Mosquito wrote:It's always a mystery to me why he doesn't use his excellent skills more often
Not such a big mystery. He doesn't come from a "show off" martial arts background. Kyokushin isn't pretty looking and is not supposed to (unlike more classic styles of karate like Shotokan or Shito-Ryu). And with reason or not, Dolph doesn't like to show it off on screen because he's knows it and have been a champion in real life and that 80% of the time he finds pretty stupid the way martial arts are depicted on film, he's too tall (so why do high kicks) and would rather be punching down and dirty and be more realistic.
I remember him saying after SHOWDOWN flopped and being disappointed by the film, that he'd rather leave martial arts in movies to others who are shorter and looked better. Now if anything I think he'd be interested in doing MMA on screen if he had a good coach and fight coordinator. Also for him a fight shouldn't last too many blows especially with a guy like him who'd knock you out in one...
Another BIG REASON is that in most cases they don't have nearly enough time to work out the fights choreography, in the end it's common that they rehearse it in the morning and have a couple of hours to shoot it, so that leaves little room for sophistication. Same with when you wanna break bones and stuff you need SFX people and prosthetics and at least a day out of the schedule which they're rarely given on these budgets.
For instance they had a bit more time for it in DIRECT ACTION which why Barry Evans could work out something that looked pretty good. But I agree, could be some better stuff; I also think sometimes Dolph tends to forget he's done this or that in such movie years ago so he doesn't think about it.