BLOODMATCH (1991)

PHENOMENALITY: *naturalistic*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological*

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

This very peculiar kickboxing film, directed by the notorious Albert Pyun, isn’t exactly “so bad it’s good.” Yet it still stands out as an interesting little cinematic mutant, despite all of its numerous faults.

In essence, BLOODMATCH is like a standard kickboxing film crossed with one of those Hollywood detective films of the 1930s. Such movies usually concluded with a detective—Philo Vance, Charlie Chan—assembling all of the suspects of some crime in one room, clearing each suspect in turn, until reaching the true culprit and revealing the clues that led to his detection. BLOODMATCH, however, starts with a comparable scene. Four kickboxing champions wake up in a dark amphitheatre, bound to chairs as they recover from having been drugged by unknown assailants. The guy behind their abduction appears in the central fighting-ring, and they all recognize him as Brick Bardo (Thom Matthews), a familiar face in the kickboxing circuit. He claims that he’s the brother of another kickboxer, Wood Wilson, whom all four fighters had dealings with before Wilson was killed. Bardo believes that one of his four captives caused Wilson’s death—but Bardo can’t be bothered following up clues. Instead, he propose to fight each of the suspects in turn, until one of them reveals the truth. Bardo is also quite prepared to kill his victims to get the true stories, so again—not dealing with a great intellect here.

So the film unfolds in expected manner. Bardo’s assistant lets one fighter go at a time, and with the help of a pistol encourages each one to climb into the ring with Bardo. In terms of structure, BLOODMATCH isn’t that different from any other kickboxing flick, but most professionals who direct such films use fancy camera-angles to overcome the limitations of two opponents fighting in a closed space. Pyun utterly flops at this, though fight choreographer Benny Urquidez—also one of the battling suspects—is equally to blame for the dull mechanics of the combats. Further, while the leads of such films are not usually particularly good actors, at least most of them can fake-fight with considerable élan. Thom Matthews is incredibly unimpressive in both departments, though he chews the scenery well enough to be enjoyable on the ironic level.

Did I mention that one of the suspects was (a) female, (b) the former lover of the dead Wood Wilson, and (c) the last suspect to get into the ring, after Bardo defeats the others? Given that setup, the viewer will be likely to guess that she’s the culprit, if only because the “detective” gets to her last. But wait, there’s more! Wood Wilson didn’t die; he just suffered hideous facial injuries, went into a hospital for months, and after a huge amount of reconstructive surgery, emerged as—Brick Bardo! The scenes in which Bardo frantically tries to convince his former lover of his identity are goony enough to be worth the time spent on this mess, and though it’s the script, not Bardo, who saved the female boxer for last, sure enough, she was responsible for Wilson’s not-quite-death. Nevertheless, though you couldn’t tell it from the choreography, she’s also the best of the fighters, and she beats down the vengeful kickboxer with a series of extremely repetitious moves.

The idea of staging a ring-fight with several suspects in order to beat the truth out of them is without question a “bizarre crime,” but I had to wonder if it qualified as uncanny or naturalistic. I’ve reviewed a handful of kung-fu films that proved bizarre enough to move into the region of the uncanny, even without weird costumes or weapons, but Bardo’s scheme doesn’t quite move the needle into that terrain. Though he’s an absurd character, he’s also the star of the show, loosely comparable to other narratives—GET CARTER, POINT BLANK-- in which the viewer follows the exploits of a largely unsympathetic main character simply because he’s engaged in fighting other unsympathetic characters.