a.k.a. Kickboxer 2025
(Whuuuuut? That's the year we're in!)
Tagline
A personal quest for vengenace
A high tech race for survival
Trailer
Info
Cast
Summary
In a future where Earth is a polluted, crime-ridden hellhole and the rich live on the moon passing their time with VR fantasies and organ upgrades (which is totally not going to happen, right? ... RIGHT?), the last of the Cyberons is hired by the widow of a VR fantasy designer murdered by organ thieves to hunt down his killers on the deadly streets of New Los Angeles.
Opinion
The moment I saw the title "Future Kick", I had to see it. Fans of the TV show Community will understand why.
https://community-sitcom.fandom.com/wiki/Kickpuncher
This Roger Corman-produced flick wisely gives the other actors most of the lines and lets Don kick. My first Don movie, and until I started browsing free streaming, I hadn't realized just how many, many, many Don Wilson movies were out there!
Overall, a competent straight-to-video actioner with a few gonzo deaths yet still fails to enthuse. Meg Foster at least brings some humanity to the screen, but Chris Penn, the year before Reservoir Dogs, in particular seems wasted. (In hindsight, I should clarify I mean "underutilized", not "intoxicated".)
Movie
- https://tubitv.com/es-mx/movies/466817/future-kick
- https://watch.plex.tv/movie/future-kick
- https://mubi.com/en/us/films/future-kick
- https://www.justwatch.com/mx/pelicula/kickboxer-2025 (as so often, currently says it's unavailable even though it is; I include it here in case it provides better results in future)
Screenshots
For us Gen Xers, there were a hell of a lot of cheap scifi action flicks in the video rental heyday of the 90s. Including quite a few in the Venn diagram overlap of "future dystopia" + "cyborgs" + "kickboxing".
I always assumed it was Albert Pyun movies like Cyborg (JCVD) and Nemesis (Olivier Gruner). (Pyun was casting kickboxers as movie leads practically until he died in 2022.) However I see the Community wiki says (but without any citations) Robocop and Cyber Tracker (Don Wilson) (it is now in my watchlist). And then I found this other Don Wilson movie with the "future dystopia" + "cyborgs" + "kickboxing" overlap.
Unless the writers come out and tell us exactly which movies inspired Kickpuncher, we're left guessing.
PS I wonder if they have, maybe answering audience questions at a convention.
The artist of the Kickpuncher comic doesn't clear up the issue here: