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The Rewatchables ·

Bloodsport

year 1988decade 80sdirector Newt Arnoldgenre Drama
host Bill Simmonshost Shea Serranohost Jason Concepcion
All 16 categories

Most Rewatchable Scene · 16:16

Chong Li killing a guy

The opening credits are loved: the music sets it up, Bolo Young (as transcribed) as Chong Li gets the last-billed credit shine while kicking giant ice blocks (how long does an ice block take to prepare and hang?), there is a terrible cut to the tree-chopping coconuts, a monkey-style fighter does MMA in front of torch-holding island natives, Ogre as Ray Jackson hears you can get killed in the Kumite, and a giant smiling bear-hug guy breaks a man's back over his knee; it is called powerful storytelling that introduces every piece before the arena is readied.

Young JVD training blindfolded and the rope device, written down as a 'rope Jesus cross', are rewatchable; the real Frank Deuce (as transcribed) said the drawn-and-quartered device was real and used on him; the hosts wonder what it would do to a normal person, note the film implies children were forced into splits, and that Kickboxer does the same thing lying down; the mentor is borrowed from seven other movies including Enter the Dragon.

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie · 1:11:42

"Why don't you quit, round eye?"

Nominated: 'why don't you quit, round eye' as heckling of young Frank; 'brick not hit back', an iconic hat tip to Bruce Lee; Victor Lin's 'You Jackson? You look like a Jackson', taken as proof Ray should keep his name; the film has few quotes, so the obvious 'I break you, I break your friend' from Bolo rounds out the best ones.

The film

Bloodsport (1988)

Directed by Newt Arnold · Drama

92 minutes

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Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

Donald Gibb Ray Jackson
Leah Ayres Janice Kent
Norman Burton CID Agent Helmer
Forest Whitaker CID Agent Rawlins
Bolo Yeung Chong Li
Ken Siu Victor Lin
Roy Chiao Senzo Tanaka
Philip Chan Captain Chen
Lily Leung Mrs. Tanaka
Michel Qissi Suan Paredes
Ken Boyle Colonel Cooke

Everything from the episode

In the order the hosts got to it. Open a row for the discussion.

16:16

Most Rewatchable Scene

Chong Li killing a guy; the final fight; Chong Li's introduction before his first fight

Chong Li killing a guy; the final fight; Chong Li's introduction before his first fight

