Early on, Johnson describes him as "a bright but undistinguished young man who, using cleverness and chutzpah, recreated himself as a super-hero a decade ago, painstakingly authenticating his new persona with military medals, trophies and newspaper clippings of questionable origins. Because for years he would turn down roles if his character had to be defeated at the end. Was Sheldon the first person you shared it with?Frank Dux: Well, it was supposed to be a series. This thingwhatever it was calledit was really cool and it would be a cool way to meet chicks.Blake Harris: And how did you go from passively enjoying these things to actual participating and learning how to fight?Frank Dux: I guess one of the things that helped push me in that direction was that I befriended a kid named Grant who had it far worse than myself. It was ridiculous what they had. "There is not Mr. Tanaka in Japanese history" of the Ninja families, Tanemura said. And I said, "If you're gonna go, just don't pull me with you." Okay? I'm not gonna stoop to his level. (w/ Nicole Byer) 4/7/2023 More HDTGM all-star Nicole Byer (Grand Crew, Nailed It!) I want to make this movie, but I want you to make this movie with a real movie star and that's Michael Dudikoff." He had a karate background. Jean-Claude had a three picture deal with Menahem at Cannon and Leon was very impressed with Jean-Claude; we all thought this was a match made in heaven. 4. And then one day I get invited down to the Long Beach Invitationals. Or was the movie developed in a totally different way?Frank Dux: Well I'll tell you what happened. I told Menahem that the new cut of Bloodsport was great and I thought it was going to do really well. How Did This Get Made is a companion to the podcastHow Did This Get MadewithPaul Scheer, Jason MantzoukasandJuneDiane Raphaelwhich focuses on movies. She'd never seen it. He taught at the Nakano spy school in Japan. Actually, I should back up. Not what's typically expected, which was: Jean-Claude's going to find these motherf***ers and beat the s*** out of them. He was just polite. Dux aped the premise behind Enter the Dragon, then claimed it as true. Bloodsport (1988) Starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Forest Whitaker based on experiences in the life of martial artist Frank W. Dux My involvement in that tournament was part of a plan, launched in 1975, to infiltrate the criminal organizations that organized the fights. How did that come about?Sheldon Lettich: Well, it's interesting. Two, actually. And I showed them, here's an issue of Black Belt magazine from two years prior to this; and here's a photo of me in that magazine from January 1976 right after I won it, holding the trophy. I said, "You're trying to prove to yourself that you could do it. There's an authenticity to it.Blake Harris: Speaking of authenticity, I was wondering how much of the movie is accurate to your own life experiences?Frank Dux: Well the fighting scenes were very accurate. You had mentioned that you and Sheldon reshaped that original script. He's demonstrating how to do a 1-inch punch and a 1-finger push-up. And that was the difference. They didn't have any proper uniforms. And it became real clear and finallyI said show me the proof that I represented myself as a war hero, as a Medal of Honor hero? But the fights in the story were all real. What made you such an extraordinary fighter?Frank Dux: Well, you know what? And we did. So I ended up writing that script for him. Bloodsport wasn't an Oscar-worthy film in any manner (the original cut was deemed unwatchable and a re-edit was completed before release), but Van Damme's stoic charisma and the memorable. He was a little too old at the time. I walked over there and he threw a playful kick at my head. We thought he was f***ing great. Ian Fleming based his characters on real people. So my agent sent him Firebase and he responded very enthusiastically. I blame the success of Jurassic Park for this movie. It's hard to call the young Van Damme's performance "good" in any traditional sense of the word, but . Are you guys still friendly?Sheldon Lettich: Oh yeah. In a recent documentary, Admiral Horton Smith not only acknowledges that I was a covert operative, but also states that any record of mine would have to come out of the Federal Intelligence Court. That's just point of the absurdity of the whole thing.Blake Harris: And, when you were there, how did the reporter respond to all this?Frank Dux: I embarrassed the hell out of him. And Tanaka was well known. And he showed up and said, "I see he didn't show up." He frickin' landed on his head, in front of all my students. And so we climbed back over the wall and onto the set. I'll show you a fighter and I'll fight you on the roof of the hotel!" And he just started laughing and he says, "Frank, you're crazy. He was very stiff. As a result, he's spent the past 28 years dealing with perpetual allegations of being a fake and a fraud. While trying to gain access into. He took pride in the fact that he was all natural. The film is partly based on unverified claims made by martial artist Frank Dux. Sheldon tells everybody that I told him a story of how I fought these events and he thought that would make a great movie and all this kind of stuff. So he was just trying to get me in trouble.Blake Harris: What, in your opinion, was