Between the years of nineteen-eighty to nineteen-ninety, some of the manliest movies of all time were released to the public. Manly men showed manly emotions and manly feats of manliness to carve out their legend into the hall of manliness for all mankind. Look onto this article and be amazed by the manliness herein.
Well, we couldn’t do a movie without Jean-Claude VanDamme, he is part of our rating scale, right?
This movie set up his legacy of crazy high kicks, Belgian-I want-to-sound American accent, and pretty boy attitude, Bloodsport (1988), was the one.
Yes, indeedy, supposedly based on the true-life adventures of Frank “I may be making this up” Dux, from the pseudo-ninja origin story to the bonding with the tough, but kind, uncultured oaf, this makes even the most offset Lifetime docu-drama look realistic.
Manly movie action sequence-Since this is supposedly how Frank Dux was trained to participate in Bloodsport, I mean the Kumite, I guess we need a superserious training montage to make this movie more manly.
Manly stare and glare action-During the final part of Bloodsport, Frank gets some sand thrown in our face by the evil Chong Li, played by the charismatic Bolo Yeung, and stares and screams at his loss of sight.
Manly love moment for the manly hero- Janice Kent (Leah Ayres), an intrepid reporter trying to write about the Kumite, is being harassed by one of the fighters. Frank kindly steps in and makes a friendly wager for the lady. It goes his way, and surprisingly, he didn’t get back slapped by the young lady.
Manly moment of sensitivity- Frank becomes Bloodsport buddies with a fellow fighter named Jackson, played by the groovy Donald Gibb. After winning the Kumite, Frank bonds with Jackson in the manliest way possible. (See, action heroes can be sensitive, that’s why Van Damme is on our scale of manliness.)
Manly moment of manliness-Proving his bona fides for the man, Frank unleashes what is called the Dim Mak, or Death Touch onto a stack of bricks. Supposedly, this was a technique unique to his senseis school of martial arts.
Manly epic moment of conclusion-In the final fight with the big bad, Frank takes on Chong Li, and after recovering his eyesight, sort of, and feeling his way around the ring (he even saved the ref), Van Damme unleashes a series of superkicks and acrobatics that make this manly conclusion, well, epic.
Manliness on scale of Jean Claude VanDamme (Kickboxer) to Sho Kosugi (Revenge Of The Ninja)-
As this is a VanDamme movie we are giving four out of five Van Dammes for manliness.
(Thanks for the suggestion from Fern Brady, author, publisher, and mondo-groovy person.)