Right, well the 1988 first "Bloodsport" movie was and is a classic martial arts movie, and I have to say that the 1996 sequel "Bloodsport II" was actually a good movie, despite not having Van Damme on the cast list. The 1996 third movie "Bloodsport III" was a mediocre movie at best. And thus I have to admit that I was a bit hesitant about sitting down to watch the 1999 fourth movie in the franchise.
I wasn't familiar with the existence of this fourth movie prior to sitting through a "Bloodsport" movie marathon. And now that I have just watched 100 minutes of this, I can honestly say that this was a movie that never should have carried the "Bloodsport" label.
The storyline in "Bloodsport: The Dark Kumite" was ridiculous, and it had nothing to do with the spirit of the previous three movies in anyway. This was a prison movie, and a poor one at that. And get this, Daniel Bernhardt is now playing a whole new character, but still in the "Bloodsport" universe apparently. It was just laughably bad and ridiculous.
The acting performances in "Bloodsport: The Dark Kumite" were wooden, rigid, sluggish and amateurish. It felt and looked like no one were committed to the movie in the least bit, not even Daniel Bernhardt himself. And the whole concept of the characters in the storyline made little sense, and you simply don't care about any of them in any way.
Even the fight scenes in "Bloodsport: The Dark Kumite" were bad. They were horribly scripted and felt forced. There was no natural or fluid motions to the fighting scenes, and it was awkward to look at.
If you have enjoyed any of the previous "Bloodsport" movies, with or without Jean-Claude Van Damme, then do yourself a favor and skip of this 1999 fourth movie from writers George Saunders and Elvis Restaino. It was, hands down, a terrible movie that had nothing to do with the franchise at all.
My rating of director Elvis Restaino's "Bloodsport: The Dark Kumite" lands on a two out of ten stars.
I wasn't familiar with the existence of this fourth movie prior to sitting through a "Bloodsport" movie marathon. And now that I have just watched 100 minutes of this, I can honestly say that this was a movie that never should have carried the "Bloodsport" label.
The storyline in "Bloodsport: The Dark Kumite" was ridiculous, and it had nothing to do with the spirit of the previous three movies in anyway. This was a prison movie, and a poor one at that. And get this, Daniel Bernhardt is now playing a whole new character, but still in the "Bloodsport" universe apparently. It was just laughably bad and ridiculous.
The acting performances in "Bloodsport: The Dark Kumite" were wooden, rigid, sluggish and amateurish. It felt and looked like no one were committed to the movie in the least bit, not even Daniel Bernhardt himself. And the whole concept of the characters in the storyline made little sense, and you simply don't care about any of them in any way.
Even the fight scenes in "Bloodsport: The Dark Kumite" were bad. They were horribly scripted and felt forced. There was no natural or fluid motions to the fighting scenes, and it was awkward to look at.
If you have enjoyed any of the previous "Bloodsport" movies, with or without Jean-Claude Van Damme, then do yourself a favor and skip of this 1999 fourth movie from writers George Saunders and Elvis Restaino. It was, hands down, a terrible movie that had nothing to do with the franchise at all.
My rating of director Elvis Restaino's "Bloodsport: The Dark Kumite" lands on a two out of ten stars.