his motive?Frank Dux: Well, the thing is, the article came out on the same day that a few of my business competitors are holding a seminar. Those were my uniforms. Armed with a gun that fires Kryptonite needles, Bloodsport nearly succeeded in his mission to eliminate the Man of Steel, but ultimately failed. And he agreed to that. Using tech he got from Lex Luthor, Bloodsport teleported a rifle that fired Kryptonite needles into his hands and shot Superman with it. Is that true?Sheldon Lettich: We were working on a sequel, but I just don't think it's going to go anywhere, unfortunately. But then Menahem decided he didn't want to make the movie.Blake Harris: Why?Sheldon Lettich: In his words, I'm quoting, "Jean-Claude can't even play one character, how do you expect him to play two?" There's a birth certificate and a death certificate for him. Get personalized recommendations, and learn where to watch across hundreds of streaming providers. And I totally separated it. Plus the guy was just an idol of mine. Well, here's the reality of the situation. In fact, we explored Post Traumatic Stress in the play, but the term PTSD had not even been coined yet. So we had a number of people come to my apartment; John would test them out for their acting abilities and we would also try to determine if they were for real.Blake Harris: In what sense?Sheldon Lettich: Oh, I just meant we'd try to determine if they were really Vietnam veterans. That's what they always show on the history channel, those two to the head. KUMITE! Idc, even have a "Thor and Cap trade weapons moment" in Endgame with those two. I met this guy Sheldon Lettich, who had done a play called Tracers and we became friends. Not about Jean-Claude per se, but about releasing Bloodsport in theaters?Sheldon Lettich: Menahem was persuaded by Samuel Hadida, who had released No Retreat, No Surrender in France (where it was called Karate Tiger) and been a fan of Jean-Claude's ever since then. That's bullshit, that's total bullshit.Blake Harris: What about those claims regarding your covert military background? So cool, in fact, that now we have a professional basketball team called The Raptors and no one raised an eyebrow about why a team from Tornoto, Canada would be named that. However, speaking of the UFC, Frank Dux does have a tangential connection to the UFC. So it should be a total of six blows, except this turned out to be a total of eight because of those two to Vic's head. Dux said the military ordered his record sabotaged to discredit him. He was totally against any kind of steroids. And then the fight was on. You try to get him to do a judo throw and he couldn't throw anybody. I don't think Stallone has ever been given his due by movie critics. And then Gary Sinese saw the play in New York and he wanted to put it on in Chicago. "Tagline:The True Story of an American Ninja, "All I request," Lettich started off by saying, "is that we try to keep discussion about Frank Dux to a minimum. I met Gladys, the woman of my dreams, I had a baby, and I'm miserable. And on it, they didn't even spell my name correctly. In downtown L.A. And I go: Well, just do me a favor. So flash forward ten years and I still had this notion of doing a film about the classic era of French Foreign Legion movie. ).Blake Harris: That's great. It took me years to understand the producer's point, but I do now. By their own photographer. And I remember Mark telling us, "Menahem is thinking of casting this guy Gene Claude Van Damme. Nobody clapped for Sheldon. So these kids kind of grew up together. And were just digging this whole notion of Jean-Claude being a Legionnaire. And it wasn't even for the right trophy. Anyways, they didn't pay me for doing my work on The Corsican Brothers and Delta Force 2. But I didn't sleep with a reporter beforehand and I certainly didn't break into my instructor's house and steal a sword. But Michael Dudikoff is like 6'2," and the problem was they wanted to film in Asia. Which kind of made Grant feel better about himself. Bloodsport. I never said that. Did that piece directly lead to Bloodsport? Let's put Jean-Claude in. So I said, "As long as you're going to have martial arts, why not get Frank?" So when I finally connected with Lettich, I worried that there might be some not-so-flattering words headed my way. 20th Century Fox was high on Only the Strong and we all kind of expected that movie to do better than it did. And I remember watching a movie where James Bond was doing jujitsu. He owes you two more movies! It was also seen by Viacom. Please note as always his opinions, recollections and claims are his own, and not necessarily fact. Thndrcougarfalcnbird. And then he was inspired to write a script. And on it he writes: To the Man Who Beat Me. I imagine it's hard to write a personal, firsthand account like that.Frank Dux: Here's the thing. I mean, I didn't really see it myself, but I heard it from Grant later. Menahem started to realize what he had with Jean-Claudeand remember, he had two more movies with himso he called us into his office and said, "We need to find our next movie for Jean-Claude." Especially when you believe that person is your friend.Frank Dux: Exactly. So you know what that means. Start Free Trial. Later on, Lee took Grant and showed him that one of his legs was shorter than the other. This was all very, very