The King of the Kickboxers I & II (1991)

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    The cover of this two disc box set indicates the films are The King of the Kickboxers I & II. The second DVD cover, however, indicates the film is American Shaolin: King of the Kickboxers II while the title sequence on the DVD itself is American Shaolin. Clearly, the intention was to allign American Shaolin with the King of the Kickboxers which was released the year before in 1990. However, while both films have revenge plots where the hero undertakes a training regime that allows him to challenge his enemy, American Shaolin bears no resemblance to the earlier film in cast or tone. The only connection is that it is one of a number of martial arts films from Seasonal Films Producer Ng See Yuen, probably best known for the Jean-Claude van Damme vehicle No Retreat No Surrender. Indeed, the films in this box set are sometimes known as No Retreat No Surrender 4 & 5.

     The King of the Kickboxers combines exotic locations, a basic revenge plot, indifferent acting, minor nudity, trite dialogue and impressive brutal bloody action sequences into an entertaining 93 minutes. There is a raw energy to the fights, some of which are quite good including the final confrontation to the death on a range of platforms that has good tension and pacing. American Shaolin, on the other hand, is a fun film with a good comedic tone, whether it is the training sequences or cultural misunderstandings, and good individual fight sequences choreographed by Corey Yuen. The other similarity is that both DVDs have poor video with numerous frequent artefacts, dirt, grain and scratches, passable audio and only trailers as extras. Neither is going to be admired for its deep and meaningly acting, characterisations, dialogue or insights into the human condition but the fights, however different in executuion and tone, are worth a look.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

The King of the Kickboxers (1991)

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General		Extras
Category	Martial Arts	Trailer-Seasonal Film Corp trailers
Rating
Year Of Production	1991
Running Time	93:31
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Lucas Lowe
Studio Distributor	Seasonal Film Corp Beyond Home Entertainment	Starring	Loren Avedon Richard Jaeckel Don Stroud Billy Blanks Sherrie Rose William Long Jr. David Michael Sterling Keith Cooke Ong Soo Han
Case	Amaray-Opaque
RPI	$12.95	Music	Richard Yuen

    The King of the Kickboxers is one of a number of martial arts films from Producer Ng See Yuen, probably best known for the Jean-Claude van Damme vehicle No Retreat No Surrender. The King of the Kickboxers combines exotic locations, a basic revenge plot, indifferent acting, minor nudity, trite dialogue and impressive brutal bloody action sequences. The King of the Kickboxers is sometimes known as No Retreat No Surrender 4.

     After he wins a kickboxing tournament in Bangkok in 1981 Jake Donahue's brother is murdered by a vicious fighter named Khan (Billy Blanks) while Jake watches. Ten years later, Jake (Loren Avedon) is an undercover New York cop. He is seconded by Interpol to Thailand to infiltrate a "snuff" film production company run by The Boss (William Long Jr.); he accepts when he discovers that Khan is involved. In Bangkok Jake saves blonde American Molly (Sherrie Rose) from attackers. But he painfully discovers after being defeated easily by Thasi (Ong Soo Han) that his fighting skills will not be sufficient to beat Khan. So Jake travels into the jungle to meet Prang (Keith Cooke), the only man who came close to defeating Khan. After initial resistance, Prang agrees to train Jake and an extended training sequence ensues. When they believe Jake is ready to fight Khan they make contact with the film company through Mr McKinney (David Michael Sterling). But the Boss is not fooled; Molly and Prang are captured and on the movie set Jake must fight Khan to the death while the cameras roll, a fight that will decide whether Molly lives or dies.

     The King of the Kickboxers is not going to be admired for its deep and meaningful acting, characterisations, dialogue or insights into the human condition. Indeed, the acting is pedestrian, the characterisation non-existent, the dialogue trite ("pain does not exist"). But it is the action that is the point and in The King of the Kickboxers there are a range of fight sequences. Not all work: some were obviously filmed with a slower film speed and speeded up; some of the wire work is clumsy which breaks the flow of a sequence (for example at 85:38) and some of the editing is sloppy enough to make it clear that kicks miss by a long way. Yet there is a raw energy to the fights and some are very good including the final confrontation between Jake and Khan on a range of platforms that has excellent tension and pacing. Loren Avedon does what is required and in a small role Keith Cooke as the master Prang moves well in his fights. The film also earns its R rating for one sequence involving a hook. There is no denying, however, that in The King of the Kickboxers the fights are energetic, brutal, inventive and worth watching.

     The King of the Kickboxers combines exotic locations, a basic revenge plot, indifferent acting, minor nudity, trite dialogue and impressive brutal action sequences into an entertaining 93 minutes. Go with the flow and enjoy the action.

Video

    The King of the Kickboxers is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and is not 16x9 enhanced. I have not been able to find the original aspect ratio and while mostly the film looks OK it seems cropped in some scenes. It is not a great print. There are frequent artefacts and scratch marks throughout the film, aliasing on bricks, blinds and tile roofs (see, for example 12:55-58, 25:04-06), dirt marks (the pan at 6:30-33) and heavy grain in some scenes (50:20). Colour varies from washed out to good in some of the jungle scenes, blacks are poor and shadow detail indifferent.

There are no subtitles.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The only audio option is English Dolby Digital 2.0. This is an acceptable track; the dialogue is clear, lip synchronisation good and the music and some sounds occur in the surrounds. There is however occasional hiss and one obvious crackle in the audio. The subwoofer is not used.

The music is not obtrusive and supports the action well.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Trailers

    I have not been able to find a current release of King of the Kickboxers in Region 1. A Region 2 release seems to have similar specifications to this Region 4 release. Stick with Region 4.

