The inclusion of a fighting tournament steers the franchise back towards being a martial arts movie and the fight scenes in this movie are actually decent for a low-budget flick from the 90's but the main returning characters of David Sloan and Tong Po feel like cheap replications of themselves and that is only one of the many problems that this movie has.
Have you watched enough of the series to have watched Kickboxer 4: The Aggressor?
(http://fight-evil.com/movies/k/kickboxer4-1994/4.jpg)