The King of the Kickboxers (1991)

Strong and Moving!

Sadly Over-hyped

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Lauren Avedon as Jake Donahue! Billy Blanks as Khan! Good vs Evil! WHO WINS!!!! How do you rate something so over the top so over exaggerated, so full of itself. The plot will not win Oscars, the lines are just insane and the acting oh boy the acting is so...so...incredibly over the top, it's so good.This movie is a gem, right up there with Superfights and No Retreat, No Surrender as some really fun so bad, it's good martial arts flicks we saw pop up in the mid 90's to early 90's. These movies were the pinnacle of guy-dem, in an era which we saw T2 and Turtles and the Ooze....this was a lost gem that ALL men and true guys who love movies should worship.It's the Troll 2 of action movies, so fun to watch and make fun of.Lauren Avedon, is the Nicolas Cage of action movies; so over the top, he over acts yet...he's so good at it you cannot stop watching. From his Star Wars Episode III Darth Vader like, "Noooooooooooooooooo...." to his egotistical fights and other quizzical one liners. It's so bad it's good?Avedon plays a cop who sees his antagonist in Billy Blanks after years of searching and his memory is jogged. Essentially Lauren Avedon is OUT FOR VENGEANCE and has to become the King of the Kickboxers if he has any chance of living.Could this be the BEST Worst Movie of All Time?

In this Seasonal Films production, the insufferable Loren Avedon plays Jake Donahue, a New York City undercover cop with, you guessed it, a bad attitude, who, you guessed it, plays by his own rules. He is sent by his Captain, O'Day (Jaeckel) who is working with Interpol, to Thailand to bust up a snuff film ring. While there he meets up with his contact in the area, Anderson (Stroud) and mannish love interest Molly (Rose, who must have stretched every acting muscle in her body to pretend she actually was into Avedon). However, it seems Donahue has a history in Thailand, as his brother was murdered there by the mysterious Khan (Blanks). Coincidentally, the nefarious Khan is the star of these films where the martial arts is so real, you die on impact. The producers of the films recruit young fighters from tournaments, promising them stardom, and when they get to the set, Khan kills them. So, seeing as Donahue is also a kickboxing man, he goes undercover as a naive punchfighter with stars in his eyes so he can get a shot at Khan and get revenge. The only problem is, he's not as good as Khan, so Prang (Cooke) takes him under his wing and trains him. Will Donahue get the closure he seeks? Loren Avedon in this movie is so annoyingly cocky, and so devoid of one ounce of humility, you actually, weirdly enough, like Billy Blanks more as the evil Khan. Sure, Khan is pure malevolence, but he's secure in his total diabolical-ness and you love him for it. It's a lot harder to get behind the weaselly Avedon as the main hero.The plot aside, there is excellent fight choreography and some punishing blows. Fans of fast-paced, well-executed moves will find a lot to appreciate here. Richard Jaeckel plays the classic 'yelling police captain' with aplomb, and the husky-voiced Sherrie Rose of Maximum Force (1992) fame is a serviceable love interest who calls Avedon's character "Jack". Perhaps she wished he was someone else that badly. The Pauly Shore-like Cooke does a good job as the trainer of Donahue and has the patience of a saint. His sidekick, a lovable chimp, practically steals the movie. Cooke does have some awesome moves - also check him out in China O'Brien (1990). Billy Blanks is great as the big heavy. His bulging eyes and funny faces are present and accounted for. Jerry Trimble appears in the opening, prerequisite "abandoned warehouse" scene simply as "Drug Dealer". Han Soo Ong, of Last to Surrender (1999) fame, who plays a local kickboxer, gets one of the best lines of the movie when he tells Donahue "You've never faced a real kickboxing". Loren Avedon, with his jean jacket with fringed sleeves and fanny pack, is simply an unlikable jerk, but he does get some winners in the dialogue department, as well as some memorable yells. This movie overall could have been improved if the audience actually liked the hero.The pure silliness of the whole outing comes to the fore at the final confrontation, when Avedon tops his previous ridiculous casual outfits with a formal getup that can only be described as an "elf jester" suit. When you see it, you'll know what we mean.Entertainingly insane, for a punchfighting mini-classic, check out King of the Kickboxers.

This is how martial arts film should be (excluding Ricky-Oh that is the best movie ever).An undercover "kickboxer" cop travel to Thailand to investigate some kung fu movies were they really kill people, "snuff kung fu" movies. He also have a personal interest, one of the killers is the guy who killed his brother 10 years ago. The movie is similar in structure to Kickboxer(the one with Van Damme) but this one is ten times more entertaining...you know, the guy who seeks revenge, training and fighting. The dialogs are ridiculous like in every movie of this kind but some fights are very cool. but the plus of the "snuff" movies is the key. Also, the character played by Billy Blanks as the "executor" in the snuff films looks like an inspiration to Machine in 8mm.Very recommended!

Ridiculously good martial arts choreography combined with laughably bad dialogue and an outlandish plot that borrows heavily from Kickboxer add up to a very enjoyable fighting movie. Seeing the film in Middle School when it was on cable I had trouble getting past the poor film stock, and substitution of water in the mouth as fake blood was probably too expensive to use. Coupled with lousy acting and poorly-lit sets, I just enjoyed the fighting scenes (probably on a day when I had my fill of Van Damme and Seagal). Looking back on it recently, the choreography is some of the best ever put on celluloid, and it holds up tremendously against just about all of the other fight scenes from the 90s. A combination of beautiful foreign locales, some pretty intense stunts, and a sense that the director was going for a "let's be satisfied with the first take of any non-action scene" attitude, the movie is a guilty, but VERY impressive martial arts film.