Kickboxer 3: The Art of War

i may be in the minority here,but i actually liked this movie.for a straight to video martial arts movie,it isn't all that bad.trust me,i've seen a lot worse movies of this genre,some of which have(inexplicably)had a theatrical release.anyway back to this movie.what did i like about it?i liked the dynamic of the wise(cracking)mentor and the younger,cocky student.Dennis Chan plays the mentor Xian,while Sasha Mitchell plays the young hero.there are some funny lines from both and they both play off each other very well.Mitchell is fairly credible as an action hero.i'm not sure if he has any martial arts experience,but if not,then the fight scenes are very well choreographed.there are some great fights in this movie.Chan is also very good in his role as the sidekick.the fact that the movie had some levity is also a positive.also,unlike in many movies of the genre, where the acting is forced or over the top,that isn't the case here the actors know they're not doing Hamlet.the plot may not be original,but the material is handled as well as any other martial art flick.so, at the risk of being hunted down and shot,i give this movie a 7/10(oh,that's right,i can't be hunted down and shot,because no one knows who i am. (big raspberry)

David Sloan and his trainer Xian arrives in Buenos Aires for a kickboxing tournament. Once there they befriend a young boy and his sister living on the streets. When the promoter of David's championship rival turns out to be a pimp the boy's sister is stolen away due to the value of virgins. David is held captive by the pimp, Lane and is forced to do heavy work weakening his body. Can David stay focused in order to free the girl and win his fight? This should be called "Kickboxer 3 - so very lame". It should never be a series anyway! Clue to a poor series of films - if Jean Claude Van Damme bails after the first one! The plot here is lazy - it paints it's bad guys big and tries to set up a fight every so often to make it interesting. There's no characters and it's even hard to care about the children. You don't believe that any of the good guys could get hurt, so you don't care what they get into.

The performances are pretty bad, the street boy is good but Sasha Mitchell acts like a spoilt kid from LA. With his clothes and tattoos he looks a bit like a clean-cut Eminem. Dennis Chan is supposed to give comic relief as Xian, however he misses the mark most of the time and comes off looking like a low-rent Mr Miyagi from the Karate Kid series. Comar is a terrible bad guy - unbelievable and unsympathetic to the end, while Sloan's championship challenger is your standard mad, bad guy fare.

The fights are ok I guess - standard kickboxing stuff, but they are what the film is all about, and as such they should be great! They not - which I guess means the film fails on the most basic level. Overall a pretty poor film that doesn't even reach the low standard it set for itself.

Maybe it's because I don't have too much expectation when I approach the 'Kickboxer' series but I have to say that I find all of these movies enjoyable, all things considered. This third instalment is set in Rio which does add a dash of exotic flavour to proceedings. In it, our Kickboxing champion, David Sloan, arrives in Brazil for a competition but soon becomes involved with rescuing a girl from a sex slave racket.

Apart from the South American setting, what sets this one apart from the other previous entries in the series is that we now have the kickboxer going around shooting people. The introduction of guns into the mix gives this instalment more of a standard action-thriller feel. There are a few fights but the martial arts side of the story is definitely more marginalised in this one. Sasha Mitchell does have a dopey and personable charm in the lead role; while everyone else does what's expected of them. It moves at a fast pace, it doesn't have any surprises but its good straightforward fun.

well folks, I got to say, as a Brazilian, that the portrait of Rio is not very flattering... And, unfortunately, very true. Some stupid things aside (for example, gambling is prohibited in my country since the 40's), this light-weight martial arts flick delivers, gave me some well-received giggles and Mitchell hold his own as a fighter and is quite credible as the main man.Using the character of Xian, played with gusto by Dennis Chan, as the link to the most famous movie of this series, starred by Van Damme, the plot shows a harsh reality, the women trafficking and children abandonment in my country with levity and good laughs with very good fight scenes. Definitely, a nice example of how a Direct-to-video sequel can be when a little care is taken; it does not have to always be garbage.

Sasha Mitchell reprises his role as David Sloan who has since # 2 become a bona-fide kickboxing champion who flies to Rio to compete to defend his championship however along the way he decides to take down a prostitution racket and does so without hardly breaking a sweat. Did I give away too much by the last sentence? Well let's just say that this predictable sequel is a marginal improvement over # 2. This time there is more attractive scenery, more action and more plot than # 2, which was irritatingly straight forward.) That being said the movie is still hugely flawed. The main problem dealing with the fact that K3 has little kickboxing. Indeed the fight sequence at the end as well as the opponent could've easily been written out and it wouldn't have changed a thing. Mitchell and Chan rely on more guns and while this element works for action fans, the lack of training montage and fights make this a tepid effort.

* * out of 4-(Fair)