jonathanruano Review of Bloodsport: The Dark Kumite

Bloodsport: The Dark Kumite (1999)

A Really Bad Rip off of Death Warrant

[2/10 · 30 December 2014]

While watching Bloodsport 4, I ended up asking myself multiple times, "Why was this film made?" To this day, I am not sure why. But if I had to guess how Bloodsport 4 got into production, my theory would be that the screenplay writer, suffering from innovation fatigue, stole the script from a third grade student who, in turn, ripped off the formula from the movie "Death Warrant" with Jean-Claude Van Damme. Then the producers, forgetting that the martial arts genre was no longer popular, wrote a cheque worth millions of dollars after three seconds of considered thought. The next step was to hire some really bad actors (either that or they were so embarrassed reading the lines that they ended up sounding like seven year olds pretending to be very serious) and then conceal this fact by tacking on the normally charismatic Daniel Bernhardt as the protagonist Keller. The only problem is that Bernhardt looks as lost in this movie as all of the other actors. Plus the action sequences are that special either. It takes the suspense out of a movie when the bad guy touches Keller's shoulder to indicate to him that now is the time to try out some of those martial arts moves. Then as the movie started entering into its second leg, a strange thing happened: I actually started to miss the sound of Jean-Claude Van Damme's tough guy accent from Death Warrant, which was easily more entertaining than anything in this picture.