December 2023

My favorite thing about Bloodsport is that it features so many styles of martial arts. In Chan’s movies, it was the “insert style” of Kungfu against the “insert style” of Kungfu. Norris was Karate vs Karate for the most part and Segal was Aikido against street fighting. Rothrock was always high-flying fancy kicking vs street fighting karate ESC stuff and Speakman was Kenpo vs street fighters and another karate fighter. Bloodsport dove into the spectrum of the arts and put them on display. While you don’t really see a lot of them in depth (everything just turns into Karate ultimately), you do see them represented. There is a very distinct Thai boxer named Paco, Monkey Kungfu, Sumo, several Kungfu fighters, street fighting, and Dux with ninjutsu (Taijutsu). Of course, anyone who knows anything about Taijutsu knows that Van Damme is certainly not using it.