With the James Bond 007 series celebrating its 50th anniversary because of Dr. No, and the third actor to play the famous spy role getting about a lot at the time, it made sense to me to see some of his films before and after Bond, so I found this one, the directorial debut from Jean-Claude Van Damme. Basically an old man is telling a story to a bartender after getting into a fight, and we flashback to this man younger, Christopher Dubois (Van Damme), a pickpocket living in 1925 New York who was orphaned as a child and runs a gang of orphan children pickpockets who also con and steal to get by. They get found by gangsters but Dubois manages to get away, but he does get the attention of the police as well, but he promises to return to the children before stowing away on a boat, but he is found by the crew and forced to be a slave by the pirates aboard. He is saved a few years later by mercenary Englishman Lord Edgar Dobbs (Sir Roger Moore) who agrees to help him get home to America, but in fact he sells him off as a slave on the island of Siam where he gets trained in Muay Thai fighting for a scheme that is coming up. Six months pass and Dobbs with his partner Harry Smythe (Jack McGee) are shocked to see Dubois fighting in the Muay Thai fighting ring, but they see he has become a skilled fighter, so they buy his freedom so that he will represent the USA in the Ghang-Gheng worldwide fighting tournament held in the Lost City of Tibet. Other countries competing in the global event include China, Japan, Germany, Brazil, France, Turkey, Greece, Spain, Africa, Korea, Soviet Union (Russia) and Scotland, all are eliminated round by round, and at the end of the tournament the winning country will receive the prestigious and valuable statue the Golden Dragon. As the contest goes on Dubois gets to know American reporter Carrie Newton (Janet Gunn) and heavyweight boxing champion Maxie Devine (James Remar) who give him advice and tips, and after winning against apposing countries the biggest challenge comes in the final round when he faces Khan the Mongolian Fighter (Abdel Qissi) who is savage. At the end Dubois ultimately wins the tournament, and refusing the Golden Dragon he wins the freedom of his friends Dobbs and Smythe who were sentenced to death after they tried to steal the golden statue, he returned to New York and got the children off the streets, Devine trained great fighters in his future, Dobbs and Smythe went deep into the Amazon to open a trading post, and Carrie wrote the story of everything called The Quest. Also starring Aki Aleong as Khao, Louis Mandylor as Riggi, Chang Ching Peng Chaplin as Master Tchi, Ryan Cutrona as Officer O'Keefe, Peter Wong as Chinese Fighter, Kitao Koji as Sumo Wrestler, Habby Heske as German Fighter, César Carneiro as Brazilian Fighter, Takis Triggelis as French Fighter, Azdine Nouri as Turkish Fighter, Stefanos Miltsakakis as Greek Fighter, Peter Malota as Spanish Fighter, Winston Ellis as African Fighter, Ong Soo Han as Korean Fighter, Brick Bronsky as Russian Fighter, Ip Choi Nam as Korean Fighter and Mike Lambert as Scottish Fighter. Van Damme is relatively interesting as the pickpocket turned strong fighter, I will be honest and say that I was paying more attention to Moore though with his charming mannerisms and overall English good nature, I have only seen a few of Van Damme's films, many of them are meant to be involving fighting, so as one of them this is I suppose a good enough one, the story is simple enough and the fight sequences are certainly gripping, it is an alright martial arts action adventure. Worth watching!