I waited the whole time for Van dame to tell him why his brother was not good enough to beat him? That should have been explained. Instead of having a pointless sex scene. Or did miss that part of the movie?
shareIt would be down to "heart" in that case. Mixed with the "something to fight for". like avenging his brother's death for one.
ITS OVER THERE > > > > < < < < ITS OVER THERE
I suspect the older brother did a quick crash course in training before facing Tong Po since Karate was his martial art. He might have been the best in the world at it but he knew he would need to supplement with some specifically Muay Thai training to fight Tong Po.
But it was probably a crash course and he probably did not focus as long or as hard on the extra training as Kurt did. Also, even though it was untapped just like the original I think Kurt had even more potential than his older brother.
He probably didn’t know that the brother was training to fight Tong Po, so he went easy with the training? He did say that “I train people. I don’t tell them who to fight or when to fight.” He was running a business, and ordinary people don’t need the spartan training that Eric got.
With Eric, he knew that Tong Po was the goal, so he went restless with the training. Some training was designed specifically for Tong Po, such as the coconuts and the headlock-escape maneuver.