MFF Special: Analyzing the Poor Decision Making of JCVD’s Cinematic Villains

I recently recorded a podcast about JVCD’s first 10 years of action films and I noticed some alarming trends while researching his films. The final villains are all basically the same person. They are larger, stronger and could probably win if they didn’t spend all their time trying not to win. These trained killers resort to prematurely celebrating and thinking barrels are useful weapons. I’m pretty sure they never learned to block and when things go bad they fold quickly.

This post hightlights the poor decisions that JCVD’s  final villains made. You may remember them as ultimate badasses but their hubris and mistakes allowed a much smaller man to punch them repeatedly in the balls (it happens a lot) and kick them into oblivion.

Bloodsport

Chong Li

Scouting Report: Never blocks, celebrates prematurely and waits several minutes while his opponent overcomes powder blindness.

How Did it End? A blind JCVD spin kicks him into oblivion.

Chong Li (Bolo Yeung) is a great villain but his fight antics are uneven. He mows through his competition and makes his way to the final fight of the Kumite. Instead of relying on his killer instincts he does everything in his power to not win. He never blocks, celebrates prematurely and waits several minutes while JCVD sorts out powder induced blindness. Chong Li could have won this fight several times yet chose to act a fool and suffered multiple face kicks for his troubles.

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Double Impact

Moon

Scouting Report: Moon tries to kill a guy with a barrel……..

How Does it End? Electrocution due to putting too much importance on barrels.

Bolo Yeung once again pops up as a final boss and his strategy is to crunch JCVD with a barrel.  This of course gets him kicked in the nuts (a JCVD special) and eventually electrocuted. The guy will never learn.

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Kickboxer

Tong Po

Scouting Report: Tong Po has pillowfists and collapses under pressure. It gets to the point where he can’t hit a guy while that person is looking the other direction.

How Does it End? A pretty gnarly face kick.

So, JCVD has to throw the final fight and take a massive beating at the end of Kickboxer. The problem is his opponent Tong Po can supposedly kill people easily and kick down concrete polls. Tong Po puts it on JCVD at the beginning and does very little damage despite landing about 700 unanswered strikes. When JCVD decides to win Tong Po doesn’t block, throws choreographed punches and becomes a human punching bag. The guy went from being a world beater to a chump in like two minutes.

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Cyborg

Fender

Scouting Report: Flexes way too much, doesn’t capitalize on a hurt opponent and has no clue how to use a very large knife. Named after a guitar.

How Does it End? Impaled by post-apocalyptic hook.

Fender has JCVD immediately on the ropes but chooses to flex and intimidate a woman instead. Then, he lets JCVD punch him in the face about 10 times and flexes some more. Fender eventually pulls out a MASSIVE knife and only gives JCVD a cool movie scar across the cheek. I give him props for doing the fake death thing but when he comes back he eventually gets the real death thing. Not a good performance.

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Lionheart

Atilla

Scouting Report: Atilla loves open hand slaps and allowing his opponent to recover.

How Does it End? JCVD gives him mercy and his street cred becomes nonexistent.

Does anybody block? The bad guy Atilla in Lionheart throws open hand slaps and never capitalizes on a hurt JCVD. Why? Knock him out! Haven’t you watched his other movies? I think this is the worst of all the JCVD fights. Atilla has the weirdest fighting form and I don’t think a champion underground fighter throws open hand slaps.

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The Quest

Khan

Scouting Report: He hits hard but walks very slowly.

How Does it End? An uppercut to the face.

The guy never blocks! He knocks JCVD all over the place and is in no hurry to kill the guy. I get playing with your prey but that should only be when the prey can’t spin kick you in the face.

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Street Fighter

Bison

Scouting Report: He has some cool powers but he limits his flight trajectory.

How Does it End? He gets kicked so hard he flies about 50 feet and into a bunch of television screens.

I understand Raul Julia’s situation on Street Fighter so this fight makes sense. However, when Bison gets super conductive hyper electromagnetism and is able to fly around he makes a very strategic error. He flies in straight lines and eventually gets kicked into some televisions. I don’t buy it.

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Death Warrant

Sandman

Scouting Report: Likes throwing people and playing hide and seek.

How Does it end? The idiot gets kicked into a furnace.

JCVD gets hit with a massive wrench to start the fight and the damn Sandman doesn’t capitalize! What? He constantly lets JCVD run away and is content playing hide and seek. Also, his light bulb knife strategy is weird because it looks like he wants to hug not cut JCVD. To finish it all off he opens up a furnace door, stands in front of it and get kicked into it. Not smart Sandman, not smart.

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Universal Soldier

Andrew

Scouting Report: He is tough but crazy. Allows people to stand stationary and kick him repeatedly in the face.

How Does it End? He gets impaled by a plethora of sharp stuff.

I am a big time fan of Dolph Lundgren but the final fight in Universal Soldier is not one of his high points. He never blocks and does the lame opponent throw  over and over. When things start going bad for Dolph he immediately falls apart and can’t offer any meaningful offense. As the fight wears down JCVD stands in one place and delivers four kicks to Dolph’s face which propel him to a bloody death. Lame.