Kickboxer 5

Mark Dacascos delivers the moves and his usual workman-like acting job in this utterly predictable martial arts revenge flick. James Ryan is appropriately evil and vicious--until he just caves before our hero. But little, not even the location filming in South Africa, can save this by-the-numbers film, especially with a climax that is...well, just not climactic.

This time Mark Dacascos is the headlining kickboxer who destroys the company that killed his friends. Seems like the Negall federation has killed off champions who refuse to join (Including Sasha Mitchell's character David Sloan) of course this leads to a final confrontation between Mark Dacascos and James Ryan. Redemption:Kickboxer 5 is the only film of the series that I had never saw prior to my ordering of the Kickboxer 5 pack. This particular entry for some reason never played on USA or TBS like the others did. After watching the final product it's not hard to see why. First off the David Sloan killed off in this film looks so unlike Sasha Mitchell (Why didn't they use Geoff Meed who bares somewhat of a resemblance?) that I refuse to acknowledge that this indeed has anything to do with Kickboxer 1-4. I must admit that I rated Kickboxer 1-4 higher than I normally would due to my nostalgia at the time, I would get home from my gas station job and plop down on the couch and that would be on TV much to my delight. Redemption:Kickboxer 5 doesn't even have that to fall back on and indeed there is hardly any kickboxing at all to be found in this super lousy sequel. Dacascos has natural screen presence and James Ryan has his moments as a bad guy but I prefer ass kicking in my kickboxing movies and therefore this movie adds up to less than nothing for me.

1/2* out of 4-(Awful)

this movie represents the slowest and most boring of the franchise(so far)i also found it pointless and even more devoid of any real story than any of the previous entries.there's some action scenes which are not bad and Mark Dacascos has some good fighting mood and i like his fighting style.he seems able to carry a movie all right,but the movie doesn't carry him.i did like the inclusion of James Ryan (from "Kill or be Killed"(1980) and "Kill and Kill Again)(1981)as the villain of the piece.he makes a pretty good villain and also has a very cool fighting style.but the problem with this movie,besides the hackneyed plot,is it is mostly just a bunch of endless foot chase scenes.in my opinion "Kickboxer 5" is a 4/10

Kickboxer 5 isn't the best movie out there...it is by far not the worst.

The Kickboxer franchise missed its superstar Van Damme after Kickboxer. Though most fans really enjoyed the sequels with the charismatic Sasha Mitchell (David Sloane) who was good at fighting and good at comedy and despised the beastly Tiger Tong po character from 1 and 2.

This title has neither Van Damme, Mitchell or Tong po. We can also forgive KickBoxer 4 from switching the tong po character star Michael Qissi, though this movie barely connects to the kickboxer franchise, the only connection is a weak Six degrees of separation to the character of David sloane which is obviously mentioned to justify the title.

The movie seemed like a very poorly produced title to try and make a bit of a profit from the cult following this series has, as well as to appeal to the straight to DVD audience/market.

Costs are now down due to the removal of Mitchell. The shooting location of South Africa confirms how the costs were kept down, The lead actor Mark Dacoscos seems like a talented Martial Artist and stars in this movie with Geoff Meed and james Ryan. The action is Very good and fast paced, a small concern is the fact that all the stars appear to be doing other styles of fighting instead of Kickboxing or Muay ti.

Overall the movie ain't to bad. It is a let down compared to the other Kickboxer films. I believe the title grab of Kickboxer 5 was more a money grab to receive more profits, when without the references to the Sloane family and the Kickboxer name as well as a bit more drama/character development this film could have easily Stood Alone and Made the same money without the kickboxer name.

Overall 4/10

THE REDEMPTION is the last of the KICKBOXER franchise. This fifth part was shot in South Africa and has little to do with the preceding films, given that the hero of those is killed off in the early scenes and Mark Dacascos is the newcomer hero.

There aren't really many tournament scenes and indeed not really much of anything when it comes to the plotting. There's your routine villain responsible for various deaths and the like and the clean-cut hero who's busy trying to track him down and get revenge for various grievances. It's all very cheap-looking and the dull direction from Kristine Peterson doesn't really help much either.

I always like Dacascos as a fighter and to be fair he isn't so bad here in the action stakes. There's still plenty of action and even if none of it particularly wows you, it's still fun to watch. However, THE REDEMPTION is let down by a very poor supporting cast, particularly the villain who isn't imposing in the least, and Geoff Meed is just as wooden as a supposed henchman who becomes something else as the story progresses. If you're a massive fan of '90s-era fight action you might get a kick or two out of this, but it really is barrel scraping stuff.