King of KickboxersThe King of Kickboxers! A film from 1991 which showcases the talents of Keith Cooke, Loren Avedon and everyone’s favorite Tai Bo instructor – Billy Blanks!

The movie starts in 1981, young 14 year old Jake is watching his older brother Sean in a Muay Thai fight in Thailand.  This isn’t an ordinary fight however, it’s for the Thai championship – so naturally Sean wins.

Celebrating afterwards and sharing some awkward sibling bonding, Billy Blanks and a bunch of thugs jump out of nowhere.  Apparently Sean was not supposed to win the fight, so Billy Blanks (well, not Billy, his character Khan) kill Sean and badly injure Jake.

10 years pass and Jake is an annoyingly obnoxious undercover cop who deserves to be shot in the face for his arrogance (sorry, just my opinion!).  Believing he is invincible he bashes an entire gang after declaring that he’s a cop wearing a wire.  The gang are arrested, and Jake gets chewed out for being a douche.

That’s when his captain gives him a different assignment – to work for Interpol on a case in Thailand.  They give him some tapes to study that are martial arts movies, claiming that the movies made a shot from real fights with each death being a filmed murder.  Posing as a fighter, Jake would enter the as a fighter and legally bring the place down.

Jake doesn’t want any of that!

He storms out of his captain’s office screaming “I’m not going to Thailand!”.

Jake then goes home and watches the tapes they give him, claiming it’s “like watching a Bruce Lee movie without Bruce”, but then notices a man – it’s Khan, the same man who killed his brother.

So naturally Jake takes the assignment and heads on over for revenge!

Loren Avedon

My god, the acting..

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t mind this movie, but the acting starts out as absolutely terrible and looks completely scripted – as opposed to natural and flowing.

Very standard phrases and on screen dialogue done in an obviously over rehearsed fashion seem to dominate the movie – especially at the start.  The screams, the dialogue and even just general body language and emotion seem quite fake.  Luckily things do get better.

It’s the kind of movie that has you laughing to yourself a little over the general flow of the characters, once you get past this the movie is quite enjoyable.  As the movie progresses you do actually get sucked into the story a bit and we’re introduced to some interesting characters.

Mad Flexibility Training

Prang – Drunken Hermit turned Martial Arts teacher

I found Prang a rather interesting character, plus his martial arts ability (the actor Keith Cooke’s abilities) seemed to be quite impressive and a bit sharper than that of Loren’s in my opinion.  The moves are smoother and more precise, whereas Loren’s seemed a little shaky at times.

Prang’s character starts off as a drunk hermit turned martial arts teacher, putting Jake through the philosophical teaching and ridiculously hard training that really makes old martial arts movies like these so cool.

Breaking coconuts with flying knees and using ropes to forcefully stretch Jake into positions that are just inhumane are the call of the day, and remind me of Van Damme a little.

Naturally he breaks down Jake before he really picks things up and becomes the awesome fighter, ready to battle Billy Blanks (sorry, Khan).

Keith Cooke kicks ass!

The Martial Arts

The training is really a gem in this movie as described above, but the fights aren’t too shabby either!

An excellent pace is kept and fights seemed to be choreographed pretty well.  Although Loren Avedon didn’t seem to be as natural a martial artist as his co-stars, he pulls it off pretty well by keeping a good pace and complimenting things with his hugely arrogant character.

Billy Blanks is your perfect 90’s villian. Big, bad, powerful and totally ridiculous.  I love it!  His moves are performed with a sense of power that is made more convincing by his solid physique.  He’s  a big guy that compliments the overall tone of the movie perfectly.

The action is still very much marked by age though.  While the scenes are shot well and fights performed at an excellent pace, the old fashioned sound effects and moves used by martial arts movies back in 80’s and early 90’s are what you see – just really well done.

Billy Blanks

In my opinion it stands as a good look at the where martial arts movies were at the time of it’s release, and should be perceived as a classic. Check it out if you have the chance!

On DVD –

Region 1 (US & Canada)
– sorry!

Region 2 (UK, Europe, etc)
The King of the Kickboxers [DVD]

Region 4 (Australia, New Zealand, etc)
The King of Kickboxers on DVD 

More info on Movie Regions here.

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