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

Screenshots

Future Kick - VR time

Future Kick - organ upgrade time

Future Kick - threat assessment

The Future Kick's so bright, I gotta wear shades

Future Kick - condom sale

  • Sergio@slrpnk.netEnglish
    4·
    6 days ago

    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.

    • klu9@lemmy.caOPEnglish
      2·
      6 days ago

      :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.

          • Sergio@slrpnk.netEnglish
            2·
            6 days ago

            https://youtu.be/7QE0neZJRto

            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.