You remember that KICKBOXER remake that was set to co-star Dave Bautista, Scott Adkins, and Tony Jaa? Well, unfortunately Jaa is out, but THE PROTECTOR has been replaced by someone quite relevant to the 1989 original: Jean-Claude Van Damme.
Mr. Van Damme will be taking Jaa's role as mentor to the protagonist, played by Alain Moussi. He was obviously at the other end of the training as Kurt Sloan 25 years ago, with Dennis Chan as Master Chow guiding him on his quest for revenge.
Distressingly, that THR report doesn't mention Adkins as still being part of the show, but I'm hoping JCVD's ASSASSINATION GAMES/UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: DAY OF RECKONING co-star is still involved in some way. He needs more showcases that aren't, say, the lesser HERCULES film of a given year.
JCVD has done the mentor thing well in recent years, including in DAY OF RECKONING director John Hyams' DRAGON EYES, but having him return to KICKBOXER in a major role is another beast entirely. I know for a fact that there are at least some dudes out there who would be instantly onboard for another KICKBOXER movie if Jean-Claude is involved in a significant capacity. The flick was (alongside BLOODSPORT and CYBORG) one of the major career-starters for the Muscles from Brussles, and despite the fact that the franchise continued for four sequels, it's still primarily associated with him at his prime. If nothing else, the casting is a major coup for the marketing, and I'd expect Van Damm'es name to tower over lead actor Moussi's (and maybe even Bautista's) in most of the advertising materials.
The article states that Dave Bautista's antagonist will still be called Tong Po. So now a new generation of youngsters can scream that at each other while doing horrible jump-kicks.
It's slightly a bummer there won't be a KICKBOXER with Tony Jaa's name on it, but with Jean-Claude Van Damme coming full circle and teaching a new guy how to scrap, I'm not taking it as that huge of a loss. I'm still totally seeing this flick.
