a.k.a. Kickboxer 2025
(Whuuuuut? That’s the year we’re in!)
Tagline
A personal quest for vengenace
A high tech race for survival
Trailer
Info
Cast
Summary
In a future where Earth is a polluted, crime-ridden hellhole and the rich live on the moon passing their time with VR fantasies and organ upgrades (which is totally not going to happen, right? … RIGHT?), the last of the Cyberons is hired by the widow of a VR fantasy designer murdered by organ thieves to hunt down his killers on the deadly streets of New Los Angeles.
Opinion
The moment I saw the title “Future Kick”, I had to see it. Fans of the TV show Community will understand why.
https://community-sitcom.fandom.com/wiki/Kickpuncher
This Roger Corman-produced flick wisely gives the other actors most of the lines and lets Don kick. My first Don movie, and until I started browsing free streaming, I hadn’t realized just how many, many, many Don Wilson movies were out there!
Overall, a competent straight-to-video actioner with a few gonzo deaths yet still fails to enthuse. Meg Foster at least brings some humanity to the screen, but Chris Penn, the year before Reservoir Dogs, in particular seems wasted. (In hindsight, I should clarify I mean “underutilized”, not “intoxicated”.)
Movie
- https://tubitv.com/es-mx/movies/466817/future-kick
- https://watch.plex.tv/movie/future-kick
- https://mubi.com/en/us/films/future-kick
- https://www.justwatch.com/mx/pelicula/kickboxer-2025 (as so often, currently says it’s unavailable even though it is; I include it here in case it provides better results in future)
Screenshots
deleted by creator
For us Gen Xers, there were a hell of a lot of cheap scifi action flicks in the video rental heyday of the 90s. Including quite a few in the Venn diagram overlap of “future dystopia” + “cyborgs” + “kickboxing”.
I always assumed it was Albert Pyun movies like Cyborg (JCVD) and Nemesis (Olivier Gruner). (Pyun was casting kickboxers as movie leads practically until he died in 2022.) However I see the Community wiki says (but without any citations) Robocop and Cyber Tracker (Don Wilson) (it is now in my watchlist). And then I found this other Don Wilson movie with the “future dystopia” + “cyborgs” + “kickboxing” overlap.
Unless the writers come out and tell us exactly which movies inspired Kickpuncher, we’re left guessing.
PS I wonder if they have, maybe answering audience questions at a convention.
The artist of the Kickpuncher comic doesn’t clear up the issue here:
So I tried to watch this and my site redirect me to Crime zone 🤣
Which link got redirected there? Tubi? Plex? Other?
I used Bingeflix, none of yours
Oh.
I mean, Arrr, matey. :)
Totally not bookmarked.
Ha! I understand what happened. That’s exactly the same props as Crime Zone down to the car and Computer display
There’s recycle scenes too
Shuuuuuut 🤫
Oh man, i had the same reaction before opening your link.
“That’s Kickpuncher!!!”
Harmon’s work often contains weirdly a ton of semi-arcane references to 80’s 90’s B-movies/shows.
:D
Unfortunately, in Future Kick, the Cyberons are only cyborgy on the inside. So apart from repairing injuries they spend most of the movie looking completely human but with shades (excuse me, “visors”).
they spend most of the movie looking completely human
Just found out an alternate title for this movie is… Kickboxer 2025.
So I guess something went right for us at the housewarming party.
Wow. Just… wow.
spoiler
Not one, not two, but THREE decapitations. AND a full-body explosion!!!
Also you can tell at some point they were like: “the movie’s only an hour long!” And it was like: “no problem, I know a bunch of strippers I keep telling I’ll put em in movies, that’ll give us another ten minutes at least.”
Meg Foster at least brings some humanity to the screen, but Chris Penn, the year before Reservoir Dogs, in particular seems wasted.
I think Meg Foster’s talents were kind of wasted too, they spent too much effort trying to make her look like Linda Hamilton.
And I bet Chris Penn only signed up because he trained with “The Dragon”. He prolly cornered him at the gym one day and was like:
- Hey Chris, wanna be in my next movie?
- Uh… I gotta talk to my agent. I’m supposed to do a movie with this guy… uh… Tarantulano or something like that.
- What? That guy’s a video clerk! C’mon, this movie’s Terminator meets Blade Runner meets Total Recall. You’ll look great in it.
- I dunno… I’m kind of busy.
- OK tell you what. Two fight scenes. We’ll do the bo-stick kata and we’ll just free-style for a bit. I’ll give you three lines max, and we can get you in and out in just one afternoon. Whatdayasay?
- Aw, all right Don, but just this once!
It was a lot of fun tho. Don Wilson’s movies are all of this quality, but he seems to take em seriously.
:D
Aki Aleong just died, I notice he did several movies with Wilson, might check one out.
And looking at Wilson’s Wikipedia, it mentioned he joined the Coast Guard Academy, which perplexed me. Until I realized he was old enough to be drafted and sent to Vietnam! He’s 70 now! I always thought of him in the same age bracket as JCVD, Gary Daniels, Olivier Gruner, Mark Dacascos and the other high kickers of the 90s, not someone literally old enough to have served for real in the war he made a movie about.
Aki Aleong just died, I notice he did several movies with Wilson, might check one out.
Looks like “out for blood” qualifies, I’ma check it out. https://tubitv.com/es-mx/movies/449565/out-for-blood disclaimer: ima be gaming too.
I’m trying out creating a new community (on Piefed) for action movies, and I made a post about Aleong with links to some movies.
For me in MX, Out for Blood is unavailable on Tubi here, but it is on a licensed channel on YouTube (FilmRise)
wah! someone purporting to be “dragondon” posted there a couple years ago!
This was my first HBO World Premiere and I wish we had done some sequels. I liked the character John Decker and got the idea for the film from Charles Bronson’s “Deathwish” Franchise. I told my personal manager at the time, Paul Maslak that I wanted to make a film about a man that gets revenge against the criminals who killed his family. Paul hired a writer and we Co-Produced “Out for Blood”. And, like Bruce Wayne in the “Batman” films, Decker decides to get the “Bad Guys” himself instead of relying on the police. Thanks for posting this Older Retro Film.
punk rock man. It was all right. Arguably not much worse than the first Death Wish.
Cool, I hadn’t noticed the comment.
Don “The Dragon” Wilson! I see ya there with that “Terminator” pose…
Meg Foster - who played Evil-Lyn in the 1987 Masters of the Universe film…
TIL “Chris Penn began his martial arts training with Yoshukai Karate in the early 1980’s. He studied some martial arts under Benny “The Jet” Urquidez, but most of his training came from boxing and kickboxing with his best friend, martial artist and actor, Don “The Dragon” Wilson.” (source)
Def. gonna watch it at some point…
Wow, never knew that about Penn and Wilson. There were a few moments where I went “hey, that’s really Penn doing it, not a stunt man”.
Fixing the JustWatchIt link, I just found out the movie has an alternate title: Kickboxer 2025! :D
