Well hot damn, Enemaniacs! It’s the Fourth of July weekend! Here in the United States, we tend to use this weekend, and the next several weeks afterward (much to the dismay of dogs everywhere), to blow up whole ass chunks of our country with fireworks that are supposedly illegal but everyone can get their hands on them by way of going to a makeshift fireworks store, but I digress…

What was I talking about?

Eh, never mind. Anyway, It’s July and I decided to do something kind of clever for this month’s slate of reviews. I did a little housekeeping by looking at all the movies I covered over the past 435 reviews and came to a realization. I’ve covered a movie starting with 25 of 26 letters in the English alphabet. The only letter I haven’t touched yet? Q. Yeah, I had never covered a movie with a Q title. I mean, for shit’s sake, I have covered THREE movies beginning with X with a fourth planned for later this year!

So with that said, welcome to QULY! All four reviews this month will be a movie starting with the letter Q. To get things started, on this most sacred of sacred weekends in the US, let’s talk about a movie starring a Belgian martial artist in a movie that takes place in Tibet, and then premiered a week early in Turkey… The Quest!

Not only is this the first movie I’ve reviewed that starts with the letter Q but it’s also the first time I’ve reviewed a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie. Isn’t that nuts? I’ve talked about most of the other big-time action guys in the lower-tier action films. Okay, maybe not Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger in their later years, but I’ve done Hercules movies, movies starring Chuck Norris, Charles Bronson, Steven Seagal, and a couple Deathstalkers. But never before has JCVD graced this blog.

Frankly, The Quest isn’t exactly well known for being among his best movies. That said, this was 1996. He was about as hot as he could be at this time. Maybe he was just on the verge of that star fading after some less-than-stellar box office returns, but leading up to this movie, he was in hits like Double Impact, Universal Soldier, Hard Target, and Timecop. That’s not even mentioning the trio of movies that made him a star – Bloodsport, Cyborg, and Kickboxer.

Early on in his career, he appeared in the Cannon Films movies Breakin’ and Missing in Action. The latter was one of the bigger Chuck Norris movies for the studio. In the grand scheme of Cannon’s in-house action stars, it all started with Bronson and Norris, then, in the middle era of the studio’s prominence, they were hyping Michael Dudikoff in the American Ninja franchise, and, in the final days, it was David Bradley and JCVD. Frankly, JCVD was probably the most likable of the bunch. Norris wasn’t really leading man material in terms of acting talent. Bronson was at the tail end of a solid career. Dudikoff wasn’t exactly the most charismatic of actors. Bradley was okay, but he wasn’t really long for acting as he was really more of a competitive martial artist if I remember correctly.

The one thing that JCVD definitely had, beyond charisma, was looks. I think he was well-liked by the ladies. So not only did he seem like a decent guy and certainly could do action man stuff, but if he was in the new action movie, you could probably convince your girlfriend to go see it with you. You’re in it for the kicks and punches and explosions. She’s in it for this:

JCVD is gonna steal yo’ girl, man.

Anyway, after Timecop, things got a little hairy for JCVD. 1994 brought with it one of the many early video game-inspired movies that just didn’t fully realize or understand its source material: Street Fighter. Right out of the gate things were a little off. Okay, sure, it probably understood its source material better than 1993’s Super Mario Bros. or 1994’s Double Dragon, but in Street Fighter, the video game, we always understood that Ryu and Ken were the main characters. And… From my kid brain perspective when the original game came out (before Street Fighter II brought in a whole bunch of new characters like the sexiest thunder thighs of all time, Chun Li), I understood Ryu to likely be a Japanese dude and Ken was either his brother, therefore also Japanese, or just an American guy with blonde hair.

