How do the Kickboxer movies rank, from worst to best? 1989’s Kickboxer is a cult classic and one of the most popular martial arts films in Jean-Claude Van Damme’s career. With the first film in the series, Kickboxer pit the Muscles from Brussels against the ruthless Muay Thai killing machine, Tong Po (Michel Qissi).
Kickboxer would be followed by four sequels, though Van Damme did not return as his kickboxing protagonist Kurt Sloan. Kickboxer 2 through Kickboxer 4 focused their attention on Sasha Mitchell as the new hero of the series, David Sloan, while Mark Dacascos later headlined 1995’s Redemption: Kickboxer 5. Van Damme would later return to the franchise with the reboot Kickboxer: Vengeance in 2016, this time in the mentor role of Master Durand with Alain Moussi as the new Kurt Sloan, both returning for 2018’s Kickboxer: Retaliation.
The Kickboxer series has long been a consistently action-packed blast for martial arts fans. In addition to boosting the early career of Van Damme, the Kickboxer franchise was also the big break for many of the other aforementioned big stars in the martial arts movie world, displaying their skills in the franchise’s roundhouse and spinning kick-filled action scenes. As a testament to the Kickboxer franchise, Tong Po himself also continues to stand as one of the greatest martial arts movie villains of all time. Here are all the movies in the Kickboxer series, from weakest to strongest.
Kickboxer 2: The Road Back (1991)
The Kickboxer series switched its protagonist’s chair to David Sloane for Kickboxer 2, and despite a few decent fight scenes, the movie took a very ill-advised approach to that transition. David Sloane (Sasha Mitchell), the brother of Kurt and Eric Sloan, runs a kickboxing gym in Los Angeles, and gets roped into a scheme of revenge on the Sloane family by Tong Po. While writing in another Sloan hero as Alien 3 opened on, and is just as impossible to overlook.
Despite the great talents of Mitchell and other martial artists like Vince Murdocco and Matthias Hues and the returning Dennis Chan as Kurt’s mentor Xian Chow, Kickboxer 2 is also a major downgrade in the presentation of its fight scenes from the first Kickboxer's Van Damme-led martial arts battles. Much more average than those of its predecessor, Kickboxer 2’s fights also have a bizarre element of extreme close-ups on the bloodied faces of fighters taking punches and lingering there far longer than necessary. Kickboxer 2 is not the kind of sequel one hopes for from the far more impactful original, and while Murdocco snags some good moments in a few of the sharper kickboxing fights of the movie, Kickboxer 2 is otherwise a letdown with an underwhelming Tong Po return and largely unimpressively showcased fight scenes.
Kickboxer 3: The Art of War (1992)
After the Kickboxer franchise plummeted to its low point, in contrast to the greater success of the Bloodsport martial arts movie series, Kickboxer 3: The Art of War provided a slight comeback for Kickboxer. Kickboxer 3 takes David and Xian to Rio de Janiero for a match, where the two end up uncovering a child trafficking operation. Kickboxer 3 is a more competent movie overall than Kickboxer 2, with real-life kickboxing champion Ian Jacklin bringing some great new energy to the series as David’s opponent in the ring as Eric Martine. Still, the step up it represents is hardly a proper return to form, with the fight scenes still largely average and the clunky story working too hard to pit David and Xian against organized crime.
In a lot of ways, Kickboxer 3 barely feels like it is even a part of the Kickboxer franchise, and probably would have even with Jean-Claude Van Damme returning due to the general tonal detour it represents, with both the charm and the finesse of the original Kickboxer a distant memory the moment the film gets started. Like Murdocco in Kickboxer 2, Jacklin is the greatest source of entertainment in Kickboxer 3. Otherwise, there is similarly little to recommend.
Kickboxer 4: Aggressor (1994)
The Kickboxer movies gradually clawed their way back to their original standards over time, and while Kickboxer 4: Aggressor is hardly the equal of the original, it at least does what it set out to do far better than Kickboxer 2 or Kickboxer 3, this time bringing David Sloane to fight Tong Po again after the Muay Thai masster has become a crime boss in Mexico. Kickboxer 4 rather unnecessarily reminds viewers of the loss of one-time Predator Van Damme's protagonist Kurt and Dennis Alexio's Eric Sloane during its opening credits, but once the movie gets past that, Kickboxer 4 at least has some decent action scenes with David and his many opponents.
By the time of Kickboxer 4, Tong Po had been done to death and then some as a villain, (Kamel Krifa replacing Michel Qissi in Kickboxer 4). The plot of Kickboxer 4 of David competing in Tong Po’s tournament to the death to rescue his wife Vicky (Deborah Mansy) is just as simplistic as the first two Kickboxer sequels, and director Albert Pyun (who also helmed Kickboxer 2) has done far better work in movies like Cyborg and Bloodmatch. Still, Kickboxer 4 does enough right to show that the franchise had more life in it.
