Kickboxer remains one of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s most beloved movies, alongside his earlier Bloodsport. Both movies were made by smaller production companies, and when JCVD became too big a star to return for sequels, they were spun off into low-budget, direct-to-video franchises with new leads. The Bloodsport movies starred future 87North mainstay Daniel Bernhardt but didn’t make much of an impact. However, the Kickboxer sequels were fairly successful as far as DTV movies went, with the films casting a promising newcomer named Sasha Mitchell. Now, the first sequel is getting a full-on Collector’s Edition Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Limited.
Still best known for playing Cody on ABC’s Step by Step, Mitchell was a strong choice to lead a series of Kickboxersequels, with the first one, Kickboxer 2, well regarded by fans of martial arts movies. In it, Mitchell played David Sloan, the brother of the first film’s Kurt (Van Damme) and Eric (Dennis Alexio) — both of whom are murdered by the first movie’s bad guy, Tong Po (Michel Qissi), offscreen. Now forced to face Tong Po himself, David receives training from his brothers’ mentor in the first film, Dennis Chan’s Xian Chow.
While no one will call Kickboxer 2 a classic, it’s relatively lavish as far as DTV sequels go, with a solid cast that includes Peter Boyle, John Diehl, and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, as well as solid direction by Albert Pyun (Cyborg, Nemesis). It was good enough that it spawned two more sequels with Mitchell, Kickboxer 3 (always my favorite of the sequels) and Kickboxer 4, before Mitchell was replaced by Mark Dacascos in the cheap Redemption: Kickboxer 5.
No news yet on when Kickboxer 2 will actually be released, but Lionsgate has unveiled the new cover art, which you can see below. There’s no news on the specs yet either, but it would be cool to see an interview with Mitchell, who had a promising career in action between these movies, Class of 1999, and his stint on Step by Step. It would also be great to see more DTV classics, like the Thomas Ian Griffith banger Excessive Force and the kick-butt Pierce Brosnan flick Live Wire, get nice releases like this.
Will you be picking up Kickboxer 2? Let us know in the comments.
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