When you have someone like JCVD signed up to do the big screen version of the movie, eh… you best not make him Ryu and he’s not likely to be Ken either. So that elevated Street Fighter II’s new character Guile to be the lead. Guile was a cool character, but he was hardly the face of the video game franchise. Anyone my age at the time the movie came out (I was 17 when it hit theaters) was confused. Why this guy? Where’s Ken? Where’s Ryu? Chun Li isn’t that big of a character in this? That likely hurt the movie and then the movie was just silly for the normies who didn’t know anything about the game. So it suffered badly at the box office and with critics and fans. The following year brought Sudden Death which was a middling box office return for Universal. Then came The Quest which severely underperformed. After Maximum Risk and Double Team were only okay at the box office, JCVD and the 90s style, cheaper, action genre that was kind of dominated by the Belgian and Steven Seagal started to fade. It’s hard to say that even the bigger action films led by Stallone, Gibson, and Schwarzenegger were much more successful. The times were changing.

But… we’re here to go on The Quest, so let’s do that and see how we feel about that movie 28 years after its original release.

The movie opens with an old man shambling into a bar in what seems to be mid-90s New York City. The guy orders a coffee and the bartender tells him to take a seat while he, um… Irishes it up for him. As he does this, three toughs walk in and threaten the bartender with a knife. The old man, revealed to be JCVD tells the punks they should probably beat cheeks before he beats something else of theirs. The toughs have a pretty good laugh, but old JCVD kicks the holy livin’ shit out of two of them. The third is scared off and runs away. The bartender, shocked by what he saw asks how he learned to be a super badass. The old man tells a tale of how he learned about this and the scene transitions to 1925.

Now, I have some questions right out of the gate here. I think part of this is a screw-up on the part of Wikipedia, which I often use to help me keep some things straight as I go through these movies. How’s that for a little peek behind the curtains here at B-Movie Enema Industries? Anyway, the Wikipedia page states this is present-day, so, 1996. The movie transitions to 1925 where JCVD’s character, Chris Dubois, is a pickpocket in his mid-20s.

Now, going along with Wikipedia, that would mean that we’re supposed to believe Dubois is, like, in his mid-90s. Don’t get me wrong, I do fully believe JCVD will be kicking ass well into his 90s too, but I don’t think that’s the case here. While the three punks look fairly contemporary to when the movie was released, I’m not sure this takes place in the 90s, but the 70s instead. I have clues to help with this. First, if this is New York City, the NYC of the 70s was grimy and gross and very likely to be the place where toughs would just come in and rob a bar in broad daylight.

Second, check out the big neon sign behind the bartender…

Schlitz wasn’t popular in the 90s. In fact, it hadn’t been a popular beer for 20 years at the time of this movie’s release. It was often derided for being a cheap, swill of a beer. It’s the stuff college kids and poor guys in their early 20s (and also my dad) would buy because it was cheap and did the trick. However, in the mid-70s, Schlitz was one of the most popular beers in America. Its reputation dropped off the face of the planet after they changed something in their brewing technique that changed the taste and quality of the beer. Unlike the Coca-Cola Company when they changed the formula of Coke to compete with Pepsi after their rival was continuously winning taste test challenges (very real thing, look it up – Coke’s marketing department went into overdrive after Coca-Cola Classic was released to convince people that Coke was preferred over Pepsi when, historically, it was not), Schlitz couldn’t relent on the change. This was due to new laws forcing the listing of ingredients. Schlitz used a form of silica to help in the brewing process. Fearing the backlash for that not being appropriately weeded out of the final product, they switched that ingredient with something else. The taste changed and the beer fell into oblivion that it is known today.

What’s more, the company attempted an ad campaign afterward in which two men are talking off-camera in a commercial. One man is trying to convince the other guy to switch to a different beer, but that other guy, a loyal Schlitz drinker, refuses. It gets to a point in which the Schlitz drinker jokingly threatens to beat his friend up if he doesn’t drop this attempt to get him away from his favorite beer. While it was obviously meant to be a comedic commercial, people started thinking of the commercial as saying “Drink Schlitz or I will kill you.” All of this is hilarious.

