For reasons explained in my review of "Kickboxer 2: The Road Back", I STILL haven't seen the first one.In a wooded area outside Rio de Janeiro,a beautiful girl in a dress that doesn't cover much is being chased by a man who wants to kill her.Meanwhile, kickboxing champ David Sloan and his trainer Xian are on a plane to Rio as David is about to face Argentinian champ Martine.And there is nice music in Frank Lane's restaurant, where it appears wealthy men are being set up with hookers.And where do the hookers come from? There is a large group of young girls in a room, who are shown what could happen to them. Remember the girl who was being chased?In Rio, Marcos and his sister Isabella work together to steal the camera David and Xian brought with them. David chases Marcos and discovers he is one of a large group of kids who are basically homeless, though their shelter is an unfinished hotel. David and Marcos become friends, and David and Xian try to keep Marcos and Isabella safe while working to improve their circumstances.Before the big fight, David participates in an exhibition to benefit the homeless. The people in charge of a fundraiser don't seem to get the irony of treating the very people they are helping as second-class citizens. In an exhibition, no one is supposed to get hurt. Martine doesn't seem to understand that and David gets involved when he sees how Martine's opponent is treated. They will get a rematch.Frank is Martine's manager and he becomes friends with David. But you know he wants something. In Frank's restaurant, there is more good music, this time with a female vocalist, and dancing. Marcos wants to set David up, and he too has a good time dancing. David gets to demonstrate his skills.Eventually, David and Xian must fight, using weapons rather than just their bodies. David also gets a new trainer who is quite brutal compared to Xian. And the outcome of the fight with Martine could have deadly consequences for one of the stars.This film is more of a comedy than the second one, and that's fine with me. Most of the scenes with David and Xian are funny, as are many scenes with Marcos. Even the villains give us some funny lines.In the first film, Sasha Mitchell didn't seem that much like Cody. But he either hadn't played the character yet or hadn't played him very long. In this film, the Cody personality is there from his first line. That's not to say he is always there. Sometimes Mitchell is quite serious and tough. But either playing Cody all those years reduced his IQ or David has been getting hit in the head too much. Since I liked Cody, it was okay with me.Dennis Chan isn't quite as good as in the second movie, in terms of quality, but he is a lot funnier.Noah Verduzco does a very good job as young Marcos, and unlike Joey from the first movie, a similar character, he gets to stay around for the entire movie.One of the villains is in charge of some kind of holiday celebration involving dancing by the locals. They're quite talented.A woman selling some kind of merchandise has only a couple of lines but is very convincing as a real Brazilian.And there's a great fall out of a window. To which David responds, "Now THAT's number seven!"The fighting is good, if you like that sort of thing. It's not nearly as bloody as in the second movie, and in fact this one had a TV-PG rating when I saw it while the other was TV-14. But don't be fooled: this still isn't family fare.It's entertaining enough.

well folks, I got to say, as a Brazilian, that the portrait of Rio is not very flattering... And, unfortunately, very true. Some stupid things aside (for example, gambling is prohibited in my country since the 40's), this light-weight martial arts flick delivers, gave me some well-received giggles and Mitchell hold his own as a fighter and is quite credible as the main man.Using the character of Xian, played with gusto by Dennis Chan, as the link to the most famous movie of this series, starred by Van Damme, the plot shows a harsh reality, the women trafficking and children abandonment in my country with levity and good laughs with very good fight scenes. Definitely, a nice example of how a Direct-to-video sequel can be when a little care is taken; it does not have to always be garbage.

Kickboxer 3; The Art of War is just as good as the first two films since it has Kickboxing in it and some gun action with David and Xian assaulting a huge estates, Sasha Mitchell returns as David Sloan and Dennis Chan returns as Xing Chow, the film sees David and Xing going to Rio for a Kickboxing tournament where they meet a young boy and his sister who takes them around Rio, but when the boy's sister is kidnapped by a man who kidnaps women.David and Xian help the young boy get his sister back from him but soon gets captured and forced to train roughly for a match against his best fighter. So when the match begins David beats him and takes out his business freeing the young women and the young boy's sister.Kickboxer 3 is a pretty good sequel. Check it out

Kickboxer 3 isn't worth the money, or the rental. Dennis Chan is a comic sidekick and teacher to David Slone who plays a chilsed jawed kickboxer who seems to resemble that bad karate kid from Karate Kid III.Anyway, the film has David going to Brazil for a kickboxing fight but gets drawn into the seedy world of underage prositutes or something and gets drawn into the local riff-raff.Even though he's only a kickboxer and only there to kick the ass of the Ivan Drago type kickboxer he goes out on a mission to take out the local bad guy, who isn't even Portuegese or Brazilian, but American.The fight sequences are okay - but that is it, nothing compared to other martial art movies you can get for the same price.Avoid it. 1/10