Kickboxer: Vengeance (2016)
Kickboxer was updated for the modern age with 2016’s Kickboxer: Vengeance, with a new Tong Po in Dave Bautista and Van Damme ing the torch to stunt man Alain Moussi in his first major role. Kickboxer: Vengeance follows the essence of the 1989 original, with Darren Shahlavi’s Eric Sloane defeated (and in this case killed) in a match with Thailand’s reigning champion Tong Po. Eric’s brother Kurt (Moussi) trains for a revenge match under Master Durand (Van Damme), and as with the original, fans of training montages and the art of splits will have plenty to enjoy with Kickboxer: Vengeance.
Alain Moussi does an all-around fine job as the new Kurt Sloane, and is a marvel to behold in fight scenes, especially matching Van Damme’s trademark helicopter kick. Bautista also brings the powerful presence that a villain like Tong Po demands. Meanwhile, Van Damme, continually flipping his '90s persona, really finds a new niche for himself as a martial arts mentor, though the decision to quite noticeably dub half of his dialogue mars the film. Kickboxer: Vengeance embraces the testosterone and ‘80s camp of the original and is a fun watch for martial arts fans, along with being an emotional one for being one of the last appearances of Darren Shahlavi, who tragically ed away in 2015 at 42.
Kickboxer: Retaliation (2018)
Kickboxer: Vengeance was not without its bumps in the road, and its 2018 sequel Kickboxer: Retaliation took notice of them to deliver a significantly better sequel. In Retaliation, Kurt Sloan is coerced by Thailand-based crime boss Thomas Moore (Christopher Lambert) into facing champion fighter Mongkut (Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson). Dimitri Logothetis, the screenwriter of Vengeance, steps up to direct Retaliation, and while the plot is not a radical shift from the fight films of Van Damme's filmography, he shows real promise as a martial arts filmmaker.
Alain Moussi is even more astonishing in his fight scenes as Kurt, battling through a prison in an excellent one-shot fight and even taking on former world heavyweight boxing champ Mike Tyson. Van Damme is also back as Durand and shows his clear knack for mentor roles has only grown sharper, becoming a Miyagi-level Muay Thai trainer who adapts to being blinded without the slightest difficulty. If Kickboxer: Vengeance was a good warm-up, Kickboxer: Retaliation is a real martial arts powerhouse with a villain aptly described by Durand as “four times Tong Po” and delivering on that in his showdown with Kurt, which is also surely behind calls for Alain Moussi to be cast as Johnny Cage.
Redemption: Kickboxer 5 (1995)
While more of a tangential off-shoot of the Kickboxer movies than a full continuation of their story, Redemption: Kickboxer 5 is easily the best of the four sequels. Mark Dacascos stars as Matt Reeves (not to be confused with the director of The Batman), on a mission to avenge the death of his friend and fellow fighter Johnny (Denney Pierce) against kickboxing megalomaniac Negaal (James Ryan). Negaal is right out of the James Bond franchise in his efforts to forcibly build the South Africa-based Negaal Kickboxing Federation into the ultimate kickboxing promotion, and his cartoonishly evil portrayal of Negaal is half the reason to see Kickboxer 5.
Mark Dacascos is spellbindingly amazing in his fight scenes in Kickboxer 5. Matt also has a somewhat gruffer ally in Paul Croft (Geoff Meed) with his own vendetta with Negaal’s gang, with his more burly fighting style contrasted to the fluidity Mark Dacascos brought to the John Wick movies seen in his role as Matt. Redemption: Kickboxer 5 is everything Kickboxer fans love about the series and everything martial arts fans adore about the ‘90s straight-to-video kickboxing sub-genre in one package, made that much better by Mark Dacascos as the movie’s high-kicking lead and James Ryan’s daffy narcissism as Negaal (who even gets in a match with a German fighter played by Gavin Hood).
Kickboxer (1989)
Jean-Claude Van Damme was off to a start strong in his early career in the ‘80s, and Kickboxer is still one of the most refined and enjoyable martial arts films he ever made. When American champion kickboxer Eric Sloan (Dennis Alexio) travels to Thailand for a match with Tong Po, the vicious monster of the ring leaves Eric crippled with an elbow to the back. Van Damme's non-twin brother Kurt trains with Xian Chow to defeat Tong Po. Kurt’s harsh Muay Thai training is one of the best relationships of teacher and student ever portrayed in an American martial arts movie, with Kurt also developing a romance with Chow’s niece Mylee (Rochelle Ashana).
Kickboxer’s fight and training scenes show why the movie remains a favorite among Van Damme fans, while Van Damme’s bar dance to Beau Williams's “Feelin’ So Good Today” is a fun romp of his affability and flexibility alike. Kurt’s showdown with Tong Po for the honor of Eric is also one of Van Damme's all-time best battles, Kurt and Tong Po's fists bound in glass-coated hemp as the hero spin-kicks his revenge against his enemy. Kickboxer is second only to Bloodsport on the ranking of Jean-Claude Van Damme's movies, but when it comes to the Kickboxer series itself, with its outstanding martial arts fights, training montages, and Stan Bush's classic rock ballad "Never Surrender", the original Kickboxer continues to hold the franchise's championship belt.