In the discussion (16)
Approx. transcript time · 00:16:16Read transcript
  • The opening credits are loved: the music sets it up, Bolo Young (as transcribed) as Chong Li gets the last-billed credit shine while kicking giant ice blocks (how long does an ice block take to prepare and hang?), there is a terrible cut to the tree-chopping coconuts, a monkey-style fighter does MMA in front of torch-holding island natives, Ogre as Ray Jackson hears you can get killed in the Kumite, and a giant smiling bear-hug guy breaks a man's back over his knee; it is called powerful storytelling that introduces every piece before the arena is readied.
  • Young JVD training blindfolded and the rope device, written down as a 'rope Jesus cross', are rewatchable; the real Frank Deuce (as transcribed) said the drawn-and-quartered device was real and used on him; the hosts wonder what it would do to a normal person, note the film implies children were forced into splits, and that Kickboxer does the same thing lying down; the mentor is borrowed from seven other movies including Enter the Dragon.
  • The small scene where JVD honors his invitation by breaking the bottom brick of a five-brick stack is a favorite 'show how cool this guy is' moment; Ray Jackson reacts like he unwrapped a plasma TV, Chong Li is not impressed, the low-angle shot of Van Damme's gigantic eyes convinces one host he really did it, and 'brick not hit back' is recalled; nobody can explain the physics beyond a transfer of energy.
  • Asked to compare Van Damme breaking the brick to Eleven from Stranger Things moving things, the answer is that Van Damme is far more impressive because the power is embodied in him, with no cutting-edge science experiments or interdimensional forces. — Jason Concepcion
  • Eleven is said to have had multi-billion-dollar weapons-program help while Van Damme is all him; the hosts skip past the fact that he hit the top brick yet only the bottom one broke, do a Stranger Things impression, and wonder why Eleven cannot telekinetically hold her nosebleed in or carry a handkerchief.
  • The first-round fight montage is almost unfair to call rewatchable: a council of officials whose link to the Black Dragon Fighting Society is unclear, the ring that bends down, six minutes of fights, and Ray Jackson winning his first bout then taunting Chong Li, which one host calls a tactical error (finish the job) and another defends as setting the tone since Chong Li talked trash first after the brick; it presages the Mountain and the Viper from Game of Thrones.
  • Whether Ray Jackson should have been named Ray Jackson is debated: he seems to be from a mountain state like Wyoming, 'Sully' is rejected as not strong enough, and he does no MMA moves, just brute strength; JVD's 12-second knockout gets Ray's 'first round of Kumite, broke the world record' line; the song 'Fight to Survive' is rated behind 'You're the Best' by Joe Esposito.
  • The later-round montage: Chong Li crushes Swan Paredes, Jao Gomez (as transcribed) does a slow-motion throat slit and is beaten in about five seconds and kicked off the mat; the hosts ask how anyone keeps time with no clock or stopwatch, and how 12.2 reaches the scoreboard faster than Fenway Park posts runs.
  • The smiling bear-hug guy beats the crawling fighter, who makes the mistake of closing the distance, and JVD's revenge is called probably the second-best fight in the film: the slow-motion stomach punch, the shake-off, then the finish; the hosts joke there was no CGI, he really hit him, and imagine the one-take set conversation; the giant's name is Pumala.
  • Chong Li versus Ray Jackson is tough to watch, like Goose dying in Top Gun; celebrating was a terrible idea when one shove would have pushed Chong Li off the edge, and the shouted 'he's dead' is enjoyed; Van Damme's 'No, no!' while held back by a 5'7" man after punching through five bricks is called the Oscar reel; Ray looks murdered Apollo Creed style, and the earlier brick-with-the-head scene foreshadows his hard skull.
  • Semifinal gambling lines: Chong Li about a minus-600 favorite, both finalists massive favorites with the top three fastest knockouts in Kumite history; Dukes versus Paco is a wonderful fight, with Paco's Muay Thai leg-revving compared to Vince Carter starting a motorcycle and a dancing vibe in the shoulders; one host says Paco is the guy he pretended to be with his sisters.
  • Chong Li killing a guy: the silent ref's disgust is praised, there appear to be no rules beyond quitting and falling off the stage, the crowd and council turn their backs; Chong Li ratchets it up every fight with Dukes the final target, is a Darth Vader figure on screen about seven minutes who casts a shadow over the film, like how WWE uses Brock Lesnar; 'you are next' may be dubbed, as every line of his might be.
  • In the final, the blinding powder is guessed to be a salt pill and whether he went fully blind is debated; the slow-motion freak-out is the moment Van Damme might figure out acting, a pure emotional beat of a man cheated like Tim Duncan in Game 6 of 2013; nobody official saw the cheat; the slow-motion is good for an era that had not figured it out, probably the most expensive day with one special Hong Kong camera.
  • The comeback is one of the better sports-movie comebacks; the hospital scene with Ray's comical bloody bandage, the Harley-Davidson bandana returned, 'anytime, anyplace, anywhere,' the lady friend near tears and 'I love you, my friend' is a genuine moment in one of the worst-acted movies of the eighties, more emotional than anything Steven Seagal did; the hosts wonder what the set was like when they suddenly turned into De Niro and Pacino in Heat.
  • The three picks: one host's favorite scene is the hospital but his most rewatchable is Chong Li killing a guy; another goes with any of the fight montages, effectively a five-way tie, and settles on the final fight as iconic; the movie knows what people want, quick backstory, the different fighting styles, Van Damme in a Speedo.
  • Going a different way from both others, the pick is the introduction of Chong Li for his first fight: his name on the cards, the bad-guy sound, him rising from his seat while Victor Lin downloads his stats to Van Damme, never defeated, fastest kill, a man kicked in the throat who died on the platform; the scene sticks the landing on every part, and a good character introduction is loved more than anything else in this kind of movie. — Shea Serrano
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39:33

What’s Aged the Best?

