didn't want to her husband to know about that. Later that night in the hotel room she hears the toilet flush, but upon closer inspection, it seems there was nobody in the bathroom at all! Then a cat shows up, which you probably couldn't tell was supposed to be spooky without the music that plays. Eileen's new husband proceeds to beat the cat off with a pillow until it mysteriously disappears. They then return to the husband's home where boring spooky stuff goes on for a while. Yadda yadda yadda... back to the kickboxer! |
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Okay, I have to warn you, you are about to get your first glimpse of Lucifer, and into the depths of Hell itself. If you're a minor, or are particularly squeamish or sensitive in any way, it might be best for you to stop reading now. I can't take responsibility for the disturbing and twisted imagery I'm about to show you. Are you prepared to see the face of Satan himself? How about the eternal pits of damnation? Okay, so Lucifer looks more like your friend's dad getting ready for a Kiss concert than the Prince of Darkness, and Hell has more than a passing resemblance to the director's rec room filled with some candles, kabuki masks on the walls, and a hibachi. Anyways, Lucifer begins berating the potato sack buddies for not being able to kidnap the girl earlier. The two begin pointing fingers and passing blame on the other one. They yell at each other, throwing in unnecessary swear words that couldn't sound any more awkward coming out of Ned Flanders. One of them says the other was scared shitless when he fought Sean (even though he never did, the leader of the potato sack buddies was the only one who fought him, and he's just standing there next to the devil looking cool in his humongous sunglasses). Well, the other one won't take such insults and retorts with, "Fuck you, you lousy liar! I'll sting your motherfucking ass!" in a voice that sounded so much like Terrence and Phillip that I was fully expecting him to go into a rousing chorus of Uncle Fucka. |
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Lucifer, being the level-headed, compassionate conflict mediator he is, decides that in order to settle their dispute, he'll simply have the two fight each other to the death, with the winner getting to prove his loyalty. So they step into the kickboxing ring Lucifer conveniently keeps right there in whatever this room is supposed to be. The two goobers (seriously, look at these two) fight. One of them uses a move he likes to call punching, and the other uses a move he calls slapping the other guy's fist like a little girl. The fight lasts for about a minute (most of which was the first guy laying on the ground after being kicked in slow motion), until Goober 2 throws Goober 1 over his shoulder, and apparently fatally injured his arm or something because he dies right then and there. Lucifer congratulates Goober 2 on a job well done and says he'll reward him by letting him be a sacrifice to Satan. Johnny Cage steps into the ring and proceeds to kill him with a fatal blow to the crotch. We return to the Asian movie where a bunch more spooky stuff happens. The couple hires a maid who meets a mysterious houseguest in the bathtub late at night. The next morning the couple claims they have no houseguest! OOOoooOOOoooH! The next night she hears some strange noises and goes to figure out where they're coming from. The sounds lead her to the dining room where the mysterious houseguest sits at the table. She turns around as a spooky green light shines on her and she says, "Hi, want some watermelon?" and then begins laughing maniacally as the maid screams. Seriously, this is the worst haunting ever! The maid quits... so on and so forth... back to the kickboxer! |
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Sean, Sophia, and Sean's sparring partner from earlier (who turns out is his brother) are in a clearing in the woods. Sean is either practicing his kickboxing or pretending to dance like a drunk guy while Sophia talks to Sean's brother about how selfish Sean is because he won't help her, despite the fact that he offered to kickbox Lucifer and his minions to death and she turned him down because you can't stop violence with violence. I'm not sure what else she's expecting him to do, I'm pretty sure kickboxing is the only thing he's good at. Sophia wanders off and Sean's brother tries to convince him to help the girl. He refuses, and as his brother struggles with his lines, they hear Sophia scream. Sean, being the selfish prick he is, pretends not to hear and starts walking away. His brother tells him they have to help her, and Sean eagerly says "Okay!" He's a complex man, that Sean. |