Anyway, the third indicator that I think this is not 1996 in the movie is that Dubois is wearing a suit that looks a little more like the style of the 70s or 80s. The bartender is also dressed not like anyone I ever saw in 1996. It’s not overt like the Schlitz sign, but my radar was beeping and going nuts that this couldn’t possibly be 1996 at the start of the movie. Will I be proven wrong? I dunno. Is it possible the people making this movie didn’t particularly care enough to make sure this all lined up? That’s probably the case, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt as there is no year put on screen to indicate when this takes place for this wraparound scene.

Alright, back to the movie. It’s 1925. In Tibet, some guys smelt some stuff. They are then given these scrolls and the blessing of this old dude here on his throne. He sends them off to find the right people to get those scrolls. We then see a guy doing some fencing and after defeating his opponent, one of the Tibetan dudes comes in and gives him a scroll. Elsewhere, a sumo wrestler is also presented with a scroll. A French kickboxer or bare-knuckle brawler or whatever he is also receives a scroll. Look, I’m not going to go through all these. The Tibetan guys are going to each country and handing out scrolls to fighters. It’s a whole thing. It reeks of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, ya dig?

I will point out that one of the combatants, the American Heavyweight Champion of the World, Max Devine, is played by James Remar. He’s always fun to see in a movie or TV show. Also in America, in fact also in New York where Devine is, we see a younger JCVD. He’s dressed as a clown and has stilts on his legs.

I should also mention a couple things that this above image makes me think of. First, JCVD directed this movie. I totally forgot about that. It remains one of only two films he ever directed. The second was 2010’s The Eagle Path. The other thing I wanted to mention was that this is one of the infamous non-James Bond movies that Roger Moore was a part of. Around this time, he made this and Spice World… That was not a particularly great time for one of the more popular Bonds. Anyway, the fact that he was in this or Spice World is not why I think of him when I see the clown above. No, I’m thinking about Octopussy. Specifically, I’m thinking about the big climax in which he’s dressed as a clown to infiltrate a circus where a nuke is about to go off to launch the world into World War III.

I’d also rather be watching Octopussy. Ooh… Maybe I’ll watch Octopussy after I finish my review.

This introduction to Dubois is to set up the concept that he’s, according to some, a wasted talent. A wise guy tells him to get lost, get some decent clothes, and come to work for him. Dubois says he works for nobody. He prefers to lead a band of child street urchins on the streets where he also performs as a clown to entertain other children on the street. It’s all about the children as far as Dubois is concerned. It’s also a good distraction for his street urchins to pickpocket people.

However, trouble arises when he and the kids steal a bunch of money from the wise guy. When the wise guy comes in, guns a’blazin’, a kid gets hit by a bullet in the arm. Dubois has to flee, but he promises the kids he will return one day to save them. He stows away on a ship where he’s discovered and he is put to work by the captain. The ship is full of wanted pirates who are smuggling guns on the high seas.

They are attacked by Lord Edgar Dobbs (Roger Moore), a British (no shit) mercenary who spots Dubois fighting his captors, the very men Dobbs and his men are fighting. Dobbs is intrigued by the fire in Dubois. The two men end up saving each other’s lives in the skirmish as well. This leads to Dobbs saying he’ll help get Dubois back to New York City.

However, Dobbs is full of shit. He tells Dubois that they can probably find him a ship headed for America at a place called Muay Thai Island. Dobbs’ buddy, Harry Smythe, is not so sure about what Dobbs is telling this guy. When they get to this island, Dobbs sells the guns they picked up from the pirates to the guy in charge of the island who is planning an insurrection. He also sells Dubois to the guy.

So, once again, Dubois is enslaved.

I guess this place is called Muay Thai Island because this is where you learn Muay Thai fighting. His first lesson is that he’s gonna get his ass kicked all the time by these guys on this island. He’s told by the leader that he has to always keep his guard up no matter what. I’m sure that will, in no way, become an important thing in the third act.

I’m only half-joking there. I have no idea if this movie will use much of this first act’s character development for Dubois to help set up stuff in the third act or not. It seems as though there are only two things we can say for certain. The first is that Dubois gets old. The second is that I know for sure he will make good on his promise to help the children he had to leave behind.

