"When Boyka accidentally kills a guy in the ring it makes him question what he stands for, and helps the guy's widow"
Bit of a change for Boyka is in not? Considering in Undisputed 2 he was killing people "because he could".
Well his "redemption" is a part of the story, suffering his only loss to Chambers and having to recuperate from it made him more humble and he gradually evolved into a better person.
I noticed you did not mention the 3rd movie in your post. In the 3rd he evolves into a better person. In fact "redemption" is the title.
Plus his opponents did not die I think they were just knocked out in the 2nd movie.
I think he only killed 2 people (outside the ring) and that was for cheating on his behalf by drugging his opponents drinking water. They kind of deserved it.
I see, I haven't watched the 3rd one yet so haven't seen him develop. I only watched the 2nd one last night but plan to watch the 3rd in the next few days.
Sorry if I spoiled it a little. His evolving into a better person is a big part of the story of Undisputed 3. Such a good idea to take a villain from a previous martial arts movie and make him a hero.
The morons who filmed the terrible Kickboxer 2 back in 1991 tried to reuse the same villain as a villain and you cannot do that, it is boring because the whole point of a martial arts movie villain is that they seem invincible once the hero of the story defeats them they have been proven to be beatable so they are used up.
But there is no literary rule requiring the HERO of a story to seem invincible or be undefeated only the villain has that burden, the hero is supposed to be the underdog like Rocky. So reusing Boyka as a hero was a stroke of genius.
OH I forgot to mention that I suspect Boyka did not even kill the guy. Here is a link to my theory. This is not really a spoiler because I have only seen the preview like you, so we are on equal footing I just have a knack for guessing plot twists.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3344680/board/thread/255008373