The Quest

It’s a Bloodsport, Rocky, Kickboxer mash-up with a little 1925 Tibet thrown in for spice.

Overall VD Rating: 5

We should admit after Desert Heat our standards have changed. We’re so happy when something isn’t Desert Heat that it’s hard to tell how much our enjoyment actually stems from the movie. Also, following Streetfighter we’re happy for anything that doesn’t put us to sleep. Obviously our JCVD relationship is out of the honeymoon period.

JCVD Exposure: 6

This category suffers because even though it is set in 1925 he still fights in shorts, hiking boots, and socks. Why do the costume people do this to us?!

On the positive side, he is exceptionally ripped in this movie. And, due to the heavy emphasis on fighting, he is also sweaty. Furthermore, he is dressed once again in the page boy cap and it has been decided that when wife beaters are unavailable, JCVD should always dress like it’s 1925. We’re waiting for Prince to write a song about that.

His emotive opportunities were...shall we say schizophrenic? But, his acting was bad per say; the problem was this movie was twenty or so short films edited together to make one Greek epic. The Quest could be retitled JCVD’s Odyssey. The only real difference between Chris Dubouis (JCVD’s character) and Odysseus is that Chris has less sex. Unfortunately. Why are we consistently denied sexy time and given bad costume choices?! We don’t ask for much, just a little. Isn’t love supposed to be about compromise?

JCVD Boot to Face Action: 6

He hits people with a cane. He kicks people with a stilt. Then he learns Muay Thai. He fights while nondescriptly old before we flash back to his “prime” and watch him fight some more. Also, the fights between the other fighters were excellently executed and created a superior boot to face atmosphere. This movie is supposed to be a martial arts epic and terms of fighting it succeeds fairly well. In this case it was the plot (or lack thereof) that brought things down. If we could take half of Streetfighter and mix it in with The Quest we might have the greatest JCVD movie EVER.

The Effect of Others on JCVD’s Awesomeness: 3

This category suffers because no one ever seems to have a significant role in the movie. Roger Moore shows up as the backstabbing, enslaving, ne’er do well British lord who saves then enslaves JCVD, like you do, and never really grows as a character.

The bad guy is Attilla from Lionheart and while we get a much better idea of his fighting abilities and significantly more fulfilling end battle between him and JCVD, it still feels like Bolo and Frank out of Bloodsport. We couldn’t even have a battle of the pectorals because it’s hard to be scared of a man who fights in a skirt/pant combination.

There were kids for a total of five minutes. JCVD took care of orphans/put them danger/made them steal--savior or exploiter? You be the judge.

The woman was a reporter again and...yeah. She was on screen approximately twenty minutes. She would have been more interesting if somebody would have killed her.

One of the other fighters was one of JCVD’s enslavers and yet when he’s killed JCVD is heartbroken again, ala Bloodsport/Kickboxer. We didn’t even know he liked the guy until he let out a patented JCVD emotive scream “NO!”

Yeah.

Other Mentionables:

Frank Dux (remember him from Bloodsport?) helped write the story alongside JCVD; that might explain why the fighting was so good and why the movie looked and felt exactly like Bloodsport. It’s possible we broke out into “Kumatai!” multiple times.

This movie was also directed by Mr. JCVD himself. He didn’t do a bad job, but he seemed to have a hard time with his camera angles and his sweeping panoramic shots were more like quick head nods. Overall, though, it could have been much, much worse. See Desert Heat or Streetfighter.

Overall, we both agreed that if we had caught this movie on TBS some Saturday afternoon we totally would have watched it and enjoyed it. Probably not tried to understand it; more, stare at the muscles as people kick the crap out each other in Tibet. Everything is cooler in Tibet.

And we learned some excellent life lessons from this film. They are, in no particular order:

1) It is an ineffectual fighting style to stand still while someone kicks you in the face
2) Stealing a large golden dragon with a blimp complete with spot light is NOT sneaky. Furthermore, you are using the only getaway vehicle which can be shot down with a crossbow. Something to anticipate when stealing things in Tibet circa 1925.
3) The nut-twist is not okay. But if he’s wearing a kilt he’s kind of asking for it.
4) Should your car ever break down in a foreign country, rest assured that there will always be elephants/camels/horses or some combination of all three just waiting for you to ride them to your destination.

We leave you with this wisdom to enrich your life.