Donald Gibb as Ogre; Janice Kent and the free press; the fight scenes; Chong Li's nose-blowing, steroid physique, 'I ...

Donald Gibb as Ogre; Janice Kent and the free press; the fight scenes; Chong Li's nose-blowing, steroid physique, 'I break you' line and celebrations; Van Damme's terrible acting; the arena; Stan Bush's 'Fight to Survive'; young Frank's Giants gear; the first underground walk to the Kumite; the name Kumite; the tournament structure; Chong Li overall

In the discussion (13)
Approx. transcript time · 00:39:33Read transcript
  • Donald Gibb as Ogre: his trilogy ran Revenge of the Nerds, First and Ten (the HBO football series with O.J. Simpson) and Bloodsport, a nice five-year run; he is the perfect sidekick with no turn coming, Jean-Claude's buddy through and through; the hosts joke the intro left out that Chong Li has done more steroids than everyone in Hong Kong combined.
  • Janice Kent and the importance of a free press: she hears whispers, goes undercover for the Atlantic, cracks a centuries-old event never written about, gets in the room, talks to five fighters, and pulls out her recorder in the front row where everyone will notice.
  • Chong Li details that aged beautifully and disgustingly: blowing boogers out of his nose about seven times, the late-eighties steroid body nobody has anymore with a chest like a love seat, 'break my record, now I break you' as a yearbook quote, and celebrations that one host finds creepy and dorky while another calls them the scariest thing possible since he cannot raise his arms over his head; his unreadable, smiling-but-furious savagery with a weird daintiness makes him scary, a riff imagines him at home with a wife and kids, glasses on, saying he got carried away and killed a guy again, which lands as both funny and unwanted since seeing him clothed in the reflection is odd, and Brock Lesnar stole the pec flexes from him.
  • Van Damme's terrible acting has aged best for one host because it is so bad; the director seemingly cared only about the fighting and treated dialogue as a hindrance, which the others concede was the smart play, and Van Damme was decent seven years later.
  • The arena is the perfect fight arena: a sandy floor you fall into, nothing to change, and alligators around the pit rejected as too far and too much upkeep.
  • Asked whether he would change the arena, it is called kind of perfect; the Kowloon walled city in Hong Kong, since knocked down, fascinates as a structure, and a secret fighting arena inside it is cool. — Jason Concepcion
  • The arena is the right size, maybe 400 seats, smaller than a middle-school gym with the crowd close; the hosts would pay $249 for a UFC or Bellator pay-per-view called Kumite with 400 fans, lots of cameras and a dirt floor.
  • Stan Bush, who wrote 'Fight to Survive', is the Joe Esposito of the late eighties; young Frank with his bad French accent wears a number 55 Giants football jersey and a San Francisco Giants hat, rooting for two Giants teams in two cities; a kid in the bullying flashback wears a Bartles and James (as transcribed) shirt, and the hosts wonder whether the boys knew they were going in for the sword.
  • Comparing the first underground walk to the Kumite with the Scorsese one-shot nightclub walk in Goodfellas, they are very close, 1A and 1B, with Scorsese edging it on camera work. — Jason Concepcion
  • The Goodfellas shot goes on continuously, but the Kumite walk brings you into a world you would never have access to; Kumite is called a great, incredible name, just the best.
  • The tournament-movie structure is added as aged best: any movie with a tournament and a board where names advance works because little needs explaining; this leads to a proposed Ringer MMA tournament where Rusillo is floated and Brian Curtis, with hands like football helmets, a Texan who has been in brawls, is called the secretly strongest man at the Ringer.
  • Tournament movies listed: Bloodsport, Undisputed, Karate Kid, Warrior, Best of the Best (a cumulative tournament), Enter the Dragon, Never Back Down, Mortal Kombat and The Quest, basically Bloodsport 2; the late-eighties video-game wave shaped them; the Best of the Best hero not finishing his opponent makes sense now because Daehan returns in Best of the Best 2.
  • Chong Li is the overall pick for aged best: 31 years later the hosts are still in awe of what they created, with every part of him interesting; his celebration, Tom Hardy's character leaving the ring immediately in Warrior, and Daniel LaRusso's confused look at his support group are called the three best post-fight celebrations.
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49:08

What’s Aged the Worst?