Later, one of the Tibetan guys arrives with a scroll to deliver to one of the Muay Thai fighters on Muay Thai Island. As the leader of the island consults the Tibetan monk, Dubois consults Buddha while he scrubs the floor of a temple. He asks for help from the golden statue to get home or help the kids he had to leave behind. Later, he sees some of the guys on the island messing with another guy. He goes over and hands them an ass-whoopin’.

Six months pass and we catch back up with Dobbs and Smythe in Bangkok. Dobbs spots a pretty young woman from the United States named Carrie Newton. Carrie is played by Janet Gunn and she is quite pretty. Prior to this film, she was not in too much. 1996 proved to be something of a big year for her as she got this role, a part in the Roger Corman-produced Carnosaur 3 and Marquis de Sade, and, maybe most importantly, a starring role as Cassandra St. John for three seasons of USA’s Silk Stalkings series. Interestingly, she was already in her mid-30s when this breakout year went down with very little before that.

Either way, much like Lord Dobbs, I am also quite taken by this blonde-haired beauty.

Carrie explains that she’s a journalist with the New York Globe. Dobbs and Carrie go into the streets of Bangkok and he quickly learns that she’s more interested in the people and the potential of finding a great story than she is with this stuffy Brit who says he’s a Lord. They learn about a Muay Thai tournament that is going on that evening. While Dobbs says it’s fighting strictly for peasants, she reminds the honorable Lord Dobbs she is, after all, a journalist.

They go to the tournament where Dobbs is surprised to discover one of the competitors is a rippling-abbed Chris Dubois who looks pretty determined and fairly cut out to be a Muay Thai champion. Carrie also spots this Belgian beefcake. Dubois quickly dispatches his opponent and stares into the crowd directly at Dobbs and Smythe. They plan to leave but Carrie is staying behind to write about these buff dudes kicking the shit out of each other in the sweatiest of sweaty ways.

Dobbs and Smythe run right into Dubois on their way out. Dubois says they owe him. Dobbs says he always repays his debts (yeah, right). Dubois wants Dobbs to buy him back from his slave master. That way, he can earn his way to fight in this Kumite-style fighting tournament being held in Tibet. He entices Dobbs by saying the prize is a giant golden dragon that is worth quite a bit of money. If he can get Dobbs and Smythe to the Lost City of Tibet, he’ll compete and they can get access to that giant gold dragon. Carrie, absolutely swimming in how wet she is over Chris Dubois, joins the guys on this trip.

Initially, the plan is in trouble. Dobbs says the only way to get to this fight, called the Gheng Gheng, is to have a specific invitation to the island. The invitation has a map, so it can’t be forged. As they discuss a way to get into the tournament, Carrie discovers something over the news wire that offers them an opportunity… World Heavyweight Champion Maxie Devine is one of the invited for the Gheng Gheng.

A new plan is put into motion. Dobbs meets Devine (oh my god, we have Dubois, Dobbs, and now Devine… it’s a total D-fest around here) claiming to be part of the Gheng Gheng organization committee. He tells Devine that Dubois will be his personal valet, once again placing Dubois into indentured servitude.

After a travel montage by way of car, then elephant, then horse, it appears that our band of thieves have arrived in Tibet. They are in an inn having drinks and dinner when the Muay Thai master and his fighter for the Gheng Gheng arrive to demand they get paid for Dubois. On top of that, the Mongolian representative, Khan (of course), arrives looking like he’s got no time for anyone’s bullshit.

Khan approaches Dobbs and crew and when Max stands up to the brute, Khan knocks him out with one punch. The next morning, Max confronts Dubois saying that he’s no fool. He knows that he, Dobbs, and Smythe have nothing to do with Gheng Gheng and it’s obvious Dubois is not a valet. After a brief scuffle between Dubois and Max, Max picks up his scroll, asks Dubois if that’s what he’s been after this whole time, and tosses it to Dubois before riding off on horseback.

