The Last Kumite

Raise your fist if you like pit fighting!

Who among us doesn’t find clandestine kumite tournaments appealing? At least, from the POV of a spectator, rather than courting near-certain CTE from a dangerous enterprise where fighters fight mostly for honour (much like in the UFC, the returns are pretty meager).

It was arguably Jean Claude Van Damme who put kumite on the map. But who wants to argue? After all, arguments often lead to fist fights and that…ah, ok. LET’S ARGUE!

But also, let’s bring the tournaments back, at least in cinematic form and from the relative safety of our sofas (relatively, as it’s known that sedentary lifestyles are linked to poor health outcomes). And who better bring the mighty kumite back into public consciousness than the redoubtable and equally incredible Cynthia Rothrock, of Martial Law and No Retreat, No Surrender 2?

Women kick ass, generally, and in this case, literally and very specifically.

Rothrock is a bona fide martial artist, a Delaware-born black belt, who if you mess with her, will hit you with so many lefts, you’ll be begging for a right (thanks, Chuck Norris).

And she’s starring in The Last Kumite, which you can back on Kickstarter.

We first got wind of this film, mostly through sordid underworld connections. Just kidding. It’s through sordid underworld connections AND via friend of the site, Jason Brant, whose YouTube channel and So Bad, It’s Good takes frequently align with ours.

If you’re a fan of 80s and 90s action movies, you’ve come to the right place. And if you still have recessionary discretionary dollars kicking around post-funding that film, throw us a bone too and check our our tome/homage to kick ass cinema, Mine’s Bigger Than Yours! The 100 Wackiest Action Movies.

KUMITE! KUMITE! KUMITE!

Watcher

Who’s watching Watcher? With any luck, a lotta folks.

The tense thriller, lensed in Bucharest, Romania, a locale more closely associated with buffet king, the waddling Steven Seagal, employs a KISS – keep it simple approach: a creep stalks a woman in a high rise, peering through a window across the courtyard of their shared Soviet bloc-style accommodations.

But a straightforward, Hitchcockian affair this is not. Watcher adds the disorienting element of a newcomer protagonist, someone neither versed in the local tongue nor familiar with her surroundings, adding a richness and depth you don’t typically see with this kind of thriller, which can veer into the cheesy even if Brian De Palma is in the director’s chair.

Wedded Jules and Francis are New Yorkers, and he’s returning to the motherland to take on a prominent ad exec position. Fluent in the language, he naturally adapts, but Jules (expertly portrayed by It Follows’ Maika Monroe) is left to her own devices stuck in isolation, dawdling in cinemas and cafes – that is until, a creepy encounter in a grocery store.

Director Chloe Okuno has said the genesis of Watcher is as much inspired by the canonical work of Roman Polanski, for example as it is Lost in Translation. And this most apparent both literally and figurately: she made the stylistic choice NOT to subtitle the Romanian language, which disorients the viewer. And while admittedly annoying at first, it’s a gambit that helps lure you into the story and get lost in Jules’ plight.

It’s the supporting cast who add weight to the mix, the quirky mix of high rise denizens and how they all relate to the main characters, and also the cultural and linguistic misunderstandings.

The writing and performances are sharp, and the denouement handled with a lot of savvy.

***3/4 (out of 5)