Leofwine_draca KICKBOXER 3: THE ART OF WAR sees Sasha Mitchell and Dennis Chan teaming up to battle some Brazilian thugs in this South American adventure. It's very much a cookie-cutter production, with the actual kickboxing tournament sidelined in favour of some distinctly B-movie style shenanigans and high energy bouts. That said, it's a film not without a certain early 1990s charm, in that acting and plot are sidelined in favour of plentiful, hard-hitting action.The storyline is basic to say the least and involves a nefarious bad guy who has a habit of kidnapping innocent girls to use in his brothel. Inevitable, our hero and his sidekick end up getting involved with said villain, and plenty of fisticuffs and shoot-outs ensue. The best thing about the movie is the action; it will never win prizes for originality, but it certainly proves to be satisfying. The choreography is basic but the style is pleasingly violent and packed to the brim with mayhem.Mitchell himself is a wooden, stilted actor and yet he proves himself a powerhouse in the fight scenes; certainly a guy you wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of. Dennis Chan, however, is the best person in this, bringing plenty of that trademark mentor charm from the original. The rest of the cast, both good guys and bad, are distinctly undistinguished, but as sequels go this straightforward B-movie isn't without charm.

vchimpanzee For reasons explained in my review of "Kickboxer 2: The Road Back", I STILL haven't seen the first one.In a wooded area outside Rio de Janeiro,a beautiful girl in a dress that doesn't cover much is being chased by a man who wants to kill her.Meanwhile, kickboxing champ David Sloan and his trainer Xian are on a plane to Rio as David is about to face Argentinian champ Martine.And there is nice music in Frank Lane's restaurant, where it appears wealthy men are being set up with hookers.And where do the hookers come from? There is a large group of young girls in a room, who are shown what could happen to them. Remember the girl who was being chased?In Rio, Marcos and his sister Isabella work together to steal the camera David and Xian brought with them. David chases Marcos and discovers he is one of a large group of kids who are basically homeless, though their shelter is an unfinished hotel. David and Marcos become friends, and David and Xian try to keep Marcos and Isabella safe while working to improve their circumstances.Before the big fight, David participates in an exhibition to benefit the homeless. The people in charge of a fundraiser don't seem to get the irony of treating the very people they are helping as second-class citizens. In an exhibition, no one is supposed to get hurt. Martine doesn't seem to understand that and David gets involved when he sees how Martine's opponent is treated. They will get a rematch.Frank is Martine's manager and he becomes friends with David. But you know he wants something. In Frank's restaurant, there is more good music, this time with a female vocalist, and dancing. Marcos wants to set David up, and he too has a good time dancing. David gets to demonstrate his skills.Eventually, David and Xian must fight, using weapons rather than just their bodies. David also gets a new trainer who is quite brutal compared to Xian. And the outcome of the fight with Martine could have deadly consequences for one of the stars.This film is more of a comedy than the second one, and that's fine with me. Most of the scenes with David and Xian are funny, as are many scenes with Marcos. Even the villains give us some funny lines.In the first film, Sasha Mitchell didn't seem that much like Cody. But he either hadn't played the character yet or hadn't played him very long. In this film, the Cody personality is there from his first line. That's not to say he is always there. Sometimes Mitchell is quite serious and tough. But either playing Cody all those years reduced his IQ or David has been getting hit in the head too much. Since I liked Cody, it was okay with me.Dennis Chan isn't quite as good as in the second movie, in terms of quality, but he is a lot funnier.Noah Verduzco does a very good job as young Marcos, and unlike Joey from the first movie, a similar character, he gets to stay around for the entire movie.One of the villains is in charge of some kind of holiday celebration involving dancing by the locals. They're quite talented.A woman selling some kind of merchandise has only a couple of lines but is very convincing as a real Brazilian.And there's a great fall out of a window. To which David responds, "Now THAT's number seven!"The fighting is good, if you like that sort of thing. It's not nearly as bloody as in the second movie, and in fact this one had a TV-PG rating when I saw it while the other was TV-14. But don't be fooled: this still isn't family fare.It's entertaining enough.

Richard Latanville Kickboxer 3 takes David and Xian on a trip to Brazil for a tournament. The pair befriends a local boy and his sister who try and steal their camera. They team up and the boy show the pair Rio. While on there, they meet a ruthless player (Lane) who steals women and sell them to buyers, who has his eyes on the boy's sister and takes her. The 3 of them are on a quest to save the girl. But got caught, forcing the player (Lane) to put David Sloan on an extensive training to wear him down to gain inside info to bet his life work against Sloan for the Tournament.This movie is probably my favourite of the series. Everyone expect Kickboxer to be a fighting action film, but I think it leans more of an adventure film, it works really well. The Brazilian backdrop gives it some character. I would recommend for a family to see.

jaywolfenstien 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."