So… Gosh. I guess you gotta love it when a plan perfectly works itself out. Instead of having to change the gears to pretend to be a valet and members of a delegation from the tournament, Dubois and Dobbs can just go back to the original plan of obtaining access to the tournament while Dobbs has access to the Lost City to get to the golden dragon. So they enter the tournament and begin going through the opening ceremonies to introduce all the fighters from different countries.

I guess the plan didn’t quite work out the way it looked it was going to because when Maxie Devine is called, Chris is about to stand up to accept his place in the tournament, but in walks Max who proudly proclaims he is Max Devine, Heavyweight Champion of the World. So… I guess it’s back to plan B? Oh, fuck it.

Nah, just kidding. Max is here to say that Dubois is the better fighter. He relinquishes his title of Heavyweight Champion to Dubois. The gamemaster of the tournament says that Dubois will get his chance to prove himself as a fighter in the first round. If he fails, Max will pay the penalty of giving up his spot which is to never leave the Lost City. Max later tells Dubois that he came to the tourney to ensure the American flag is the one flying over all others by whatever means necessary.

AMERICA! FUCK YEAH!

The tournament begins and we’re shown the different fighting styles at play. Not many of the fights seem to last all that long. Like the sumo wrestler just tosses a littler guy and that’s all there is to that. The Turkish fighter takes a couple hits from the Scottish fighter but wins anyway when he catches a high kick and grabs the Scotsman’s balls. After nearly every other competitor goes, Dubois is finally called to represent the United States against Germany.

The German is physically stronger and bigger. Dubois gets some licks in on the guy, but the guy’s power is a bit of a challenge. It looks like Dubois is simply outmatched, but this leads to the big Rocky moment for our hero as he pulls himself off the floor to keep fighting. It also leads to what I assume is always shouted out by a New Yorker whenever he’s someplace outside New York and the guy he roots for keeps on fighting insurmountable odds.

With Max shouting American city names at him, Dubois is able to overcome the bigger, stronger German fighter. Next, we see Khan fight for Mongolia as he lays waste to some pussy from Greece. The second round then kicks, heh, off by having the sumo guy belly bounce the Turkish fighter and the Chinese fighter taking out Brazil’s. Khan is then chosen to fight against the representative from Siam, basically the same place where Dubois got trained. Within seconds, Khan kills the Siamese fighter, Phang.

Later, Dobbs and Smythe propose to Dubois that he take a dive. If they plan to lift the giant golden dragon out of the Lost City, he has to be healthy. But, considering he’s up against the Spanish fighter, Don Flamenco, Dubois decides it’s best to not lose to him if he wants to not be made fun of by his friends on the school bus the next morning. So he beats the shit out of the rose chompin’ goober.

The tournament draws Kahn to fight the sumo wrestler. Max believes this is great for Dubois. This is a super-heavyweight fight. Whoever wins will likely be utterly worn out making it easy for Dubois to win. Well… The fight starts with the sumo wrestler charging Khan. Khan waits and, as if he’s fighting not King Hippo but Bald Bull, lands a series of perfect punches that basically drop the sumo wrestler in seconds.

Dubois fights the Chinese fighter who uses several different animal-style kung fu techniques. Meanwhile, Dobbs commandeers the blimp that the Germans arrived in so he can lift the golden statue out of the Lost City. He and Smythe are soon discovered and arrested. They will be executed after the tournament. Dobbs says that for years he really was an officer in the Royal Navy. He did everything for the crown, but he did it all for nothing. He turned to piracy to finally get his fair share of glory and treasure. He has no regrets.

Dubois offers to bargain for their release. If he wins the tournament tomorrow, they walk free and he will not take the prize of the golden dragon. But that fuckin’ final is against Khan. This monster has killed everyone mere moments from the start of each match. In fact, the only reason why Dubois seemingly breaks the record for lasting the longest against Khan is because when the match starts, he dances about for a bit.

Once Khan starts landing punches it’s rough and I’m fairly certain that Dubois instantly gets CTE from the brute. He gets some pretty good advice from Max – “Cover up!” Yeah, dude, you can probably block some of those punches. Khan punches Dubois all the way out of the ring and he’s left to ponder if he has completely fucked up or if he’s just going to drop dead. Either way, he sure seems pretty tired and maybe not quite as determined to save the pirates who have exploited him at every turn since meeting them months and months ago.

