 Bloodsport for a B movie, you know a low-budget B movie has impacted so many things in pop culture which is just pretty crazy Hello and welcome to a long-awaited episode of Tales from the VHS vault It's been a long time over a year since we've done one of these Yeah, and we thought we'd bring it back because we actually had a fan request us do one further down in the year So we kind of got to get back in the rhythm of it, too This is gonna be a little different than our usual reviews. This is more of a Retrospective discussion of almost how these movies influenced our lives and pop culture in general for us 80s and 90s kids And today we're gonna be talking about blood sport. Yeah 1988 I remember when this first came out my mom was like she saw it in the TV guide and it turned into like this big This big thing in the house like okay, oh blood sports on week We got to watch it. We got to watch it as an event. Yeah, it was like a big event Van Damme, this was like his pretty much his breakout movie, right? He had been in all those kind of smaller roles and stuff beforehand So oh man, I remember sitting on the floor like in the in the living room there watching it And oh, it was just a powerhouse just incredible movie I had never seen it you introduced me to it because like you said you saw it first with your mom You had taped it off TV, right? So it was all grainy and shitty and the version I remember watching forever I think I taped off your tape version. So it's even shittier, right? I forgot that you did that because it was off of TV all the swears and stuff were blanked out Mm-hmm So when I first saw the real version it kind of like took me by surprise others cursing in this I'm so used of waiting for that. I ain't your pal. I ain't your pal and he stops for no reason, right? Instead of dick face And I wanted my own copy like a real copy of blood sport on VHS I remember for some reason it was really hard to find yeah It was like new at the store at the local store is a HMV at the time or the bay and all that kind of stuff Zellers Zellers my mom had my aunts even hunting around their local Yeah movie stores looking for a version of blood sport. I remember that I remember that yeah And I finally got one and it was a used VHS. There was an old rental So it's a it's a clamshell cut box style and that's still the one I have till to this day But for some reason it wasn't easy to find brand new known It's still kind of hard to find actually I just Recently maybe what a year or two ago had just found my copy Why does blood sport have such a long-lasting impression on us and pop culture in general brought the whole Sort of karate genre back from the dead right yeah cuz Bruce Lee movies were very popular in the 70s And he kind of put that genre on the map I think here in North America then Chuck Norris came out and did doing all his stuff But I think that Chuck Norris almost became over-saturated his movies are more action With a little bit of karate right yeah, this movie just kind of it just punched you right in the face It was just all Martial arts showcasing different countries right different styles hit it against each other so you could see the different Styles how the styles worked against each other which was really cool Yeah, it was probably the first time we really saw something like that in a North American movie I think it was probably very common in the Hong Kong style probably martial arts movies But it's kind of an eye-opener for us kids saying oh, there's different kinds of martial arts It's not just karate. Hey, yeah, and they didn't hold back right it. There's a lot of blood in this movie Yeah, it's a lot. There's a lot of violence It's a good story whether it's true or not is to be forced debated We'll get to that later, but it's a good underdog story You know this white kid who was trained by his Japanese Shido-shi, yeah, whatever the hell that means Who cares of Bruce Springsteen is a Shido-shi almost against his will because he didn't want to train him right cuz he's not Japanese yeah, who ends up coming up and winning this big Kumate this martial arts tournament, so it's an underdog story in a way Yeah, and it just kind of shows you too that you don't need to be a specific Race breed or creed to do the specific martial art. Yeah well, yeah exactly Yeah, you know anybody can do it as long as they're trained properly blood sport for a B movie You know a low-budget B movie has impacted so many things in pop culture Which is which is pretty crazy mortal combat video game is basically based off of blood sport Inspired by that kind of different styles against each other karate tournament Johnny Cage is Van Damme Just look at him. It's he's Van Damme. Yeah Yeah, even like kind of like the finishing moves to not that brutal But there were kind of like finishing moves in blood sport well Johnny Cage does the splits Yeah, yeah exactly and then when the first UFC came out it was like oh my god We're watching blood sport for real Yeah, different styles against different styles pretty evident that I think blood sport inspired that kind of real life Martial art tournament because I don't know if there would have been a UFC one without blood sport That's up for debate, but it's like they didn't come out too far apart really when you watch that first UFC It's pretty ridiculous. Yeah Boxer with the one glove like it's like a video game. Yeah, it's like a movie Like you're watching a fucking movie. It's entertaining as hell That's for sure and also it's influenced us and our show quite a bit a lot of our sketches our blood sport related All you have to do is watch our channel We did the Canada Day training montage which is based both off of blood sport and kickbox So it's like a male a male between those two training montages the opening sketch for uncle Sam where you're training Yeah, like to knock a hit you with that stick And we have more blood sport sketches written down, you know in our back pocket for future episodes It's a piece of shit. It's not forgotten. You told me to review any movie that works So it's like even though we're a horror movie channel It's hard not to put these other influences in the show to kind of like show that yeah We do love other things besides for blood sport is definitely one of those movies like Christ last time we shot After we're done shooting and just chilling out. We put on blood. Yeah, that's right Yeah, and that's kind of what inspired us to shoot another one of these VHS tales because we put it in it's like How many times have we watched this movie and it's just as enjoyable Every time you watch it fuck. I just finished watching the final fight there on YouTube the other day Yeah, it doesn't get old. No doesn't get old lightning in a bottle, right? You