Jean-Claude Van Damme joins the Kickboxer remake replacing Tony Jaa

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

When KICKBOXER was announced as getting the remake treatment earlier this year, I wondered why bother? The Jean-Claude Van Damme film ranks as one of the actor’s earliest hits but was sullied by a half dozen mediocre to awful sequels. Still, when GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY’s Dave Bautista joined as Tong Po, I was somewhat intrigued. Even the addition of MMA fighter Georges St Pierre and action star Tony Jaa made me think it may be worth seeing. But, now I definitely am interested.

The Exchange has announced that while Jaa will no longer be in KICKBOXER, he has been replaced by Van Damme himself. I a complete role reversal, JCVD will play Master Chow, the martial artist who teaches Kurt Sloane how to fight Tong Po. Dennis Chan played Chow in the 1989 original and Van Damme played Sloane.

Alain Moussi takes over Van Damme’s original role of Kurt Sloane while St Pierre will likely play Sloane’s older brother Eric who is crippled by Tong Po. It will be interesting to see how the dynamic changes with Van Damme in the mix but this sounds very similar to Sylvester Stallone mentoring Michael B. Jordan in CREED, albeit in a much more B-movie level way.

KICKBOXER clearly is going to be a bad movie, but now it is one I am interested to see since JCVD makes any movie slightly more watchable. And, who knows, maybe he will have another dance sequence?