Remembering he ain’t no punk, he stands and beckons to Khan to come get him. The fight spills out into the streets of the Lost City. And that seemed cool and shit, but Khan continues to land brain-damaging blows on our hero. It’s soon realized there are less than ten minutes remaining in the movie, so Dubois starts landing some well-placed kicks to Khan’s body and face. Inexplicably, this causes Khan to no longer be able to fight properly, so Dubois starts punching him many times in the face until Khan collapses.

And so, Dubois wins March Madness Muay Thai Style. Max became a successful boxing trainer. Roger Moore leaves to go back to being a UNICEF representative. Carrie Newton wrote a book about what she witnessed as she pondered if she was really into the idea of wiping Dubois’ ass every time he shits because he’s been beaten silly. And I guess the kids got saved. Don’t worry about that last one. It totally happened. We don’t need to see it to know it happened.

Look. It happened, okay?

And that is The Quest. I had a little bit of fun with this movie, but understand something. I kind of liked the movie. There’s a secret that I have that I don’t mind revealing. There was a period of time in the mid-90s that had these period piece action/adventure movies. I’m not just talking about The Quest but also movies like The Phantom and The Shadow. None of them got good reviews. In the years following their releases, they all got kind of made fun of. That said, I actually liked all three movies. There’s a charm to these types of movies set in a different time that I like. Maybe it’s the ways they try to design the movie to make it look like it’s actually set in that time. Maybe it’s the archetypical characters. I don’t know what it is, but they all have a special place in my heart. Maybe it’s a retroactive appreciation because 1999’s The Mummy is so charming too. I dunno, but I like this movie.

Sure, it’s kind of a rehash of Kickboxer. Sure it’s two years after Street Fighter and a year after the first Mortal Kombat movie, but these tournament-style fighting movies were nothing new with those games or movies either. Sure the plot feels a little thin at times.

What I like about this movie is Jean-Claude Van Damme. He’s a very likable lead. If not for his accent, he’s kind of an aww shucksy all-American kind of guy. You just kind of like him. That’s why I do think he’s still liked today. It’s why I think he had a fair amount of following even if he was never in the tippy top tier like Stallone or Schwarzenegger. I’m willing to bet he is a wonderful guy to know and work with. You get the impression he likes doing what he does and he wants to do the best action movie he can.

On top of that, though, you also have Roger Moore. Moore didn’t always make the best movies outside of his Bond films. Yet, he was professional as hell. He’s not phoning in this performance at all. He’s a scoundrel. He’s equal parts scum and charismatic. Then you get to that scene where he tells JCVD about who he really is and you feel it. He’s not just collecting a paycheck here. He’s selling you on who he is.

And, super quick, I want to give The Quest high marks for not making Carrie Newton a character that ends up getting captured and threatened as a damsel-in-distress if Dubois can’t win the tournament. While she’s kind of a non-entity once they arrive at the Gheng Gheng, they at least didn’t do to her what so many of these types of movies could have done with her.

I very much enjoyed this movie and am very glad I kicked Quly off with it. I don’t think I had seen it back when I worked at a video store during that time. I wasn’t a huge fan of these types of movies. I preferred other types of action flicks so I never really paid much mind to Van Damme and Seagal flicks of the 90s. But I can say that this one movie of 94 minutes is better than all the time I spent watching those Seagal flicks earlier this year put together.

Next week, Quly continues with a spaghetti western from 1969 when we go hunting to capture Quintana: Dead or Alive. So be sure to be back here in seven day for that. In just one day, though, you can tune into a new episode of B-Movie Enema: The Series as Nurse Disembaudee and I are troubled by the evil Devil Doll from 1964!

Remember, if you get into a fight with a Scotsman at a tournament in Tibet, the best way to defeat them is to reach up his kilt when he goes for a high kick and grab him by the baby-makers.