When one thinks of a martial arts tournament movie, the Bloodsport franchise immediately springs to mind, but which of the four films in the series is the best? First hitting theaters in 1988, Bloodsport launched the career of a Belgian immigrant few had heard of at the time by the name of Jean-Claude Van Damme. The movie's success would cement it as perhaps the template of secretive underground tournaments where the stakes can literally be deadly, and being just one example of the Hollywood of the 1980's being something of an assembly line of eventual martial arts classics like The Karate Kid and Best of the Best.
Bloodsport would later spawn three sequels, though Van Damme didn't return for any of them, with Daniel Bernhardt portraying the new focal point of the series, Alex Cardo. Though the spotlight had shifted to a new protagonist, the Bloodsport sequels largely maintained a thematic continuity with the first with their tournament setting, the shared flexibility of Van Damme and Bernhardt, and Bernhardt's own rather striking resemblance to Van Damme. Talks of a reboot have also rumbled occasionally over the years, and while one hasn't gotten off the ground yet, 2017's Lady Bloodfight would offer its own female-centered take on the shrouded tournament known as the Kumite.
Over three decades since it first hit theaters, Bloodsport still continues to blow away viewers and remains one of, if not, the best Van Damme movie ever. At the same time, the sequels, largely carry over the feel of the original Bloodsport. While varying in quality and mostly disconnected from the first at a character level, the Bloodsport sequels do a decent job themselves of capturing the power and exhilaration of the Kumite - at least the first two, at any rate.
4. Bloodsport 4: The Dark Kumite
A simultaneously misleading and fitting title was certainly bestowed upon Bloodsport 4: The Dark Kumite, by far the worst installment of the franchise by a longshot. Following his appearances in the two preceding sequels, Daniel Bernhardt returns in the new role of Agent John Keller, who goes into prison undercover to investigate disappearing prisoners and gets involved in the Kumite during his mission. Bloodsport 4 may technically involve a high stakes martial arts tournament known as the Kumite, but nothing about the movie feels like Bloodsport. The charismatic Bernhardt does his best with the material he's got, but the onslaught of bad dialogue and clumsy writing makes Bloodsport 4 a classic exercise in simply suffering through a lot of dreck just to see some decent fight scenes. Not helping matters is how hammy the acting of some of the supporting cast can get, such as the judge who sentences Keller, who could easily swap places with Judge Stephen Wexler from Ghostbusters 2 and no one would be the wiser.
Despite the return of Bernhardt and the presence of many talented martial artists and stunt people, the action scenes also just don't have the same impact as those of the preceding films. Packed with the most stock sound effects of punches landing, the fights are overall pretty generic, lacking the blend of inventiveness and power that made the original Bloodsport such a landmark tournament movie There's also frankly too little action anyway until the last half hour, the first two-thirds being more of a behind-bars cat-and-mouse game, and an uninteresting one at that, between Keller, and fellow prisoner Max Schrek, played by the late Stefanos Miltsakakis. Even the Kumite arena itself just doesn't capture the feel of the kind of secret society of the world's greatest fighters found in the Bloodsport world, and the manner in which the final match concludes feels completely out of place in the context of the series. In all, Bloodsport 4 isn't just the nadir of the Bloodsport series, but the least Bloodsport-ish chapter of the whole franchise, and is really only worth seeing for die hard completionists.
3. Bloodsport 3
Bloodsport 3 isn't quite on the same level as its immediate predecessor, but the second Bloodsport sequel still brought with it no shortage of the martial arts action fans of the series expect. Daniel Bernhardt returns as Alex Cardo, who returns to once more compete in the next upcoming Kumite to avenge his master Sun, played by James Hong. Bloodsport 3 innovates on the story structure of the series a bit by presenting the Kumite itself as a flashback, with the wrap-around being Alex recounting the competition to his young son Jason, played by David Schatz, and this brings some heartfelt moments into the franchise that the series had never really had. It also works a little bit of martial arts mysticism into the story, with Alex demonstrating the more esoteric and spiritual benefits that his many years of training have afforded him.