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The two run through the woods, Sean leaping tiny scraggly bushes in a single bound. Sean's brother, as they've drilled repeatedly into our heads, is nowhere near as strong as his brother, despite the fact that his entire wardrobe apparently consists of nothing but a karate outfit. Since Sean's brother is so inept, he has to take a detour around the mighty bush and ends up getting lost in a completely open area. Sean finds Sophia tied up to a tree in the middle of the woods. Despite the fact that this is obviously a trap, even to a simpleton like Sean, he runs up to her anyway and two potato sack buddies leap from the trees overhead where they had been hiding completely exposed. They attack Sean, and he kills both with a few punches to the torso each. I'm fully convinced Sophia doesn't need Sean's help dealing with these guys. I've seen butterflies tougher than Lucifer's minions. Sean's brother continues walking in circles, looking hopelessly lost, when Johnny Cage (he doesn't seem to have any other name, so this is what I'll call him) shows up and strangles him to death. Sean and Sophia find his brother's corpse lying in the woods and Sean points at it and says, "There's something wrong!" I'm not exactly sure what emotion this is supposed to be, but this is his reaction to his brother's death. More boring Asian ghost stuff. Oh yeah, when I said Eileen and Sophia's supposed past together was the only tie between the two storylines, I lied. In this scene, while Eileen sleeps, it goes to Hell where Lucifer takes a photo of her (which may or may not be of an entirely different woman) and burns it in the undying infernos of damnation while chanting, "May the power of Lucifer fill your mind and body," over and over and over and over and over. Eileen wakes up, apparently possessed by Satan, and tries to strangle the little boy sleeping in her bed... blah blah blah, yackity schmackity... back to the kickboxer! |
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Sean and Sophia go to see some guy named Jimmy. They never tell us who Jimmy is, or why he's got Sean's couch, but somehow he knows exactly how to beat Lucifer. Jimmy says he'll give them a map to Lucifer's lair and explains that you can't beat him with simple physical violence. It seems old Lucy has stored his life-force in a couple jars, and the only way to beat him is to break the jars. Now, I may not have ever killed a man, but I've broken a lot of jars and it's not that difficult. I'm willing to bet it's the easier of the two. Maybe next time you put your life-force into something, Lucifer, why not make it a safe or an armored truck? The only other noteworthy part of this scene is that they clearly aren't in the same room as Jimmy. While Sean and Sophia are in what is obviously Sean's apartment minus the sword stand, the wall behind Jimmy is entirely different. And the entire scene is filmed looking directly at the actors so you can't see who they're talking to. They didn't even try to cover it up by dressing a guy like Jimmy and filming over his shoulder. The whole thing comes off like one of those mock interviews where Weird Al splices footage of himself into interviews with celebrities, only far less believable. |
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Back in the Asian story, we meet Jimmy yet again! Now he's talking to the caretaker of the haunted house, strangely enough, sitting in the exact same room in the same position he was sitting while talking to Sean. That night, Jimmy dons a cape and performs a séance where Eileen's husband's ex-wife's spirit says she was murdered. Not that we really care... back to the kickboxer! |
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Back to Hell, where Johnny Cage is whining to Lucifer that Sean keeps getting in their way (which by my count has happened twice, and that's only if you count the time they actively sought him out and set a trap for him). Lucifer says that Sean is a very good fighter, but Johnny Cage says that he's better. He'd almost be right if you didn't count the last time they fought and Sean kicked his ass. Sean and Sophia show up somewhere, and Sean says, "I'll take care of Lucifer's two fucking servants!" and then hops out of the van. Looking all kinds of fashionable in his orange tank top, ass-kicking gloves and jeans pulled up farther than should be humanly possible, Sean runs down a hill and through some bushes. He comes across a potato sack buddy whom I'm pretty sure they were hoping we didn't recognize as the guy who got killed by getting punched the crotch earlier. The two fight, and even though the potato sack buddy fights dirty and kicks a neatly piled mound of dirt in Sean's face, Sean emerges victorious. Although, to the henchman's credit, he survived a hell of a lot worse hits than the one that killed him last time around. |
