Following in the footsteps of his hero Bruce Lee, Jean-Claude Van Damme carried the torch for Hollywood’s martial arts movies into the 1980s, along with his friend Chuck Norris. Van Damme already had a stellar career as a professional martial artist before he moved into American cinema in the decade’s early years, and his expertise shows in one 1988 classic of martial arts filmmaking. Newt Arnold’s Bloodsport sees Van Damme starring as U.S. Army Captain Frank Dux, who also happens to be a highly-trained ninja warrior.

The movie’s fight scenes cemented Van Damme’s place as a martial arts superstar, but it’s also an exhibition of ninjitsu filmmaking in its own right. The movie’s story plays a secondary role to Van Damme’s performance in the arena, with superbly styled fighting sequences taking center stage. This was effectively the movie that began the modern era of American-made martial arts cinema.

Jean-Claude Van Damme's Bloodsport Remains One Of The Best American-Made Martial Arts Movies

Its Stylized Fight Sequences Are Timelessly Brilliant

Bloodsport does what its name suggests, providing a scintillating spectacle for martial arts fans looking for a dramatization of their favorite sports. There’s plenty of blood spilled in the arena, primarily by the opponents of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s character Frank Dux. Director Newt Arnold and his team are at pains to showcase the extreme agility and strength involved in the moves Van Damme and his fellow martial artists perform. They sometimes apply several camera angles and state-of-the-art slow-motion effects to emphasize the physical feats being accomplished, and always accompany each hit with a stylized vocal exclamation.

These formal features of Bloodsport would go on to inspire a new generation of Western martial arts cinema. Still, none of the actors that followed could fight onscreen quite like Van Damme. He was a genuine fighting machine, the greatest of his generation in Hollywood, and the main reason why the movie is still one of the martial arts genre’s best to have been made in the United States.

Why Bloodsport's Audience Score On Rotten Tomatoes Is So Much Higher Than Its Critics' Score

The Audience And The Critics See Different Things In The Movie

Bloodsport’s fans are more than happy to celebrate arguably Van Damme’s most underrated movie, or his most overrated by fans.

The huge divergence in audience and critics’ scores for Van Damme’s movie can be ascribed to the different things that reviewers are looking to see, as opposed to its regular viewers. Critics are assessing Bloodsport not only on the basis of its stylish portrayal of martial arts fight sequences, but in of characterization and plot. On these fronts, the movie doesn’t appear particularly convincing, but for martial arts fans, they are secondary factors designed only to set up the fight scenes. It doesn’t matter whether Van Damme’s characterization of Dux is realistic. What matters is that Dux’s fight scenes work as a spectacle.

Bloodsport Had A Huge Influence On American-Made Martial Arts Movies

Its Legacy Is Visible In Most Of Hollywood’s Depictions Of Martial Arts From The Last 3 Decades

In the decades since its initial successful release, Bloodsport has developed a best American-made martial arts movies of the last three decades owe something to Arnold’s film.

Most of the best American-made martial arts movies of the last three decades owe something to Arnold’s film.

Bloodsport wasn’t just a seminal moment in Jean-Claude Van Damme’s career as an actor and martial artist. It was a landmark moment in modern martial arts cinema. The movie might have its detractors, but no one can deny that the Muscles from Brussels takes some stopping in the arena once he gets going.