Jean-Claude Van Damme's First Action Classic is Streaming for Free

Due to when he got famous and the sorts of movies that he usually makes, JCVD often gets lumped in with other B-tier '80s action stars like Steven Seagal and Chuck Norris, which does Van Damme a disservice. If you go back and watch the '80s action movies that made all three men famous, you'll likely notice the difference. Seagal and Norris both wade through most of their movies (Executive Decision notwithstanding) like they're playing a video game with all the cheats enabled.

Their characters rarely get wounded, have a moment's doubt about their current course of action, or even take a punch. To their credit, both Seagal and Norris made at least one genuinely good movie in their careers (Under Siege, Lone Wolf McQuade, technically The Way of the Dragon), but they both consistently played stoic invincible guys. Van Damme, conversely, played more fallible protagonists, put up against more dangerous opposition.

Van Damme's characters make mistakes (Double Team, Double Impact), get horribly beaten (Cyborg, Kickboxer), suffer serious losses along the way (Timecop), or just look like morons half the time (Universal Soldier, his action mullet in Hard Target). Even when Van Damme's acting isn't quite up to the task at hand (and y'know, you try putting on a performance in your second language), it's easier to root for him because it's easier to believe he's in danger. 1988's Bloodsport isn't Van Damme's first film, but it is the movie that put him on the cinematic map. More importantly, it provided a blueprint for both Van Damme's career and mid-budget action movies that would last for decades.

If you've ever enjoyed a film in which one guy spin-kicks another guy, it's worth taking 92 minutes to watch Bloodsport, which is a genuine classic in the genre. It's currently free with ads on YouTube. By now, the story behind Bloodsport might be slightly more famous than the film.

Bloodsport's screenplay is based on "Kumite: A Learning Experience," an article by John Stewart from the Nov. 1980 issue of Black Belt magazine. In the article, American martial artist Frank Dux tells the story of an underground fighting tournament in Nassau that he won in 1975. Frank Dux, it should be said, is the sort of character that the United States simply cannot produce anymore.

Before the advent of the internet and its capacity for instant fact-checking, Dux was somehow able to convince a large part of the English-speaking world that he was a generational badass. Dux is a martial artist who, in addition to his alleged Kumite win, claims to have secretly earned a Medal of Honor by performing covert missions for the CIA in Southeast Asia. According to anyone who's in a position to verify Dux's story, most of it is a truly extravagant lie, including the existence of the Kumite tournament.