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Sophie is sitting in the van, looking scared for reasons we aren't important enough to be told, when a gloved hand comes out from the curtain and grabs her! Sean is on a river bank somewhere when he comes across another potato sack buddy. Sean stands behind the guy and is incredibly surprised when the guy turns around. I don't know what exactly he was expecting. The potato sack buddy uses Sean's complete shock to gain an early advantage in the fight. He kicks Sean down twice, and proceeds to taunt him. "How was it? Painful?" to which Sean responds with a punch in the face. He then says, and I quote, "I don't know what pain is. But you do!" His morale boosted after thinking of such a clever comeback, Sean wins the fight by tripping the guy then kicking him in the head when he's down. |
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Sean returns to the van to find Sophia gone, and a note on the dashboard that says: "We're gonna get you too!" according to the voice-over as he reads it. The Asian ghost story is resolved without even trying to explain why Lucifer possessed Eileen. Although if anyone was expecting them to, they're giving this movie way too much credit. It ends with the ghost growing fangs and biting Eileen's husband to death. For the last time... back to the kickboxer! Back in Lucifer's lair, Sophia is tied to a cross. Also, someone took the time to put her in a slutty dress and make her hair as huge as humanly possible. Our kickboxing hero enters the room and prepares to do battle with Lucifer! Wait... what the hell happened to Lucifer?! Were they just crossing their fingers we wouldn't notice he's being played by a guy twenty years younger than in every other scene? Although, I wouldn't be surprised if they just accidentally put the Lucifer makeup on the wrong guy and nobody noticed. |
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Johnny Cage grabs a hold of Sophia's hair and begins necking with her. Sean proceeds to go completely apeshit and demands he let her go. Johnny Cage says, "Sure. But fight me first!" and then lets her go anyway. He picks up two sledgehammers and steps into the ring with Sean. He hands one to Sean and they begin to fight. During the fight, Johnny Cage accidentally hits one of the skulls on the ringside. Lucifer doubles over in pain and calls Johnny Cage a fool. That's right Lucifer, you put your life force in four fragile skull-shaped containers, then you put the containers on pillars in the corners of a kickboxing ring and he's the fool. Sean, being a little slow, doesn't figure out the significance of this. He keeps on fighting Johnny Cage and eventually breaks his sledgehammer and knocks him to the ground. Sean, ever so compassionate as he is, decides not to splatter Johnny Cage's head like so many watermelons at the hands of Gallagher. He drops his sledgehammer to the floor and allows Johnny Cage to get back on his feet. They fight hand-to-hand until Sean snaps Johnny Cage's neck without twisting his neck at all. |
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Lucifer claims he's still won because he still has the girl. Between screams, Sophia manages to tell Sean to destroy the three remaining skulls. Sean kicks each one, and you can actually hear the hollow plastic sound of the cheap skulls bouncing across the floor after he kicks them. After he's kicked all three, Lucifer makes him an offer. He tells him he can grant him anything he desires if he joins him. Sean says, "There's nothing I want... except... REVENGE!" then just stands there. Lucifer, ever the sneaky bastard, whispers under his breath for Johnny Cage to rise from the dead. He does so and picks up the sledgehammer. All the while Sean is still standing there looking at Lucifer. Lucifer makes the offer one last time, and Sean responds by screaming at the top of his lungs, "FUCK YOOOOOOUUUUUU!" Johnny Cage comes from behind and swings the sledgehammer. Sophia yells, "Behind you!" and Sean dodges the swing. The sledgehammer smashes onto the table holding the fifth skull and destroys it. Lucifer falls to the ground, muttering "Idiot," the whole way. Sean pulls Sophia off the cross and carries her away. Johnny Cage was never seen again. |
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I hate writing conclusions. Five out of five!
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