Kickboxer 3: The Art of War (1992)

best movie i've ever seen.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Ace kickboxer David Sloan (Mitchell) travels to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, along with his trainer/mentor Xian (Chan) for an exhibition bout. When destitute street scamp Marcos (Verduzco) tries to steal his camera, Sloan realizes Marcos and his sister Isabella (Miranda) have a hard life and need some guidance and understanding. So he takes a liking to the two urchins. Meanwhile, Sloan prepares to face off against an evil, ruthless kickboxer named Martine (Jacklin). His manager is Lane (Comar), a criminal who also has his hands in white slavery and prostitution. When Lane and his goons kidnap Isabella, it becomes personal for Sloan, and he, along with Xian and Marcos ("The gringo, the philosopher, and the boy", as their "Machine Gun Joe" character notes) go on a revenge mission to save Isabella and get justice. Will they succeed? We really enjoyed Kickboxer 3. It's a lot more entertaining and fun than you might think. The whole concept of a guy, who, as far as we know, is just a simple kickboxer, going on a dangerous mission and shooting people to save a girl he really just met is just so great. More plots should be like this. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what it is, but something about Sasha Mitchell is also very appealing. He makes a good lead man. A total change of pace from Van Damme, Mitchell appears to be the ultimate California dude. A cross between Freddie Prinze Jr. and Keanu Reeves, when we first see him in the movie he's wearing red overalls with no shirt. And his outfits just get better from there on in. Plus he has a winning chuckle that really brings you over to his side. And when Lane hatches his nefarious plan to "tire him out" before the big fight, his assistant says, "he's like a machine!" - the fact that he's an indefatigable warrior who is proficient in guns as well as fists, but that he also cares about children, makes you really root for him.Mitchell has some amazing line readings as well...but his wardrobe is quite impressive: he has not just one, but two Benny The Jet shirts. Giving him a counterpart in the clothing department is his wise sensei Xian. Xian is always ready with a learned maxim, such as "clothes don't make a woman beautiful...but it helps!" A movie highlight comes when, in their travels around Rio to get answers, they run into a gay Samba choreographer. For some unknown reason, this guy has goons! In the midst of some sort of Carnival rehearsals, he sics his goons on Sloan, Xian and Marcos! It's nutty ideas like this that move Kickboxer 3 above its seemingly lowly status as a third entry in a series. But let's also remember director Rick King's previous movie before this was Prayer of The Rollerboys (1990). So, there you go.But back to Sloan's true nemesis, Martine, Ian Jacklin doesn't say too many actual lines of dialogue (It's mainly just your classic yells of "RAAAAHHHH!!!), but he's still sufficiently evil. He even taunts his opponents by spontaneously breaking into a dance of "The Running Man". Weirdly, Ian Jacklin, here more than ever, resembles another Ian, Brown. Both the actor/fighter and the singer for The Stone Roses have a distinctly monkey-like face and could be brothers. No insult is intended, it's simply a description. Ian Brown should have gone into acting instead of pursuing a solo career. Then a movie could be made where Keanu Reeves and Sasha Mitchell are brothers, and Ian Jacklin and Ian Brown are brothers. Sadly, it looks like we won't see that imaginary film any time soon.While there is a bit of filler during the "evil training" sequence, Kickboxer 3 provides solid entertainment and is pretty crowd-pleasing. Some of its more absurd moments and ideas help a lot, as does its winning cast, so we can certainly recommend it.

Kickboxer 3: The Art of War (1992)Trades Martial Violence for Mindless GoreIt's not fair to call Kickboxer 3: The Art of War a bad movie, even it is by most measures a very bad movie. It's not meant to be a good movie. It's meant to show off a little kickboxing and a little raw physicality, spiced up with moral justice vigilante style, and fully enhanced with lots and lots of dead people.At first we are on the side of this seemingly peaceable, obviously buff athlete of a dude visiting Rio. He presents himself as above the cheap tricks and meanness of his rough Third World hosts. But when it comes to beating the Third World thugs and their nasty ring of enslaved sex girls, he gets down and dirty--not with kicks and strategy, but with lots of guns, and good old shoot-em-up gore. It's awful, and not very well sequenced. Even a movie like this could give a sense that he would, in fact, not get shot at dozen times first. But he has the protective halo of bad directing by Rick King.Sasha Mitchell as the Kickboxer is what you expect. Though showing no acting genius, it's not his fault the movie struggles around him. How do all these people take such sensational raw material and make it actually a bore? Ha.

Sasha Mitchell reprises his role as David Sloan who has since # 2 become a bona-fide kickboxing champion who flies to Rio to compete to defend his championship however along the way he decides to take down a prostitution racket and does so without hardly breaking a sweat. Did I give away too much by the last sentence? Well let's just say that this predictable sequel is a marginal improvement over # 2. This time there is more attractive scenery, more action and more plot than # 2, which was irritatingly straight forward.) That being said the movie is still hugely flawed. The main problem dealing with the fact that K3 has little kickboxing. Indeed the fight sequence at the end as well as the opponent could've easily been written out and it wouldn't have changed a thing. Mitchell and Chan rely on more guns and while this element works for action fans, the lack of training montage and fights make this a tepid effort.* * out of 4-(Fair)

Sasha Mitchell returns as David Sloan, this time he's in Rio fighting a bunch of thugs who run a white slavery ring, when Mitchell's friend is kidnapped he's forced to fight. Somehow Rick King has managed to make a even worse sequel, things go from stupid to completely ridiculous when main bad guy Richard Comar forces Sasha Mitchell to train. While the action scenes themselves are lame, As a whole K3 serves as a prime example of what killed Mitchell's promising career. Plus what does the subtitle Art Of War have to do with the movie anyway? 1/5 Matt Bronson