Overview of The Quest w/ Jon Gabrus (Classic)
In this classic How Did This Get Made? episode, Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael, and Jason Mantzoukas are joined by Jon Gabrus to dissect Jean-Claude Van Damme’s The Quest — a movie they see as a watered-down, strangely earnest follow-up to Bloodsport. The group spends most of the episode trying to untangle its baffling plot, odd tonal choices, and repetitive tournament structure, while also celebrating how fully the film commits to its own ridiculousness.
Main Takeaways
Why The Quest frustrates them
- The hosts broadly agree that the film strips away the best parts of Bloodsport:
- less fun
- less momentum
- fewer memorable training beats
- no real escalation
- They’re especially thrown by the fact that it’s a period-piece martial arts tournament movie, which they feel drains some of the “modern trashy action” energy that made Bloodsport work.
The plot makes little sense
- They spend a lot of time trying to decode:
- why Van Damme’s character is leading a gang of street kids
- why he’s suddenly on a boat
- how long the travel/time jumps actually take
- why the stolen gold dragon matters so much
- why the tournament rules keep changing
- A recurring joke is that the movie’s timeline is impossibly long, even though it’s never clearly explained.
Van Damme’s character is bizarrely constructed
- JCVD plays Chris Dubois, but the hosts note that the character feels like multiple movie ideas shoved together:
- street clown
- child gang leader
- slave on a boat
- Muay Thai trainee
- tournament fighter
- They also discuss how Van Damme clearly directed the film in a way that lets him indulge personal fantasies, but not always in a coherent way.
The action is all style, little payoff
- The film’s tournament setup introduces a parade of stereotyped fighters from different countries, which the panel finds both entertaining and deeply silly.
- They call out:
- the capoeira fighter
- the sumo fighter
- the fencer
- the “Mongolian” villain
- the Nazi blimp finale
- Their main complaint: the fights are short, repetitive, and often rely on slow motion in ways that make them less exciting.
Notable Bits and Running Jokes
The “splits” debate
- June admits she finds Van Damme’s famous splits unsettling.
- This spirals into a long, very funny discussion about:
- male flexibility
- whether being too flexible is attractive or threatening
- Paul’s own lack of flexibility
- It becomes one of the episode’s biggest comic detours.
Jon Gabrus as martial arts superfan
- Gabrus shares that he grew up obsessed with karate and action movies.
- He ranks The Quest very low in the Jean-Claude Van Damme canon, comparing it unfavorably to films like:
- Bloodsport
- Universal Soldier
- Double Impact
- Hard Target
- Sudden Death
“Stilts” as a comedic obsession
- The episode repeatedly returns to Van Damme’s opening clown/stilt performance.
- The hosts joke about how the film never pays off that setup, even though it feels like it should matter more.
- June, in particular, finds the stilt-walking imagery oddly fascinating.
The film’s ending is underwhelming
- The final victory feels anticlimactic to the group.
- They joke that the film ends as if everyone simply “did fine,” with no real emotional payoff.
- The ending voiceover and wrap-up are mocked for being overly tidy despite the movie’s chaos.
Trivia and Behind-the-Scenes Details
Internet trivia they highlight
- The original director JCVD wanted was reportedly Oliver Stone, who declined.
- Roger Moore apparently hated the movie and was embarrassed by it.
- The infamous IMDb trivia about Jack McGee farting after every take becomes one of the episode’s strangest and funniest anecdotes.
Context around Bloodsport
- Since the episode is framed as a kind of spiritual sequel discussion, they also reference Bloodsport heavily:
- how that film handled its tournament structure better
- how its training and escalation were more satisfying
- how The Quest feels like a diluted version of the same formula
Final Verdict
The episode’s overall consensus is that The Quest is a wildly overcomplicated, oddly personal Jean-Claude Van Damme vanity project that has moments of fun but never quite delivers the full charge of a great action movie. The best parts of the discussion come from the hosts and Gabrus riffing on its absurdity, its confused storytelling, and Van Damme’s endlessly fascinating commitment to martial arts, masculinity, and his own on-screen mythology.