To the Death (1992) User Reviews

There's a good movie in here somewhere but it's buried in a few layers of crud.

[tarbosh22000 · 4/10 · 16 March 2012]

In this REAL sequel to American Kickboxer 1 (1990), "Quinn" (Barrett) retires from Punchfighting and lives a peaceful life with his beloved wife Carol (Udy). "Denard" (Qissi) is seemingly obsessed with taking on Quinn in one last match (don't worry, we're going to explain why the names are in quotes later in the review). Quinn refuses to fight, which upsets maniacal millionaire Dominique Le Braque (Whitehead), who stages fights. It angers him so much, he kills Quinn's wife. Now distraught, Quinn hits the skids, living in a seedy motel and drinking himself to death. Preying on Quinn's new vulnerability, Dominique invites Quinn to live at his palatial estate and train to get back into shape so he can fight and win a lot of money. Quinn agrees, not knowing they are Punchfighting matches...wait for it...TO THE DEATH! (In a slight twist on that tale, you don't actually FIGHT to the death, if you lose the match, an evil ref just comes in and shoots you in the face.) After a some plot padding, Quinn develops a relationship with Dominique's wife Angelica (Bestbier), and the sinister Dominique doesn't take very kindly to that. Will Quinn ever escape his clutches? Or will Quinn don his craziest Punchfighting Pants and fight his way out? About the names being in quotes above, confusingly, even though there were characters BJ Quinn and Jacques Denard in American Kickboxer 1, Here, for some unknown reason, Barrett here is Rick Quinn and Qissi (a different actor) is some other Denard. Why this happened, we don't know. Maybe Cannon demanded it.

We like John Barrett, but this movie never really rises above decent. Whitehead as the over-the-top baddie is like some kind of cross between Raul Julia and Tim Curry. He chews the scenery well. Rather than give a thumbs up or thumbs down as to whether the fighter will live, he delicately throws a rose. Now we know where the producers of The Bachelor get their ideas. Le Braque even dresses in a Clockwork Orange-style getup. In another absurd device, the ring announcer is none other than a man in harlequin makeup reminiscent of The Joker (he even tells really bad jokes and tries to outdo Whitehead in the crazy sweepstakes). He's truly one of the original Insane Clown Posse.

Willard the reporter who looks like Owen C. Wilson is back (Le Plat), but presumably it's some OTHER Willard. Quinn trains for his Punchfighting matches in dress pants, but really, if you look objectively, the Punchfighting in this movie is not that great. Additionally, the plot suffers from all sorts of maladies, but mainly pacing issues, and the script should have gone through a few more drafts - there's a good movie in here somewhere but it's buried in a few layers of crud.

One of the better aspects of this movie, as we've seen so many times before, is the title song. The rap by Edward Jordan is a lot of fun. But really, the main flaw here is that the original Jacques Denard did not return. He really brought a lot to the table in the first film.

If you're just itching to see the continuation of the saga of Quinn, Denard and Willard, by all means, seek this movie out - but as an example of an entirely cohesive film or an example of a great Punchfighter....this sadly isn't really it.

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To the Death

[BandSAboutMovies · 4/10 · 8 August 2022]

At this stage in their near-death, Cannon Films had become the world's biggest importer of South African karate movies. This is the sequel to American Kickboxer - and not American Kickboxer 2 because why should that makes sense - and has John Barrett return as Quinn, whose name has changed from Robert to Rick. Only I care about this.

Michael Qissi has taken over for Brad Morris as Jacques Denard, the kickboxer who nearly destroyed Rick's life back in the first movie. Ted Le Plat also is back as Willard, the caustic reporter whose entire beat is kickboxing, kind of like Matt Brock back in the kayfabe days of Pro Wrestling Illustrated.

Denard wants a fight for the belt so badly - Rick is happily retired with his pregnant wife Carol (Claudia Udy-Harris instead of Terry Norton) - that he comes to his home and needs to be warned off with the very with child Carol with a very loaded gun.

But he's not the only one that wants Rick to start doing spin kicks again. Dominique Le Braque (Robert Whitehead) has an underground kickboxing club. Rick wants nothing to do with it, so Le Bradque takes Carol off the board with a car bomb Newt and Hicks style, negating the romantic journey they made - come on, this is a kickboxing movie, but go with me on this I guess - in American Kickboxer. Rick goes on a bender, as he does, and ends up attacking Denard, who put him in prison - yes, this movie has a lot connecting it to the first one - years ago and back to jail he goes.

