Van Damme does pulp

I ran across a movie this weekend that really surprised me. It was called “The Quest”, It starred Jean-Claude Van Damme a B-list movie star who had a string of successful action movies in the 90’s. The Quest absolutely drips with pulpy goodness. Van Damme plays a pick-pocket in depression-era New York who somehow finds his way to representing the United states in a secret martial arts tournament in Asia.

It’s billed as a martial arts film but don’t be fooled, the movie is a pulp masterpiece worthy of any of the magazines of the era.
This movie has:
• Chinese Pirates
• Exotic locales
• A heavyweight boxing champ named “Maxie” Devine
• A Feisty girl-reporter
• A Zeppelin
• Hidden temples in the mountains
• Travel by elephant
• Prussians Aristocrats with dueling scars
• A priceless treasure
• British Expatriate Con men
• Supporting characters succumbing to an honorable yet futile death against a brutal villain.

Now you put all that together, and add a contest with every Martial Art style from Monkey-Style Kung Fu to Savate to Turkish Wrestling, and you have one Whiz–bang of an adventure story.