Kickboxer 3: The Art of War (1992)Trades Martial Violence for Mindless GoreIt's not fair to call Kickboxer 3: The Art of War a bad movie, even it is by most measures a very bad movie. It's not meant to be a good movie. It's meant to show off a little kickboxing and a little raw physicality, spiced up with moral justice vigilante style, and fully enhanced with lots and lots of dead people.At first we are on the side of this seemingly peaceable, obviously buff athlete of a dude visiting Rio. He presents himself as above the cheap tricks and meanness of his rough Third World hosts. But when it comes to beating the Third World thugs and their nasty ring of enslaved sex girls, he gets down and dirty--not with kicks and strategy, but with lots of guns, and good old shoot-em-up gore. It's awful, and not very well sequenced. Even a movie like this could give a sense that he would, in fact, not get shot at dozen times first. But he has the protective halo of bad directing by Rick King.Sasha Mitchell as the Kickboxer is what you expect. Though showing no acting genius, it's not his fault the movie struggles around him. How do all these people take such sensational raw material and make it actually a bore? Ha.

The Kickboxer franchise spanned 5 films. The 1st film was in theaters, all films after that were direct to video. I loved the 2nd film as it's my overall favorite film of the whole series. The 3rd film however leaves a bad taste in my mouth.This film takes place some time after the events of the 2nd film. David now has a fight in Brazil and helps a homeless brother and sister fight out of a ruthless pimp.The fight scenes are actually not that bad at all, which were some of my favorite parts of the film. There were some things that I had some problems with. Mainly the story is my biggest gripe. If Tong Po is such enemy in the series, where the hell is he? He is not mentioned at all during the film, which really messes up the film franchise as a whole.This is easily the weakest film in the whole series, and unless you are crazy or want to see it, then avoid it.

With Kickboxer 3, it's not the fact that the film's plot is so predictable – the opening credits shows a woman fleeing for her life, eventually captured, and shot by the villain who keeps young girls captive for reasons we don't have to imagine. Not ten minutes later, a young girl is introduced as a poor lost soul that David Sloan (the Kickboxer protagonist since the previous film) will inevitably get off the street. Hmmm … I wonder what is going to happen to her. And it's not the fact these characters would earn the screenwriter an F in any competent screen writing class with their grocery list of randomized "character traits" and lack of meaningful development – the fact that the requirements of the prepackaged plot dictates each and every one of the characters in the story.No, the real error lay in the incredibly bland presentation – why the hell would anyone watch a movie that even the most naïve audience member can guess, and the most artistically illiterate can imagine in a more interesting and aesthetically pleasing way? I honestly can't think of a single moment where I admired the visuals, or felt they reflected anything more than an unenthusiastic cycle through the motions. I do, however, vividly recall despising a scene in a police station where throughout the entire conversation every actor's face managed to stay in shadow as though the crew setup their lights about six inches off the mark. Some great scenes have been captured with effective use of, you guessed it, shadows (Werner Herzog's brilliantly photographed Nosferatu immediately springs to mind.); however, here, the shadows are not used effectively. Back to the "plot." In another nails-to-a-chalkboard scene, the filmmakers demonstrate the fact they know what an innuendo is, while simultaneously demonstrating they know not how to pull it off (whether the writer's fault, the actor's, director's – I don't presume to know.) "I'm glad you'll be moving on your way, Sloan. It'd be very stupid to try anything with Mr. Branco and his seven body guards. *Seven* body guards," quoth the detective who sounds just as unnatural and inept as Steve Martin's Inspector Clouseau from the new Pink Panther, "Lovely weather we are having! (wink) I hope the weather continues." Later on, Sloan discovers the identity of the true villain, Mr. Lane (who previously posed as a friend), the audience learns that Mr. Lane knows Sloan will be coming for him. So, the villain sets a trap where he appears to be reading, while guards lurk somewhere else on the premises banking on the belief that good guys do not "shoot first, ask questions later." What I would've given for anti-heroes right about here. There needs to be a parody where the good guys say, "You know, he's just going to pull a gun in the final scene, and we're going to kill him anyway out of self-defense. So, screw it, let's just kill him now, and save everyone the misery of the 3rd act." The grand scheme that evolves from all of these plot tangents comes together in Lane's greedy desire to make a few bucks off a rigged fight. The trick, of course, getting Sloan to play ball. "You can have the girl," Lane says, "if you show up for tomorrow's fight." "That's it?" replies Sloan, "You don't want me to throw the fight?" Lane grins, "No, not at all – I have too much respect for you to ask that." Actually, Lane did ask just that in one of the previous scenes, but now he's content to let Sloan play fair … after forcing Sloan to wear himself out with an unnecessarily stressful workout. Again, the filmmakers demonstrate their knowledge of cruel irony, while demonstrating their ineptitude in convincingly creating it.The screenwriters, editor, and director drive the final nail in the coffin by not putting this lame beast out of its misery and simply ending the film after the climactic match (which, by the way, follows a climactic shoot out.) Sloan, of course, proves victorious, putting Lane in unrecoverable debt from the numerous outrageous bets he cannot pay. Sloan gets the little girl back – it's over and done with, right? Hero wins, villain loses? We can assume a few loose ends get tied up, non? At the expense of pacing and structure, the film refuses to let its audience go until it assures us with a third climactic scene that explicitly shows the villain gets what's coming to him, all the girls he holds captive are set free, and that nice detective is going to let Sloan off the hook. If you're going to go through so much trouble to spell things out, why stop there? Why not have a note at the end of the credits that reads, "the film is over. It is now safe to eject this DVD."

I'm taking it from viewing Kickboxer 3 that the filmmakers are running out of ideas. Sasha Mitchell returns as kickboxer David Sloan, who goes to Rio with mentor and gym partner Xian Chow (played again by the wonderfully talented Dennis Chan in sadly his last American film) to compete in a match versus the deadly Eric Martine, played with some mancing velocity by kickboxer Ian Jacklin. Martine's manager Frank (Rich Comar) also runs a teen prostitution ring. Yeah, definitely diminishing. This film is a decent entry in the series and Sasha gets to do his kickboxing here, but the plot of the crime ring...yeah, too much.