have the right actors fight choreography is really good can't not talk about the music Yeah, the music the soundtrack for this movie is incredible I don't think it would have as much impact if it didn't have as good a soundtrack Yeah, it's definitely an example of a soundtrack making a movie and you know again that soundtrack Influenced our channel. There's been moments in the channel where we throw in music That's very similar to yeah blood sport just to have that that late 80s martial arts movie vibe And blood sport was apparently modeled on the real Frank Dukes Whose story is extremely debatable? Nothing can be corroborated So it's almost like the perfect bullshit story You can't prove anything but you can't disprove anything either Frank Dukes came up with the idea for blood sport And he's apparently was based off of his real life Exploits exploits as a tournament fighter and even at the end of the movie when it says like Frank Dukes fought this many Matches and this many knockouts and you look at the number you're like How can you fight that many fights in one tournament? Yeah? Yeah, it's not even that many people in the tournament And then he's gone on interviews saying oh no It's because the tournament was different you fight the same guy like maybe five times in the tournament So actually it's there's less people but more fights, but even then That's still 300 and some odd matches in the span of a weekend. Yeah, like that's a lot If you take one hit in half of those fights you would be done For the next day you wouldn't be able to compete the next day There's that documentary put up your Dukes, which is actually really good And you learn a lot about How much of a bullshitter? Frank Dukes really is hard to corroborate any of this stuff like he has all those Russian generals Telling those stories. You don't know if they're real Russian generals. It could just be actors Yeah, so Frank Dukes Well Frank Dukes claims to have won the won the kumite tournament, which is an underground fighting tournament But he also claims that he's like a secret agent for the CIA And all this stuff that like none of it can be proven and it's and it's so Easy and fun to go down the Frank Dukes rabbit hole. I've done it so many times Yeah, and the reason being is because deep down inside I kind of want it to be true You do you want to believe this guy because you've invested so much in the blood sport movie Please Have that footage that he always says exists of him winning the kumite Just someone please release that so we can all just put this to bed But we know that's never gonna happen, but deep down inside. You just want yeah it to be true How come there's no pictures at least is that picture of him holding that trophy? Y'all thought that we see it all proves that he bought the trophy It's all bullshit but entertaining nonetheless, and it also adds to the whole mythos Yeah, the whole blood sport thing whether Frank Dukes is full of shit or not We still have to thank him because without Frank Dukes We wouldn't have this amazing movie that all us 80s and 90s kids adore yeah and watch endlessly in quotes all the time I hope so yeah, I hope it will you know It's funny. I was at this Christmas party and there was this guy there dancing and he was kind of dancing like Van Damme and kickboxer Yeah, I don't think on purpose either you just bad So I go to him like man Are you doing that a purpose you're kind of dancing like Van Damme from kickboxer and he was a younger guy, right? Mm-hmm, and he had no clue what I was talking about not only did he not know a kickboxer is okay It's funny. Don't know a kickboxers, but he didn't know who Van Damme was. Oh, well, it's like the guy's a Movie star you don't know who Jean-Claude Van Damme is yeah, and that kind of made me sad You know I'm that's why I want movies like blood sport kickboxer to live on and like inspire these new generations That's right. Yeah, because they're good movies. Yeah, and even when you take the fighting out of those movies, too Like the training montages and all the the drama and everything that they showcase is actually pretty good, too Training montage is a staple of those 80s movies and it's something that I wish would come back You know it of course, it's a little dated and it may not work in every modern movie But there's something so special about this training montage is like yeah bring it back And you got the music and everything it's akin to the 80s like action movies where they got to get their guns, right? You know they're getting ready ready. Yeah, Van Damme and blood sport inspired many many people to take up real martial arts That's right. Like we took Dejudo For like a year because all I want to be like that even though Van Damme didn't do judo But still it was like inspired us to take up something. We didn't stick with it, of course But I'm sure there's tons of kids who took up some sort of martial art and didn't stick with it purely because of movies Like blood sport. Yeah, yeah, and I'm sure there's a lot of people who stuck with it We've become great martial artists because of blood sport. It was a huge thing when we were kids Every I think every kid did something we played blood sport in the basement sometimes it has set up our own kumata That's everything and prepare the platform for the final Match and then you try to lift those Yeah, the pillows up on each end to make it have that Never actually got all that hurt and then tape tape the soundtrack off of the TV by just holding one of those shitty ghetto blasters up to the The speaker of the TV and record the soundtrack on to that and then play the tape back with the music as you're Pretending to yeah, I can the kumata. You get all the sounds from the movie Back when there was no YouTube yeah, yeah, you had to do shit like hold your ghetto blaster up to your fucking TV and record the Speaker itself and press record and play at the same time And if you didn't the buttons would pop up, you know, it's like ah So if you have any stories about watching blood sport as a kid or even as an adult please share it with us because we are gonna continue to watch blood sport at least a couple of times a year That's how important this movie is to us and there's gonna be a few more VHS tales coming out So we're just kind of trying to get back in the groove, right? Trying to figure out exactly how this is gonna be different from a regular episodes Yeah, and I think it'll be just this is us sitting around shooting the shit podcast style But we don't want to use that term podcast Hey when people say come up to me like oh, yeah, how's your podcast doing? I'm saying it's not a fucking podcast Anything but yeah Do you see microphones in front of these faces? And until next time keep drinking