MovieChat Forums > Kickboxer: Vengeance (2016) Discussion > No Vengeance required

No Vengeance required

posted 8 years ago by dxtripleh1014
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In the original, I understood why Kurt avenged his brother and fought Tong Po. Eric was clearly not aware of the style of fighting he got himself into (Kurt even mentioned that in his corner) and Tong Po ignored the rules of the match to purposely cripple Eric. Not to mention, Tong Po was a mad man and needed to be stopped.

In this film, Tong Po paid Eric, flew him out there, got him a great trainer, and Eric was fully aware the underground fight was dangerous. Then when Kurt tries to assassinate Tong Po, rather than kill him as the original would surely have done, he pays for Kurt to fly home. Honestly, I don't think Tong Po was the bad guy here.

[–] creatorof2002 8 years ago

Maybe I need to rewatch because I was not aware that Tong Po paid for Kurt's airplane ticket, I assumed the Thai government did that.

Morality in life is based on INTENTION. I will be devil's advocate here.

1. He did NOT kill Kurt which he could have easily done and if the laws for self defense are similar in Thailand he could not even have been prosecuted. Maybe he figured he could beat Kurt up (which he did) and humiliate him by taking his gun and not knowing that one of the high ranking Thai detectives was effing Kurt and pulled some strings figured the guy would be in prison for a long time and he was just not worth killing.

2. He dropped the attempted murder charges and that SEEMS like a nice thing to do but maybe he WANTED to for this reason:Maybe he KNEW Kurt would challenge him to a fight to the death in the arena and he needed Kurt out of prison in order for that to happen. In fact maybe the reason he did not kill Kurt is that he was HOPING that at a later date he could kill Kurt in the arena in front of hundreds of witnesses which would be much more satisfying than with nobody watching.

3. Tong Po KNEW Eric was no match for him and the only reason he provided a trainer (I do not think Tong Po "provided" Master Durand to train Eric) was because he wanted to give his opponent some kind of fighting chance even though he knew the guy stood no real chance. This was probably to appease the crowd as too easy a victory would be boring for them. That money was a "lure" like luring a fish with bait.

4. Compared to the original Tong Po he was not evil at all. Maybe the ending would have been better if Kurt beat him into submission then a weakened badly beaten Tong Po asks Kurt to kill him so that he can die a "warrior's death' and Kurt walks away instead. I think that might have been the better ending.