The Last Kumite review by Bobby Blakey

I love all things martial arts especially the film genre with the 70s-90s being my favorite. When it was announced that General Commander co-director Ross W. Clarkson was bringing a new film that homaged to the 80s and 90s martial arts flicks, I was intrigued. Add to the mix the wide array of iconic stars including Matthias Hues, Cynthia Rothrock, Billy Blanks, Kurt McKinney, Michel and Abdel Qissi, Mike Moller and the son of Bolo himself David Yeung and The Last Kumite had my attention. The film stars Mathis Landwehr in the lead, but can it bring all these bad asses together successfully or should be a final fight that should be forgotten?
The Last Kumite follows Michael Rivers, a skilled martial artist, who is forced to fight in an illegal fighting tournament to save his daughter. Along his dangerous journey, he discovers that other martial artists have been forced to fight to save their loved ones.
Getting to see all these people that I grew up on in one film was a treat in itself even if the film doesn’t always work. BE aware that this is an independent lower budget film that I believe had some crowdfunding elements to get it made, but you would never know it from its overall quality. It’s well shot and put together but does have shortcomings mostly in the script and some performances.
The story looks to bring everything us fans love from films like Bloodsport and Kickboxer complete with people from both original films involved right down to the soundtrack. While it is a different scenario and fighting, they even recreated some of the famed Van Damme moments during the kumite with famed YouTuber and martial artist David Kurzhal aka The Viking Samurai brining his love of the muscles from Brussels to his fight scenes.
Sure, the film is cheesy and brings some bad one-liners and strange edits, but I would be lying if the martial arts film fan in me didn’t have a great time. This film would fit perfectly in the era right next to films like Bloodfist, China O’Brien and American Samurai and I am all here for it. The smartest thing this film does is to make sure that every one of these people gets their moment to do something like the fans would want.
Why do we really watch films like this? Obviously for martial arts fights and it brings plenty of them. In a setting screaming Bloodsport, they do a good job at keeping them quick and interesting without trying to overcomplicate it. This film knows what it is and goes all in. Did I want more from it? Of course, but I still had some nostalgic fun with it and thank everyone that worked on this film for bringing more of my martial arts legends back to me on the big screen.
Check out The Last Kumite available now on digital and DVD from Capelight Films.