    The King of the Kickboxers combines exotic locations, a basic revenge plot, indifferent acting, minor nudity, trite dialogue and impressive brutal action sequences into an entertaining 93 minutes. It has poor video, acceptable audio and only trailers as extras.

     The King of the Kickboxers is included in a 2 disc box set with American Shaolin: The King of the Kickboxers II.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

American Shaolin: King of the Kickboxers II (1991)

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General		Extras
Category	Martial Arts	Trailer-Seasonal Film Corp trailers
Rating
Year Of Production	1991
Running Time	101:19
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Lucas Lowe
Studio Distributor	Seasonal Film Corp Beyond Home Entertainment	Starring	Reese Madigan Trent Bushey Daniel Dae Kim Billy Chang Cliff Lenderman Kim Chan Alice Zhang Hung Joseph Chan
Case	Amaray-Opaque
RPI	$12.95	Music	Richard Yuen

    American Shaolin: King of the Kickboxers II is included in a two disc box set that indicates the films included are The King of the Kickboxers I & II. However, the DVD cover indicates the title is American Shaolin: King of the Kickboxers II while the credit sequence on the DVD itself is American Shaolin. Clearly, the intention was to align American Shaolin with the King of the Kickboxers which was released the year before. However, while both films have revenge plots where the hero undertakes a training regime that allows him to challenge his enemy, American Shaolin bears no resemblance to the earlier film in cast or tone. The only connection is that it is one of a number of martial arts films from Seasonal Films Producer Ng See Yuen, probably best known for the Jean-Claude van Damme vehicle No Retreat No Surrender. Just to confuse things further, American Shaolin: King of the Kickboxers II is also known as No Retreat No Surrender 5.

     In a martial arts tournament Drew Carson (Reese Madigan) is totally humiliated by the vile bully Trevor Gottitall (Trent Bushey) - the pun on the name probably tells you all you need to know about the tone of American Shaolin! Shattered by his defeat, Drew decides to go to the famous Shaolin Temple in China to train. Initially rejected by the monks, Drew is befriended by local girl Ashena (Alice Zhang Hung) and perseveres until he is finally accepted into the temple with an intake of other novices. At first these novices are antagonistic, especially Gao (Daniel Dae Kim), but Drew's rebellious spirit wins them over. Indeed, Drew teaches the novices more than Shaolin teaches him, including the words to Summertime Blues, how to dance and how to play football (American football, of course).

     Drew's attitude and conduct is totally at odds with the discipline and obedience required at Shaolin (for a contrast see The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978)) but he is allowed to get away with it by Abbott San De (Zhang Zhi Yen). But eventually Drew goes too far when he entices a number of the novices to go to a dance at the girl's school attended by Ashena where a fight breaks out. As a result, Drew is expelled from Shaolin but when his entire class of novices intercedes on his behalf San De relents and Drew seems finally to understand that the training he wanted comes at a price to individual freedoms.

     Now at peace, Drew completes the training and becomes a monk. Drew and Gao are taken by San De to an international martial arts tournament in Shanghai. One of the foreign competitors is Trevor Gottitall who recognises Drew and goads him with his previous humiliation. In front of San De and Ashena Drew has to decide whether to fight and risk his new found peace of mind.

     American Shaolin is actually quite a fun film if you can get over the smug, annoyingly superior character of Drew. I suppose a film made in English for an American audience could be expected to preach the superiority of things American over Chinese but Drew would not last 5 minutes in any martial arts training school! What saves the film is its sense of fun and some good action sequences. Much of American Shaolin has a good comedic tone whether it is the training sequences or cultural misunderstandings and it is sometimes quite amusing. The fight sequences are well handled and seem more akin to Hong Kong kung fu films that favour wide continuous takes so that one can see the moves and kicks. Indeed, the martial arts choreographer is Corey Yuen, a Hong Kong stalwart whose credits include working with Tsui Hark (Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1983), Jet Li (Lethal Weapon 4 (1998) and The One (2001) and most recently as Action Director for John Woo's magnificent Red Cliff (2008). His involvement does lift the action sequences to a higher level than one might otherwise have expected.

Video

    American Shaolin is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.27:1 and is not 16x9 enhanced. I have not been able to find the original aspect ratio but mostly the film looks OK and does not seem obviously cropped. It is not a great print. There are frequent artefacts and scratch marks throughout the film, one mark that remains on the middle right hand side for most of the film, dirt marks and heavy grain in some scenes. Sharpness is poor and any pan loses most of the detail; an example is the pan across the judges' name cards at 88:17-21. Blacks are OK but shadow detail is indifferent. The entire sequence where Drew tells his teacher of his decision to go to Shaolin (6:24-8:43) has a very yellow look. I don't know if this was intentional or original - but it does look strange and is totally different to anything else in the film.

There are no subtitles although there are some burnt in translations of Chinese dialogue.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The only audio option is English Dolby Digital 2.0. It is a passable track but has some problems. The dialogue is clear, lip synchronisation good and the music and some sounds occur in the surrounds. However, there is noticeable hiss during most quiet moments and some crackles and pops occur. The subwoofer is not used.

The music is neither intrusive nor memorable.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Trailers

    The Region 1 of American Shaolin: King of the Kickboxers II seems similar to our release but at a substantially greater cost. There is no reason to go past the Region 4.

    American Shaolin is a fun film with a light tone and surprisingly good action sequences presented on a DVD with poor video, passable audio and limited extras. American Shaolin is included in a 2 disc box set with The King of the Kickboxers.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall