Blood Sport

Van Damme's first major motion picture; Blood Sport was released in the US in 1988. Blood Sport is based on the true story of Frank Dux, the first westerner to win the eastern dominated Martial Arts competition, Kumite. Kumite is an invitation only full contact competition that features fighters from all over the world. Van Damme played the role of Dux who was a military brat. As an adolescent Dux was caught breaking into the home of a Japanese martial arts instructor who instead of calling the cops takes Dux on as a pupil to train his son in the art of Ninjitsu. When Dux’s boyhood friend and fellow students dies he continues to his training and becomes one of the few westerners at the time to learn the secrets of the ancient art of Ninjitsu.

The fight choreography of this film is restricted to the Kumite Tournament. However there are two other instances in the film that are used to display Van Damme’s strength, agility and skills. There is a flash back scene which tells the story of how Dux came to know Ninjitsu and the sequence features his training. Many of the exercise and techniques shown during this scene appear for the first time in a Hollywood movie. Van Damme’s legs are stretched using various methods. He meditates while being beaten with a bamboo reed. He even fights blind folded and it all culminates with his serving a meal blind folded. The other non-fighting scene in the movie used to show Van Damme’s abilities is a demonstration of his expertise in order to gain access to the tournament. Even though he was invited, the Kumite officials are not convinced he belongs in the tournament representing the Tanaka Clan, his instructor’s family. Therefore he is required to display a vicious technique known only to experts as the dimok – “death touch”. There are a stack of bricks and Van Damme is told to brake the brick on the bottom of the stack. This is probably the most memorable scene in the movie and definitely the coolest visual. In stead of smashing through all the bricks on the table Van Damme using is palm strikes down on the stack with enough force that the bottom brick is crushed by those on the top with only the bottom brick breaking. So freakin cool.

Now onto the Kumite. The tournament itself occurs over a couple of days and Van Damme’s fights are sprinkled in amongst the films depiction of other fighters. Van Damme is seen in five fights including the final championship bout. All five fights are of vary lengths and feature different elements of his skill. The early bouts are shorter and emphasize his power and quickness. In fact his first fight only last twelve seconds during which he breaks the record for shortest match. The first couple of fight scenes give Van Damme a chance to show off the flexibility in his lower extremities by utilizing almost exclusively kicks. More often than not big round house kicks that lend themselves well to film because they can be shoot dramatically in slow motion. Van Damme also utilizes his legs to block his opponent’s attacks using a technique made famous by Bruce Lee.

In later matches Van Damme mixes in the upper body with some punches and head butts. Again a lot of big punches using hooks and roundhouses because of how they show on film. On two separate occasions Van Damme manages to show off his flexibility doing splits while fighting. In one match he throws a kick that is blocked and his opponent who then holds on to his and drags him around the ring with his legs completely split. The next time we see Van Damme using a full split to avoid a bear hug from a charging opponent and while in the split he punches the opponent in the groin– who said brutal martial arts fights can’t be funny. All of this is building towards the final fight sequence in the movie, the championship match. This fight features all of the elements from his earlier fights and even incorporate Van Damme fightin blinded because his opponent used an illegal substance to temporarily blind him during the match. Additional the final fight featured consecutive jumping spinning round house kicks that showed off Van Damme's flexibility, agility, strength and speed. These kicks worked really well because the director is able to slow the speed way down and show his legs fully extended and spread as he lands each kick.

Bloodsport featured Van Damme’s leg strength and flexibility. While there were some punches mixed in this movie was about showing what he could do with his legs.