The Last Kumite

The Opening shot was promising, a tour around a U. S. city, the soundtrack pumping, could this be a fresh new take on the kick-boxer and Blood-Sport movies of the 1980s?

Unfortunately not, I barely got past the opening tournament. It look like it was filmed in my Primary school's PE hall, I just couldn't take it seriously after that. The rows of bright oblong overhead lights, the crowd seated around the edge - I don't know, it just looked wrong!

Lots of over-the-top knowing looks between the actors, it almost comes across as a spoof.

The wimpish looking balding lead actor looks like he's pushing 50, sorry but Van-Damme he's not!

I guess this shows it's not that easy to make martial arts movies, even if the guys who made this are fans.

In the world of great remakes (like Cobra Kai), this is an amateur try. Despite of a wonderful cast that gathers some former cult names of the martial arts movie world like Kurt McKinney, Matthias Hues, Cinthia Rothrock and Billy Blanks - all of them playing together should be kind of a sensation -the movie seems pale. Don´t get me wrong: The original Bloodsport also has some less professional scenes (like the backflashes to Frank Dux´past), but is a lot more epic. It´s also obvious how incredibly handsome, elegant and charismatic JCVD was in such a movie. Mathis Landwehr is a fit an sympathetic, probably very skilled fighter, but seems quite unimportant in comparence. This may also be due to the films budget, which is less than Bloodsport had 30 years ago. Most of it probably was used for the actors, so there wasn´t much left for the script (big mistake!), camera and locations. Probably culty to watch for some, but a "fan-movie" that will be forgotten quickls.

No enthusiasm from the actors. Incoherent storyline. No uniquness just copying jcvd's inital movie and even the villain in this movie sounds like drago from rocky 4. The last kumite will certainly be 'the last' of those old school actors, they could have been used much better. Even david yeung should have more airtime. You put egotistical people like viking samurai in this film makes it even more rubbish. Avoid . Good thing jcvd or scott adkins didn't sign up for this bs movie. I don't think the directors or producers have any idea how to film or be creative. The set looked like a very cheap theatre stage. Possibly the worst 'fighting' movie I've ever seen. Even some of the training scenes are a replica from kickboxer , one of viking samurai's lines is a straight up plagiarism from bloodsport 2 as well, when he says 'if we get matched up I ain't holding back'. Viking samurai aka david kurzhal also does a flop when he attempt's jcvd's helicoper kick, viking bends his knees, like seriously dude have you got no creativity make your own unique moves instead of just being a ripoff and a poor one at that. The only female in the kumite again parallel to bloodsport 2. The flashback kurt mckiney has of dracko in the mirror again copying bloodsport 1 when van damme thinks he saw bolo while he was on the bus. So many plagiarisms. If this was a spoof then it would have a different effect, seriously the acting is so bad at times it does make you laugh. Nothing like bloodsport just a very poor ripoff.

I understand this was a kickstarter funded film wanting to go back to the 80's style of martial arts movies but this was just poor.

Ok you can't get the best actors, martial arts stars but the script/storytelling is so basic it just feels like no effort was put in whatsoever. There is nothing in this that even remotely seems like effort was involved. It is the paint by numbers version of a martial arts movie which would be fine if it was made on tight budget by a studio but this was crowd funded yet so little effort was put in. It's not unwatchable but it is also just poor even for 'this' type of movie.

Granted, I wasn't really harboring the biggest of expectations to this 2024 action movie titled "The Last Kumite" when I sat down to watch it. In fact, I had never actually heard about the movie prior to watching it, so I didn't really know what I was in for here.

The storyline and script in "The Last Kumite" was so simplistic that it was bordering on being embarrassing to sit through. Writers Ross W. Clarkson and Sean David Lowe didn't exactly bring much of anything new or interesting to the martial arts genre. In fact, the storyline and narrative in the movie was generic and predictable. You're not in an evening of Shakespearian theater when you sit down to watch this movie; not that I was expecting that, actually.

When you sit down to watch a movie such as "The Last Kumite", of course you want to see the fighting tournament and see some impressive displays of fighting and martial arts. Well, you might want to brace yourself with a hefty amount of patience, if you sit down to watch "The Last Kumite", because you need to sit through 65 minutes of filler dialogue, attempts at character building and training montages before you get to the good part, and with the movie running at a total of 105 minutes, go figure.

There were two familiar faces on the cast list, and that was Cynthia Rothrock and Matthias Hues. I suppose if you were a fan of Cynthia Rothrock then you might find something worthwhile in "The Last Kumite"; I personally can't claim to ever have been a fan of her or her movies. While I do enjoy watching unfamiliar faces and talents on the screen, I have to say that I wasn't particularly impressed with what I saw on the screen here.

The character gallery in "The Last Kumite" was flaccid and one-dimensional. Most of the characters are mere fillers in order to set up Michael Rivers (played by Mathis Landwehr) against Dracko (played by Mike Derudder). In fact, you don't even bother getting to know the names of the characters throughout the movie, because there is zero in-depth characterization of any of them, nor any proper motivation and drives, much less personalities and traits.

Having to wait 65 minutes of boring rubbish before you get to the fights, I have to say that the fight scenes didn't really do much to make up for the long wait. Sure, there were some nicely enough choreographed fights, but it just wasn't sufficient to make up for the boredom of having to suffer through 65 minutes of boredom.

"The Last Kumite" was a boring dumpster fire that simply just managed to get picked up because it has the word 'Kumite' in its title. Yeah, the throwback to the 1988 movie "Bloodsport" that was starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. But "The Last Kumite" doesn't even reach "Bloodsport" to the ankles.

This movie, from director Ross W. Clarkson, was a weak attempt at making a martial arts movie reminiscent of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

My rating of "The Last Kumite" lands on a very, very generous three out of ten stars.