The Quest (1996)

Bloodsport light. "The Quest" suffers from a problem that many of these flicks did back in the '90s. They never truly build up the character relations, which is a recurring theme from really propelling these films upwards. They could easily have used 20 minutes more and really made you care more about the characters. We are not even treated with a proper training sequence, which would've established a connection between Van Damme's character and those training him. Instead, they're just people you saw for a couple of seconds followed by a "6 months later..."-screen. Both Roger Moore and James Remar are great additions, making the most of their screen time, although it's a shame that the latter never gets a true mentor role. Janet Gunn is just sort of there, and they do nothing worthwhile with her role. The main villain in the ring is just a discount Tong Po (from Kickboxer). He's nowhere near as menacing as either Tong Po or Chong Li (from Bloodsport), and does not have the same screen presence either. One thing that was really cool is all the different fighting styles represented in the competition. I would've liked some of the fights to be a bit longer and truly showcase the styles. One glaring mistake they made is that during many of the fights, they use slow motion. However, they did not film it with high framerate cameras, they just took 24 fps footage and slowed it down, which makes it look really choppy. Such a wasted opportunity. It's really a shame because there is a genuine good motion picture under the surface. And it is by no means a bad directional debut by Van Damme. With better writers, I believe he could have been quite decent. (It's a bit lazy how they re-used the photo of Van Damme from "Timecop" for the poster...)