What happened to the mentor's son? Why was the son so bad at fighting? How does Forrest Whitaker react when you mention Bloodsport? What was in the blinding powder? Where was Ray Jackson from and what was his martial art?
What happened to the mentor's son, whose entry into the Kumite was the whole point before he got beaten up outside school and vanished? He dies, which is why Frank steps in, but the death is never shown, only mourning and a picture on the wall, maybe the military; three minutes of sad walking to a sappy song but no backstory.
Why is the mentor's son so bad at fighting with that resource for a father? He was beaten by three older kids at eleven and his fight scenes were poor, though he did put Frank, who was holding a sword, on his knees; he should have looked like LeBron James Jr. highlights.
What happens when you mention Bloodsport to Forrest Whitaker at the next table at dinner? He would be thrilled and tell one of his million Kowloon stories about the place being shut down; he is an all-time cool guy.
Raised early: where was Ray Jackson from, probably somewhere with a mountain nearby like Wyoming, and what martial art was he trained in, since he does no MMA move in the film.
Stepping on the category early: what was in the blinding powder, acid or a salt pill, and why did he go completely blind when the point-of-view shots are only blurry? Maybe he was hamming it up.
Asked whether every question was answered, one host has a thousand more but keeps them to himself.
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.
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.
There are no casting what-ifs to report because little information exists about the film; Forrest Whitaker being in it at all feels like the what-if, and the hosts want to ask him who was up for the role and how he got the script, guessing a friend of a relative's fiancé had a Hong Kong movie.
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
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.
