MPI Media Group
The Last Kumite is an homage to a very particular sub-species of martial arts film: the 1980’s and early 90’s western wave of bone crunchers that starred guys like Chuck Norris, Jeff Speakman, and (especially) Jean Claude Van Damme and were produced by guys like the Cannon Group. This film was produced via the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter and is directed by Ross W. Clarkson who helmed the second and third Undisputed films and cut his teeth shooting for Hong Kong legend Ringo Lam.
This film was made with real love for the genre: Cynthia Rothrock (Righting Wrongs) and Billy Blanks (Talons of the Eagle) show up and the film is peppered by guys who drank in the 80’s with money they earned getting karate kicked in films like Kickboxer. They even went to the (somewhat ridiculous) extreme of commissioning new songs from 80’s rocker Stan Bush who laid down the vocals on “Fight to Survive” in Bloodsport.
This project should be directly in my wheelhouse: I’ve covered DTV action legends like Stone Cold in this space with relish, and I have a penchant for low budget martial arts films that borders on mania. If there’s a German media company releasing a Don Wilson film on Blu-ray, be sure that I am aware of it.
That said, this one didn’t land for me.
Mathis Landwehr plays Martin Rivers, an American karate fighter who is drawn into a lethal tournament on false pretenses by a crooked promoter Ron Hall (Matthias Hues, who was Billy Blanks’ nemesis in so many of his best films) in Bulgaria. Hall ends up kidnapping Rivers’ young daughter and, as you may have guessed, he’s got to fight a cadre of martial arts stylists from all around the world in order to survive and get his daughter back.
The fights are fun, but limited by the budget (and, in some cases, the age of the combatants). I do like that they tried to emulate the wild spurts of violence you would see in the films that were so inspirational to the work. However, they’re static in filming and far more reminiscent of the limitations of American martial arts films than their strengths. Choreographer Mike Möller is talented but I don’t think his work is presented in a way that highlights the strengths.
I also think locking Rivers into the reluctant fighter looking out for his kidnapped daughter was a major mistake. It limits Landwehr into a kind of stoic, pseudo Clint Eastwood, performance that so many of the films that inspired this one had and it always limits our ability to empathize with the protagonist because they don’t feel as human and they drop down to one note.
For comparison, think about how memorable Linden Ashby was in 1995’s Mortal Kombat as Johnny Cage.
He was so beloved in that role because he was actively commenting on how wild the proceedings were. He acted as an audience viewpoint character because he was not only as tough as we’d like to be, but as clever and funny as we think we are. This film desperately needs real wit.
The real problem though is conceptual: films like Kickboxer, Tiger Claws, and Expect No Mercy were, in a strange way, like punk rock movies.
They were made quick and dirty and to a formula for a niche audience. They were not reverent to their own conventions or to anything else, for that matter. They could be silly, thrilling, amateurish, or shockingly well made but they were always unexpected. You can’t repackage that feeling into a nostalgia bomb by bringing out the old favorites and doing synth pop again because what was counter to the mainstream and even kind of dangerous then, now looks and feels like a cover band at an Atlantic City casino.
This stuff was always played with a wink before, adding another layer by doing it as a tribute just means shutting your eyes altogether.
Not recommended.
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