The acting; the crawling monkey fighter; the reporter plot; the 'On My Own' moping montage; the chase with Forrest Wh...

The acting; the crawling monkey fighter; the reporter plot; the 'On My Own' moping montage; the chase with Forrest Whitaker; Ray Jackson's lack of MMA skills; young Frank's accent; Ray Jackson harassing the woman on the train

In the discussion (9)
Approx. transcript time · 00:49:08Read transcript
  • The acting was mentioned first; the crawling monkey fighter is problematic now, loved for years before anyone thought twice; his low, hopping style got him to the semis but is like small ball or the James Harden one-on-five: a surprise at first, scouted by the later rounds, unable to work over a seven-game series.
  • The torch-holding islanders in the opening show the film was written by white guys who, asked what they knew about this, said make them a monkey; it is called really bad.
  • The reporter plot has aged worst in parts: going undercover basically as a call girl and sleeping with a subject is very bad, part of a seventies-eighties trope of how to get the female reporter in, as in The A Team; the making-of says they wanted the action movie everyone liked in the eighties with a little romance added, so the writers gave the reporter a thing for Jean-Claude.
  • Two tough minutes after Ray Jackson's injury have Jean-Claude moping around Hong Kong to a song going 'on my own, I can be strong', worse than Frank Stallone, but it leads to the split on a balcony around the fifteenth floor with no ropes or harness, a pretty great shot Scorsese would approve of in a terribly acted and probably directed movie.
  • The lame chase is a fall from grace for Forrest Whitaker, the star linebacker of Fast Times who now cannot run through Hong Kong; his IMDb run from 1985 to 1988 is read out: Vision Quest, The Fall Guy, Diff'rent Strokes, North and South, Amazing Stories, The Color of Money, Platoon, Stakeout, Good Morning Vietnam, Bloodsport and Bird, several Oscar-nominated films with Bloodsport thrown in; he later popped up in Species.
  • Whitaker is respected for securing the bag, or for simply wanting to do things that sound cool, like a sex alien movie after a Vietnam picture; he eventually won an Oscar playing Amin (transcribed 'D.D. Amin') and carries Phone Booth with Colin Farrell; told there was an Oscar winner in this movie, nobody would have picked Jean-Claude or Gibb, and the actress might have been the guess; Whitaker is definitely mailing it in here.
  • Ray Jackson's MMA skills have aged badly since he does no MMA at all, more a Chuck Liddell knock-you-out-or-get-knocked-out fighter; young Frank's accent and acting feel like a head-shot pick with $1,200 left in the budget, and his father has a totally different accent.
  • Final answer: the monkey guy and the reporter; Ray Jackson sexually harassing the woman on the train, trapping her in her seat with his gigantic leg while Jean-Claude looks on amused, is also recalled as very dumb.
  • The acting is named first as what aged worst, before the discussion returns to aged best.
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57:09

The Joey Pants “That Guy” Award

Norman Burton (Helmer)

Norman Burton (Helmer)

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 00:57:09Read transcript
  • Norman Burton, who plays Helmer, Forrest Whitaker's partner, wins; his name had to be googled, and he had an eight-year stretch on Kojak, Baretta, a show transcribed as 'Herio', The Rockford Files, Wonder Woman, Quincy, CHiPs, Simon & Simon and Knight Rider, the actor who popped up on every procedural.
  • On Helmer and Rollins: sent to apprehend an expert fighter and Green Beret at a death tournament, they bring two men with stun guns; asked how many it would take, answers range from a minimum of eight to ten or twelve, three per limb; they try the hotel lobby alone, Ray knocks them out, the Hong Kong police are called in, and after failing all film they still turn up in row two for the final.
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59:10