The aspect of Bloodsport 3, and by extension the series starts to dip a bit is in the arena of the Kumite itself. Whereas the first two presenting the setting as stepping into an underground world of warriors, Bloodsport 3's arena just doesn't capture the same feeling of secrecy and grandeur as its two predecessors did, though it certainly didn't drop that ball anywhere near as hard as Bloodsport 4 would. Furthermore, the concept of the Kumite was a completely familiar one by the time of Bloodsport 3, and the film doesn't add much new to the formula that the series was running on by this point other than Alex telling the story of it to his son. However, as a tournament movie, Bloodsport 3 still delivers what it promises with plenty of thrilling fight scenes and Daniel Bernhardt's usual grinning charm carrying the way. It may not be quite as engaging as the two that came before it, but Bloodsport 3 is still a lot of action-packed fun.
2. Bloodsport 2: The Next Kumite
As the second chapter in the series, Bloodsport 2: The Next Kumite is a surprisingly worthy follow-up to one of the seminal martial arts tournament movies. Daniel Bernhardt makes his debut in the series as professional thief Alex Cardo, who learns the 'Iron Hand' technique while serving time in a Thai prison, and gets a shot to test his newfound skills in the upcoming Kumite. Aside from the tournament itself, Donald Gibb returning as Ray Jackson is the only major connective tissue to the original, but Bloodsport 2 still feels like it carries the same DNA as the first in its training and fight sequences. Bernhardt himself is just as engaging a lead as Van Damme, grinning and cracking jokes at one moment before whipping out spinning kicks the next, and with the first having sold its hero as much on his impressive flexibility as his fighting skill, Bernhardt shows himself a worthy successor to Van Damme in the splits department, too.
As a sequel, Bloodsport 2 is keenly aware of what its audience wants to see and wastes no time in giving them fantastic martial arts fights that genuinely equal the original in both quality and quantity. Ong Soo Han also makes a formidable villain as the sadistic prison warden Demon (no one ever accused the Bloodsport movies of being subtle), whom Alex later finds himself facing in the Kumite. Just as with the first film, Bloodsport 2's Kumite is full of fantastic battles involving an eclectic range of different martial arts forms, and the final smackdown of Alex and Demon pays off the former's hard training in a very satisfying way. What could have been just another forgotten low-budget sequel to a groundbreaking hit is instead an very admirable sequel, and while these days, Bernhardt is more known for his roles in The Matrix Reloaded and John Wick, Bloodsport 2 was where he really got to show what he could do for the first time.
1. Bloodsport
The Bloodsport series began with its first installment in 1988, and to this day, it remains one of the all time greatest martial arts tournament movies. The then up-and-coming Jean-Claude Van Damme portrays Frank Dux, and American special forces soldier and Ninjutsu master who travels to Hong Kong to compete in the underground full contact tournament known as The Kumite to honor his master Senzo Tanaka, played by Roy Chiao. Bloodsport was based upon the purported actual competitive experience of the real-life Frank Dux, and while the veracity of the story that Bloodsport was built upon is questionable at best, there's no denying its place as one of greatest American martial arts films. As an emerging star, Van Damme had a charisma and screen presence that foretold his rise as a true action star in the coming year, while his martial arts ability was simply astounding, as was his flexibility. Bloodsport went out of its way to drive home what the end result of years of stretching can do, from Dux casually meditating in a chair-to-chair split to spiraling through the air with helicopter kicks. Both would be liberally seen in Van Damme's subsequent career, but it was Bloodsport that made them his trademark.
The Kumite itself is simply alive in a way that few other cinematic martial arts competitions have ever been, and brings in a full array of different disciplines, including Muay Thai, Sumo, Capoeira, numerous forms of Kung Fu, and many others. Donald Gibb adds plenty of comic relief as Dux's eager fellow competitor Ray Jackson, the two forming a strong bond over the course of the tournament, though Ray's complete lack of any codified training makes it a little hard to buy that he makes it as far as facing the feared Chong Li. Speak of the devil, none other than Bolo Yeung of Enter the Dragon portrays the villainous champion of the Kumite, directly quoting numerous lines the film while flexing his muscles and mercilessly finishing his opponents with abandon. Motivated to defeat Dux's for having his knockout time record broken, Yeung enlivens Bloodsport just as much as Van Damme does, and their final showdown gives the audience exactly what they came for. With training montages, a twinkle-laden score, Dux's demonstrate of the lethal dim mak, and the timeless and ridiculously replayable song "Fight to Survive", Bloodsport has everything that a martial arts tournament flick demands, and among all of the films in the series, it remains the true king of the Kumite.