"To Be Worthy of the Kumite Sword, You Must Fight For Justice and Truth."

"Beyond Honour There is a Fight For Justice and the Truth..."

"The Fight For Justice & Truth Continues..."

In this third installment of the Bloodsport series, Daniel returns as Alex Cardo; the suave art dealer and professional ass-kicker we got to know in the previous movie. Told through flash-back perspective, the movie tells of the tale of Alex's return to the world of Kumite after an evil crime lord called Duvalier (John-Rhys Davis from Indiana Jones) plans to host his own  tournament to fill his own wallet. The issue at hand however, is that Duvalier has rigged the contest so as to make himself millions of dollars in bets on the fighters against a fellow crime baron! 

First attempting to rope-in Alex, Duvalier fails to lure him into the tournament for the ultimate show and so instead opts to attack Alex on a personal level so as to teach him a lesson of respect... by murdering Master Sun (James Hong!). Duvalier has since enlisted his top man for winning the tournament, a hulking lummox known as 'The Beast' - a man-mountain who bears a striking resemblance to Zangief from Street Fighter 2!

During all this, Alex starts to get it on with Duvalier's hot lounge-singing daughter Crystal (Amber Van Lynt), who helps produce some tension amongst the characters. Although she's hot, it must be noted that she's an absolutely terrible singer and performs one of the worst excuses for dribbly sap that'd make even Rick Astley's greatest fan squirm with discomfort (trust me on this, I asked her myself)... to which Alex remarkably seems somehow impressed with. Then again I guess no one ever said that enormous rippling pectorals and neck-bursting anterior deltoids ever ensured a respectable taste in music... but I'll just be sure to keep Alex Cardo far away from my CD player. So if you can just grit your teeth, hold-on tight to the arms of your seat and endure through this one excruciating scene, it's smooth sailing from there on in.

But enough musical-adjudication, back to the plot... Alex vows to avenge Master Sun's death through a demonstration of honor by winning the Kumite and proving to Duvalier that you cannot corrupt this ancient tournament. In order to train and seek spiritual assistance in coping with Sun's death, Alex travels to the mountains of Sri Lanka, where the grand judge of the last Kumite, Judge Macado (played by Daniel's real-life master, Master Hee Il Cho) resides on his tea plantation. There he trains himself to the be ultimate warrior and basically learn cool stuff, like how to catch arrows in mid-air, how to oil his body and flex his muscles in multiple painful ways, how to charm a cobra, how to say no to prepositional sex from a gorgeous Oriental girl (still don't understand that one!) and how to plow fields... all the while making me feel less of a man! Awesome!

So that's our story... as far as stories go for this kind of movie, it's not bad. It's certainly inventive, albeit sadly not the most logical of plots ever. But hey, if it means a tournament of crazy martial arts, then hey, whatever helps it along! 

Returning to the fold in brief cameos are all of Alex's mentors; Pat Morita as Mr. Leung, James Hong and of course, Master Hee Il Cho... more than enough to benefit the movie's hopes of familiarity with its audience. This obviously helps make the story that little bit more functional, since had the movie been a unique-entity and not a sequel (or indeed, the 'threequel'), the entire plot would have likely fallen flat on its face. 

Unfortunately however, the plot is no where near as solid as Bloodsport 2's... more complex certainly, but not as immediate or as satisfying - there's also less character chemistry and development around Daniel's co-stars. The scenes between flashbacks of Alex telling the story to his son seem somewhat forced with some really cheesy morals and I've learnt here that the 'iron hand' is not so much a martial-arts 'way of being'... as more akin to the supernatural powers of the ancient Force. Ok, criticisms regarding telekinetic-ability aside, the movie works well in having to connect the simple scenes shot in the USA and the rest of the movie shot in India... and that's what they're there to do.

By this point you're probably wondering whether I actually like the movie or not, to which I can happily answer that I do, a great deal in fact. Ok, the plot's slightly flimsy, but the action in this movie kicks part 2's ass seven ways to Sunday! The direction, once again from Alan Mehrez has been tightened up; each kick, punch, spin, everything is cut so expertly and well-timed that the power behind each blow is magnified phenomenally, resulting in each action-scene quite honestly leaving you breathless yet begging for more!

The best part of the whole movie undoubtedly has to be the Kumite itself. Whilst in the previous film, I was left unfulfilled as though the tournament itself was an afterthought to the set-up, here it's quite the opposite; you get the impression that Mehrez sat back and thought about how to make the best Kumite possible and get it to work with the plot to achieve the best of both worlds. Unfortunately however, the plot was just too perfectly set-up in Bloodsport 2 and the one here stumbles at times to recreate that - it feels more like a series of ingredients to achieve a finished story rather than a well-conceived one... but it works well enough. 

Amongst the fighters are a few notable stunt-actors ensuring a consistently impressive cast of fighters who have ties to the Daniel Bernhardt legacy, including Scott McElroy (True Vengeance), Brad Martin (Mortal Kombat), Chad Stahelski (Bloodsport II), Sidney Liufau (Mortal Kombat: The Live Tour) and most notably J.J. Perry, starring as the cocky J.J. Tucker; who was Daniel's co-star in Mortal Kombat: Conquest, playing the deadly ninja Sub Zero. 

They must have read my mind when I was watching Bloodsport 2, since here the Kumite is so much more bombastic. The crowd are dressed in shirts and ties, whilst the show is opened by Indian dancers, thereby improving the stature of the whole tournament. The fighters are each blessed with a name roll-call and an on-screen placement on the name-board so as to make each fight just that little bit more glorious... and finally the climactic showdown fight between Alex and Beast is treated to a nice (if brief) delay as well as a small atmospheric build up to help advertise the moment. It must be noted though, that once again the Kumite seems to have no identifiable fighting order... unless of course there's loads of off-screen fights that were cut or we simply weren't blessed to viewing? Probably.

So there we go, there's little more than I can say; at the end of the day it's the same kind of thing you've already seen just with a different plot. The action is better than part 2, yet the plot isn't quite so hot and neither are the characters. Regardless, if you enjoyed the previous movie as much as I did, or any films of this kind, then you'll definitely get a kick out of this - after all, when the title's got 'Bloodsport' in it, are you really expecting something deep?