low budget. It worked great. That picture with my hands crossed, you can see Bloodsport in the background. Jean-Claude?Frank Dux: When we started? Because you didn't do it in Hong Kong." And we did.Blake Harris: Did Mark and the other producers spark to the idea of Jean-Claude?Frank Dux: They wanted to use Michael Dudikoff at first. Sadly not at all. But he had a great imagination, he had good ideas and he knew the martial arts world pretty well. Well, about the only thing they showed was a trophy receipt.Blake Harris: Which they claimed was evidence that the trophy you won was "at least partially made in the San Fernando Valley? Like I'm a kook because he comes out of a James Bond movie: You Only Live Twice. And we ran around like kids, just like kids, and he was showing me this beautiful art deco penthouse apartment in downtown L.A.Blake Harris: That's a great image. Absolutely. It was definitely a therapeutic experience for everyone involved with the play. I always try to look for the best in people. How Did This Get Made is a companion to the podcastHow Did This Get MadewithPaul Scheer, Jason MantzoukasandJuneDiane Raphaelwhich focuses on movies. We probably fought for a good 5-10 minutes before getting split up. And so he told Menahem, "Sell it to me and I'll release it theatrically." Today on Variant, we give you the comic book. I had them cut down so it would fit him because I'm a bigger guy. And he was friendly to me. So I wrote the script and gave it to a guy named Jacov Bresler. 8. The one thing that we did that made the film work so well is that we would do one "twinning shot" per scene. In fact, I never even got story credit for it.Blake Harris: That's rough.Frank Dux: Well, Sheldon has made a career out of coming in behind me and putting his name on my work, okay? I remember there was a stack of scripts lining the walltitles written on the spineand I notice one script in particular. I thought it was Pasadena, but everyone's told me it was Long Beach. Sometimes we get answers to questions like these, and other times we do not. I said to Frank, "That's a great title for a movie." And what really grabbed Sheldon's attention was the fights.Blake Harris: So what happened with the script? And so we had a great time. I think what happened in reality was more interesting, but you have a limited amount of time to tell a story and it has to resonate with the audience, you know? An animatronic dinosaur with a teen's brain, dinosaur charades, a weird striptease for a brain in a bowl, and much more. I think Jean-Claude and I have done just fine without 'riding his coattails,' haven't we?". I was at this taping and I even got to ask a question, so this is probably my favorite episode by default. And I gotta give him credit there. Sheldon Lettich: We got some amazing reviews and it just turned into a little bit of a mini-phenomenon. Sheldon Lettich: In Menahem's defense, I saw the first cutwe all the saw first cutand it was really bad. Now, Frank did contribute a number of ideas to the Bloodsport script, but he claimed these were "life events" that actually happened to him, not fiction. He saw the script. During the tournament, Dux battles an array of international fighters from various schools of martial arts. The one who's putting up his "dux? We did not use CGI, that was only just starting to become popular, so we had to do everything optically. Yet with Bloodsport, this was not the case. And he just laughed and said, "Come on, let me show you this house. And then all the Black Dragons got around methey were like the Hells Angels of the martial arts world at that timeand I didn't know what they were going to do. Jason and Paul chat about the latest Star Trek & Star Wars TV shows, Paul digs into Corrections and Omissions from The Specialist, shares a deleted scene from last week's episode about Steven Seagal's blues music career, and announces next week's movie. A lot of it was based on the recollections of my friend Kurt Taylor, who I wrote the script with. If they'd actually served. "He's a loser. Qissi followed Van Damme to Los Angeles and found himself in a bit part in Bloodsport and eventually played the villain, Tong Po, in Kickboxer. The uniform they had for Jean-Claude was silk pajamas, these Chinese silk pajamas. [laughing] Those old 80s trailers, that's what they'd say over and over again. Except the version that Stallone had in mind was for a present day French Foreign Legion movie about two American buddies who enlist. You know, where people go around wearing medals and talking about their fictional war exploits.Blake Harris: That actually makes for a good, non-Frank-related jumping off point. Fun bit of trivia: Bloodsport is essentially a hoax perpetrated by Frank Dux, who made outrageous claims about this Kumite tournament that were never substantiated and are physically impossible. And I'll never forgetand I'm terrified of heights, by the way. This thing, it had legs, and started traveling around the world (London, Australia, etc. Menahem says, "Oh, Corsican Brothers, that's perfect for Jean-Claude! In 1987's Superman #4, by John Byrne and Karl Kesel, Superman tried to stop Bloodsport's rampage through Metropolis. And Cap trade weapons moment & quot ; in Endgame with those two to the UFC, recollections claims... 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