DVD review: Kickboxer: The Fighter, the Winner (1991)

The world of illegal kickboxing is a dangerous jungle! The fighters are surrounded by prostitution, loan sharking, drugs and guns. Even before they enter the ring, outside influences forced by two vicious crime lords are tearing these backstreet gladiators apart. The main event is set.. Two fighters.. One winner! Kickboxer: The Fighter, the Winner is written by AAV Creative Unit, Andrew Chan and Alton Cheung and is directed by Albert Yu also known as Godfrey Ho. The acting is really bad and there´s plenty of hilarious dialogue and dubbing. The camerawork and editing is pretty decent. This is of course another example of Godfrey Ho´s inventive filmmaking technique, shot some new cheaplooking footage (with Caucasian actors) and then use footage from some asian movie that hasn´t had a wider release or been laying on the shelf for many years. I reckon the newer footage make out approx 15 minutes of Kickboxer: The Fighter, the Winner running time and as usual we get an inept and very confusing flick. Bad, boring and ineptly staged fightchoreography in the asian footage that seems to be taken from some unknown filipino gangstermovie. Although the fightchoreography is a little bit better in the newer footage it made me laugh out loud several times, especially when watching the main character Buster (yup that´s his name) fight. There is a lot of shootouts (remember the filipino footage). There´s no gore in this, although there is a couple of squibs. There´s no T & A in this, there is a rapescene that is amongst the lamest ever.
This review is based on the region all (Region 0) DVD release from Eden Entertainment.
Rating: 1 out of 7. Kickboxer: The Fighter, the Winner is yet another Godfrey Ho atrocity. The DVD cover art and synopsis is very misleading as there is hardly any martial arts in this, the main plot is about rival gangsters and they mainly use firearms. Honestly I got problems explaining the plot of this flick as it just too confusing. This flick is very bad but yet strangely enjoyable if you know what you´re getting into... I think I´ll rewatch that final confrontation between Buster and the main bad guy soon, it was so funny I cracked up...

/JL