michael-a-meier

I'm not a film critic nor an expert in cinematography. But I'm a professional musician. For me, this movie seems like a performance by a technically very skilled musician that tries to impress the audience by playing a very diffilcult piece, which is very strategically composed to feature as many difficult and appealing areas of playing as possible. It's an impressive, overloaded piece, but it does not contain that much music. If you want to plan 'project oscar', probably some certain ingredients would help: A world-war 2/jew-harassement-topic (like in Schindlers list), a bit of Me-Too (and even better if you could show that MEN are also victims), architecture (always good!), italian mountain villages (works every time), an unusual film format (you need camera-awards!!), some Tarantino-like plot twists (but careful, not too daring!!), a bit of american dream but also drugs (so it does not get cheesy and always reminds this is serious!) and some sex scenes (that don't have to do anything with the plot) for the normal audience, so the oscar jury is not influenced by too few points on IMDB. Oh, and of course, you need a protagonist that is taken seriously, maybe even already won awards, but if so it has to be a while ago so it could be kind of a comeback-sensation. Is that about it? For me as a normal person going at the movies, this was entertaining, but somehow 'unmusical' and not a masterpiece. I am very curious how many oscars it will get on the end. But I'm quite sure about one thing: About a real, timeless masterpiece you're not going to ask questions.

In the world of great remakes (like Cobra Kai), this is an amateur try. Despite of a wonderful cast that gathers some former cult names of the martial arts movie world like Kurt McKinney, Matthias Hues, Cinthia Rothrock and Billy Blanks - all of them playing together should be kind of a sensation -the movie seems pale. Don´t get me wrong: The original Bloodsport also has some less professional scenes (like the backflashes to Frank Dux´past), but is a lot more epic. It´s also obvious how incredibly handsome, elegant and charismatic JCVD was in such a movie. Mathis Landwehr is a fit an sympathetic, probably very skilled fighter, but seems quite unimportant in comparence. This may also be due to the films budget, which is less than Bloodsport had 30 years ago. Most of it probably was used for the actors, so there wasn´t much left for the script (big mistake!), camera and locations. Probably culty to watch for some, but a "fan-movie" that will be forgotten quickls.