EDITOR’S NOTE: Kickboxer 4 was on USA Up All Night on July 12, 1997 and January 17, 1998.

Kickboxer 3 seems like a walk in the park compared to this movie, which seemingly compounds all of the tragedies of David Sloane and presents a world where martial arts masters can take over entire towns. As if you didn’t know, Albert Pyun knew how to make amazing low budget movies and this blows away any of the movies in this series other than the first film.

David (Sasha Mitchell) writes a letter to his wife Vicky (Deborah Mansy) as exposition for us. After the events of Kickboxer,  the dreaded Tong Po (Kamel Krifa) killed his brothers Kurt and Eric, he hunted him down — Kickboxer 2 — but after he successfully beat Tong Po, instead of fighting in the ring, he was set up and arrested for selling drugs. Then again, Vicky knows all of this, as Tong Po also kidnaps her and makes her his sex slave in the Mexican town where he has become one of the world’s biggest drug dealers.

At least Po is kind enough to send him naked photos of his wife while he’s behind bars.

There’s hope. Yes, even now. Po is hosting a martial arts tournament at his private compound. the winner will get a match against him and a million dollars. DEA Agent Casey Ford (Nicholas Guest, Christopher’s brother) can get David into the tournament where he will fight as Jack Jones. To get there, he has to get into some street fights and get seen by Brubaker (Nicholas Anthony), Po’s fight scout.

Now, I ask you, won’t Po immediately recognize his arch enemy?

David makes his way to Mexico, a lawless land where he immediately rescues diminutive martial artist Megan Laurence (Michele Krasnoo) from bikers and then has to fight her in the first round. He’s also hit on by one of Po’s many women, Darcy Cove (Jill Pierce) and recognizes an old student named Lando Smith (Brad Thornton) who will be his backup.

All David wants to do is rescue his wife and he nearly gets both of them killed. To get more info, Lando starts sleeping with Darcy and that ends up with him tortured and her killed in front of him.

On the last day of the tournament, all the rules change. Every fight will be to the death and Po’s guards shoot anyone who won’t compete. He also offers every fighter $500,000 for killing David, who he blames for the death of his wife Sian, who was killed in a DEA drug raid. David defeats Thomas (Burton Richardson), one of the best fighters, and wins. Finally, the fighters rally against Po who escapes, leaving so many dead fighters behind.

The weirdest thing about this movie is that Kamel Krifa has a bald cap and makeup on to look like Michel Qissi. He appears to be wearing wax on his face and I love that he looks nearly inhuman. He’s also a famous record producer and plays the sitar, which is the kind of thing that only Pyun could work into a movie and make sense.

The fighting may not be great but that’s the beauty of Pyun. He starts with a noir intro, has an edge to this and was able to complete a movie that had so many scenes ruined by being overexposed, pretty much finishing this movie in the edit.