Matty trades blows with Albert Pyun’s spite-fuelled martial arts quickie. 

Vengeance was a topic close to Albert Pyun’s heart.

As well as being the throughline of several key texts, the late auteur evidently had a wrathful streak of his own.

When Brandon Chase mucked him around after The Sword and the Sorcerer (1982), downplaying his input, Pyun fobbed off the producer’s request to helm a nascent version of the film that’d become Neon Maniacs (1986). Instead, he pursued his passion project, Radioactive Dreams (1985) (and nearly killed his career in the process — another story for another day).  

When The Cannon Group deferred to Jean-Claude Van Damme during the editing of Cyborg (1989), Pyun secretly cobbled together Deceit (1990) on their time and dime. He then sold the sci-fi chamber piece to former Cannon bigwig Menahem Golan’s new company, the 21st Century Film Corporation.

Years later, when Bob Weinstein arsed on with Adrenalin: Fear the Rush (1996), Pyun repeated his Cyborg trick and used the despotic Dimension boss’ resources to covertly make Nemesis 4: Cry of Angels (1996) at the end of a gruelling reshoot schedule. The helmer and his Filmwerks cohorts, Gary Schmoeller, Jessica Budin, and Tom Karnowski, turned a profit when Imperial Entertainment acquired Nemesis 4 in a deal just shy of a quarter of a million dollars.

Between Deceit and Nemesis 4 nestles another ‘fuck you’ picture:

BLOODMATCH (1991).

Though he always stated that Radioactive Dreams and Deceit were his personal films — and though the slicker, more sophisticated, and thematically twinned Nemesis 4 is superior in craft and smarts — Bloodmatch best demonstrates Pyun’s impish belligerence. Despite Pyun being on record as enjoying his work with Kings Road Entertainment — a run that encompasses Knights (1993), Brain Smasher… A Love Story (1993), Kickboxer 4: The Aggressor (1994), and Ravenhawk (1996) — his first gig for them, Kickboxer 2: The Road Back (1991), suffered from producer interference. 

Pyun wanted a brooding sports drama.

Kings Road wanted a lighter caper.

Kings Road won.

Miffed, Pyun channelled his ideas — and, crucially, his vexation — into Bloodmatch; a martial arts quickie assembled in order to utilise Kickboxer 2’s arena set. The film was shot in four days, right in the wake of Kickboxer 2. It was part funded by 21st Century and flogged to HBO Home Video for a princely sum upon completion. HBO issued Bloodmatch on tape on 21st August 1991 and released Kickboxer 2 on cassette eight weeks later. And ultimately, Pyun was vindicated when Kings Road allowed him to wallow in his nastier feels come Kickboxer 4.  

Penned by Pyun himself [1], Bloodmatch is a tale of revenge, resilience and uncertainty. You don’t have to reach very far to see the parallels between such concepts and Pyun’s filmmaking journey. His career is defined by creative anguish and a dogged pursuit of artistic truth. Tellingly, at Bloodmatch’s core, is a character christened with Pyun’s signature appellation, Brick Bardo. The name, of course, is inextricably linked with Pyun perennial Tim Thomerson and the diminutive, Dirty Harry-esque space detective he essays in the director’s immediate post-Bloodmatch assignment, Dollman (1991) [2]. Bloodmatch, however, offers the darkest Bardo in Pyun’s oeuvre: a man disturbed by grief, and desperate to avenge his murdered brother at any cost. Again, the parallels to Pyun’s bullheaded quest for cinematic perfection are striking — and, in terms of casting, Bardo affords stalwart Thom Mathews his second greatest Pyun role following Crow in Mean Guns (1997).               

As already suggested, Bloodmatch sits beautifully alongside Deceit and Nemesis 4. Strange, edgy and experimental, all are tough to watch yet equally tough to switch off. They’re cruel and antagonistic. Scenes are deliberately designed to provoke a strong emotional reaction — chiefly: disgust, titillation, fury, and unease — and they’re not conventional DTV genre fare. Contextually, the trio draw from the insularity of Pyun’s sci-fi-horror-musical Vicious Lips (1986) (a glowing recommendation or grave warning depending on your taste), and the three point towards the unflinching weirdness present in his subsequent micro-budget flicks, Infection (2005), Cool Air (2006), Left For Dead (2007), Road to Hell (2008), and Bulletface (2010). That said, of Pyun’s ‘fuck you’ epics, Bloodmatch is the most accessible. Alongside the DNA it shares with the ultra-confrontational Nemesis 4, Bloodmatch preempts the black heart of Kickboxer 4 and is tonally and aesthetically in step with the less abrasive — but no less surreal — likes of Knights, Ravenhawk, Adrenalin, Omega Doom (1996), Mean Guns, Crazy Six (1997), and Nemesis 2: Nebula (1995) and Nemesis 3: Time Lapse (1996) in its depiction of quirky individuals trapped in nightmarish scenarios, forced to fight back for reasons known only to them. 

The film’s concept is pleasingly preposterous. Part mystery, part stringent chop-socky thumper, the plot sees Mathews’ aggrieved arse-whupper abducting and brutalising several of the world’s finest kickboxers as he tries to find out which of the bastards were responsible for killing his bro. Mathews’ intense, Brando-flavoured posturing is complemented by a sturdy, if occasionally beige, supporting ensemble that includes Hope Marie Carlton, Marianne Taylor, Pyun fav Vincent Klyn, and Kickboxer 2’s Michel Qissi and Benny ‘The Jet’ Urquidez. As he did on Kickboxer 2, acclaimed pro-fighter Urquidez choreographed Bloodmatch’s brawling alongside legendary stunt coordinator Jimmy Nickerson. Frustratingly it’s here where the film drops a bollock and betrays its speedy lensing. While deliciously gratuitous, the tussling is sloppy and cumbersome in execution compared to the meticulously staged bursts of mayhem in, say, Cyborg, Nemesis (1992), and Mean Guns. Punches and kicks go wide of the barn door, and there’s sometimes not enough coverage to give Bloodmatch’s bone-breaking the kind of visceral impact it deserves. It’s the same problem that’d plague Pyun’s similarly-minded Heatseeker (1995), and it’s irritating because, emotionally, Bloodmatch is gritty and stirring stuff. 

[1] Albeit cloaked by the pseudonym ‘K. Hannah’ – one of the many female names he’d employ for script tasks. Also see: ‘Kitty Chalmers’ (Journey to the Center of the Earth (1988), Cyborg, Deceit), ‘Rebecca Charles’ (Nemesis, Nemesis 2: Nebula, Nemesis 3: Time Lapse, Nemesis 4), and ‘Hannah Blue’ (Blast (1997), Urban Menace (1999), Corrupt (1999), The Wrecking Crew (2000)).
[2] Bardos appear in: Radioactive Dreams (played by Christian Andrews), Alien From L.A. (1988) (Christian Andrews), Cyborg (Ralf Moeller), Deceit (Scott Paulin), Nemesis 3 (Earl White), Infection (Scott Paulin), Road to Hell (Scott Paulin), and The Interrogation of Cheryl Cooper (2014) (Brittany Bochart).