The Ruffalo / Hanna / Rubinek / Partridge Overacting Award

Van Damme's 'No, no!' scream

Van Damme's 'No, no!' scream

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 00:59:10Read transcript
  • There is arguably more underacting than overacting in the film, but Van Damme's 'no, no' has to be the choice.
  • Earlier, the scene of Van Damme being held back by a 5'7" man after Ray Jackson's beating, screaming 'No, no, no, no!' moments after punching through five bricks, is called the Oscar reel and spectacular.
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59:27

The Dion Waiters Award for Best Heat Check Performance

Victor Lin or Van Damme's Speedo in the post-coitus scene

Victor Lin or Van Damme's Speedo in the post-coitus scene

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 00:59:27Read transcript
  • Victor Lin is proposed, with his 'You're blowing it, Frank, forget about the girl, you can be the first Westerner to win' speech; he is the only other character remembered, Chong Li is ruled ineligible and Ogre is in it too much; the pointing 'point at you, point at me' fighter is a memorable minute of shiny muscles.
  • The reporter is rejected not for screen time but because she is too good an actress; Chong Li could be shoehorned in if he really has only seven minutes; Van Damme's Speedo in the post-coitus scene, with his very round butt, is called a good call, with jokes that he called more people onto the set rather than clearing it; the award ends with nobody sure who wins.
  • During the unanswerable questions, the mentor is retroactively nominated: his choked-up speech about his dead son and the father-to-son tradition should have been the Dion Waiters pick, or the mother who just smiles knowingly with no lines.
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1:07:01

Apex Mountain

Leah Ayres; Bolo Yeung as Chong Li; Frank Dux; Jean-Claude Van Damme's splits

Leah Ayres; Bolo Yeung as Chong Li; Frank Dux; Jean-Claude Van Damme's splits

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 01:07:01Read transcript
  • Donald Gibb is proposed as a yes, coming off Revenge of the Nerds and First and Ten into a $65 million film where he is focal, but he was the tenth most important person in Revenge of the Nerds and the hosts settle on that film as his apex, noting this conversation has never happened on a podcast.
  • The actress Leah Ayers (as transcribed) is a yes: her IMDb is a hundred TV shows she was never on full-time, with a good run on Walker, Texas Ranger.
  • Chong Li, aka Bolo Young (as transcribed), is this over Enter the Dragon because he never fights Bruce Lee there, and this character is iconic and spawned countless memes; Kowloon Walled City is floated but Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is suggested as its actual apex.
  • Frank Dukes (as transcribed) hit his apex here, any time before the internet; Forrest Whitaker did not; it is Van Damme's splits apex.
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1:12:11

Sequel, Prequel, Limited Series, or All-Black Remake

Yes: a short Netflix series called Kumite; a remake every ten years with Iko Uwais doing the fighting would work

Yes: a short Netflix series called Kumite; a remake every ten years with Iko Uwais doing the fighting would work

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 01:12:11Read transcript
  • Could it be a 10-episode Netflix show? The first instinct was no, but a show simply called Kumite would have one host hosed off and unreachable for the run; eight 22-minute episodes like Fleabag, and if Cobra Kai got made, give us Kumite; Netflix is told to get on it.
  • A remake would be good: Bolo Young (as transcribed) is about 65 and probably not returning as Chong Li, but with Ico from The Raid (as transcribed) doing the fighting one host is in; the concept of a maybe-real underground event you go find should work every ten years, a classic setup like a Fast and Furious entry or The Most Dangerous Game's hunting humans, which gets recycled every five or six years.
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1:24:05

Who Won the Movie?

Chong Li

Chong Li

In the discussion (1)
Approx. transcript time · 01:24:05Read transcript
  • Chong Li is named at once, called iconic, and a second host who expected to be out on a limb agrees; the film launched Jean-Claude's ten-year run and is his movie, but Chong Li wins it as one of the best sports-movie villains ever, maybe number one, impossible to separate from the film, with incredible efficiency.
Podcast choices
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Chong Li
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