Le Braque bails out Rick, puts him up at his home and then Rick learns the shocking secret of this kickboxing group: losers get shot in the head. Rick wants out of things, but he's trapped, so he starts cucking Le Braque by going from the four corners of the ring to the four posts of the bed with the bad guy's wife Angelica (Michele Bestbier). Le Braque retaliates by bringing in Denard as Rick's opponent, but the two resolve their differences, kick everyone really hard and Angelica shoots her husband and gets away with it because the rich live under rules that don't apply to the unwashed masses.

Director Darrell Roodt made the first South African anti-apartheid movie, Place of Weeping, as well as the very well-reviewed movie Serafina! Somehow, he followed that with this and people were confused because critics never really realize that artists need to eat. He's done that throughout his career, making movies like Winnie Mandela and Little One as well as Lake Placid: The Legacy and Father Hood. His directing resume is a lot like Cannon's releases: all over the place.

A Big Disapointment

[Invictus · 13 June 2000]

This film was really poorly done. Now, movies like "To the Death" have a charm, and that is that they are not your typical Hollywoodesque martial arts films. However, there is a limit, and this film had almost nothing going for it. The good news is that Michel Qissi has a role, and is a pretty good on camera fighter. I hope he makes some more movies (Kickboxer is one of my all time favourites). The rest was done poorly. The love interest was not as pretty as one might expect, and the evil fighters in the underground really didn't look so tough. A referee? Give me a break. And what's with the way the "losers" of the bouts meet their doom? The gun thing is a cop out, what ever happened to the "you kill your opponent with your own hands idea"? I wasn't moved at all, the choreography was done by Qissi,he was good, but everyone else was mediocre. I don't just want to see wild punches and ordinary run of the mill kicks, although they may be perfectly executed. I want aesthetically pleasing moves that are well thought out. In short, this film just doesn't cut it.

Dying gasp

[fmarkland32 · 3/10 · 25 September 2019]

John Barrett returns as Quinn, the kickboxing champion from American Kickboxer 1 who joins forces with his main rival Jacque Denard (Qissi) to squash the promoter (Whitehead) of death matches who also is responsible for the car bombing of Quinn's wife. Much kickboxing and overwrought melodrama ensues. It's hard to believe that the martial arts genre is almost now completely dead in 2019. To The Death for all it's glory is a fairly uninspired effort as far as these things go, with mediocre action, a basic competence to the filmmaking and overblown soap opera elements as Barrett starts to fall for the promoter's co-dependent wife, a subplot which halts what little momentum this predictable potboiler builds. The acting is a cut above what usually one gets from the genre, as Whitehead is satisfactory as the villain, while Barrett is a likable enough presence but no one watches this for thespian development and what is ultimately needed is excellent martial arts sequences, and while such is adequate, To The Death just isn't very exciting. Movies like this can be fun when there is Bad Movie charm, energetic fight sequences and a sense of cheesy absurdity to liven up the story's repetition. However they don't when everything is done in a workmanlike by the numbers and utterly generic way. To The Death then perfectly represents what killed a genre at a time when American martial arts movies we're in their final death throes. Even for fans of the genre there is nothing here good or bad that stands out as memorable. Basically it's what you would expect with little variation on such,the type of movie you watch when the only other option is CNN or a paid advertisement.

*1/2 Out Of 4-(Poor)

Ridiculous

[paul-day-clone · 3/10 · 2 August 2015]

A kickboxer retires at the top of his game and turns down a lucrative fight deal with a shady kickboxer promoter who kills the losers of his matches. Then the boxer's wife is blown up. Who might have done it? Hm. That seems pretty obvious. The kickboxer, rather than find out who killed his wife, becomes a drunk. The promoter pulls him out of the gutter and makes the same offer which he now accepts, for some reason. Include in the mix his the promoter's coke-whore girlfriend.

This movie is a mess. All of the clichés you'd expect are here. Even the MC of the matches, dressed up like Joel Grey in Cabaret, seems pretentious and boring.