Fight for Honor (1992)

PLOT: In order to improve her skills, a struggling martial arts student must dedicate her time to either her vapid booze-hound friends and her discouraging booze-hound mother, or a pizza delivery guy she hit with her car and may or may not contact her insurance company.

Director: Sam Um

Writer: Sam Um

Cast: Stacy Lundgren, C.K. Kim, M.G. Lee, Mark Kay, Stephen Wong, Bill Johnson

PLOT THICKENER

The act of tape scavenging -- or whatever VHS approximation on cratedigging the kids are calling it -- has changed dramatically over the past two decades. In the winter of 1994, I went into my local Blockbuster Video with a paper gift certificate and took a chance on a mysterious, early Jean Claude Van Damme movie. To say nothing of its poor acting and plentiful continuity errors, it ignited a life-long obsession with low-budget American chopsocky films and the joys of viewing those films with friends. 

In the spring of 2015, I traveled along a dirt road in the northeastern U.S. to comb over shelves in a massive shed full of used VHS tapes in the hopes of finding some gems. I purchased, in cash, a similarly unfamiliar movie in the hopes that it would invigorate a life-long obsession with low-budget American chopsocky films. That film was 1992’s Fight for Honor (aka Kickboxer Kid), which instantly earned the distinction of the most poorly documented film I’ve ever watched and reviewed.

Perhaps one of the reasons for its relative obscurity is its Texas origins. We’ve seen plenty of movies produced and based in California, New York, Seattle, the Philippines, and even Torontoyork City! These places were hotbeds for chopsocky activity. Austin, Texas, however, is known more for its lively music scene and DoubleDave’s Pizza than its martial arts film history. Add in a cast and crew of first-timers and an equally obscure distributor (York Entertainment) and you might see why it's been relegated to the VHS tape barns of history. 

Crystal (Lundgren) is a struggling taekwondo student. Her dedication is mocked by her friends and maligned by her mother. Her dojang master (Johnson) emphasizes competition victories over personal growth and self-esteem, which only bruises her ego more. Worse yet, a meathead classmate (Kay) sexually harasses her on the regular. 

Min-Suk (Kim) is a struggling pizza delivery boy who’s learning taekwondo from his grandfather at home. His chosen vehicle, a bicycle, is mocked by his boss at DoubleDave’s. His grandfather emphasizes personal growth and self-esteem over competition victories. Worse yet, Crystal hits him with her sports car while he’s out on a route, destroying his pizzas, his bike, and any chance he had at keeping his job.  When Crystal meets Min-Suk’s grandfather after driving him home, she learns of his taekwondo mastery and their ongoing training. Citing her disappointment in her dojang’s methods, she tries to convince the wise elder to take her on as a student. Initially resistant, he eventually relents, which pisses off Min-Suk, because SHE HIT HIM WITH HER FUCKING SPORTS CAR. 

Odd, yet fitting that a clumsy traffic accident would bring these two people together. Despite their grievances, insecurities, and weaknesses, they’re forced to train side by side. And by train, I mean that they run on land, try to catch fish bare-handed in a river, and also run in the river. And break the occasional board. But mostly running. What will the rewards be for these efforts? Renewed sense of self? Free, awesome Korean food? Perhaps even victories in the upcoming state-wide taekwondo competition? Logic would dictate that they’d probably just get better at running, but it could be all of these things.

I didn’t quite know what to make of this one. Outside of the grandfather’s scrum with some local drunk jerks, and Min-Suk’s wet and wild rumble with the taekwon-douchebags from Crystal’s class, there’s not much action here. The focus, similar to College Kickboxers, is instead on various training methods. When executed well, these sorts of scenes can provide a visual call-back when the protagonist faces difficulty in physical conflicts later on. Need to block an aggressive fighter? Lean on the ol’ paint-the-fence training. Mystery powder got your vision blurry? Rely on lessons in blindfolded defensive tactics and table-setting. Unfortunately, none of the training methods here are logically recalled during the tournament fight scenes during the film’s climax. Had there been a scene where the arena was under attack from a giant blob, and the pair quickly ran to safety, it would have tied the bow perfectly.

While this was the only film to director Sam Um’s credit, it is undoubtedly his best. That might seem like a backhanded compliment, but I would never backhand him because he’s a taekwondo master. He trained Willie Nelson to his first-degree black belt. How many country music legends have you trained? How many films have you directed? If your answer to both of those questions is “zero,” then Sam Um is beating you at life. While there’s not a lot of technique in this film, you have to appreciate that Um was in charge of getting a lot of non-actors to act. Of particular note is M.G. Lee, who struggled mightily with the lion’s share of dialogue despite English being his second language. Underscoring the onscreen drama is a dark, evocative score akin to Tangerine Dream’s work on 1978’s Sorcerer. Just kidding -- there’s lots of generic drum tracks with synthesized shakuhachi noises. It sounds like Keyboard Cat doing a cover of Paul Hertzog’s Kickboxer soundtrack.

Last but not least, we need to talk about Crystal’s mom, played by Shannon Sedwick. She stands out as the worst cinematic mom since Kirsten’s Mother from 1989’s Elves (a woman who drowned her daughter’s cat in a toilet). She hands over her credit card to Crystal’s friends, constantly rags on her daughter for pursuing martial arts, and has a weird obsession with her daughter’s friend, Dirk, an insufferable weenie of epic proportions. Where’s the father? Why is she day-drinking in a jacuzzi? Her childrearing is so terrible that I have no doubt that the offspring of Crystal’s mother and Jason Stillwell’s father from No Retreat, No Surrender would have been one of America’s most prolific serial killers. Bad chopsocky parenting up in this movie, y’all.

VERDICT

This is not the sort of movie for which viewers are going to pull the “lost gem” card on the scale of a Miami Connection or Undefeatable. Instead, it’s a charming if amateurish critique of the 1980s and 90s suburban McDojo craze and meathead misogyny. I’ll fault it some for leaning on the grandfather's Magical Asian stereotype, but fans of meager production values and non-actor acting may find it enjoyable.

AVAILABILITY

You might be able to snag a used VHS copy off EBay, but this is a tough one to acquire. Happy hunting.

3 / 7

Superfights (1995)

PLOT: After the local news media airs footage of his fight with a group of thugs, a young martial arts enthusiast uses his new fame to join Super Fights, a popular fighting organization. What a self-serving dick.

Director: Siu-Hung Leung
Writer: Keith W. Strandberg
Cast: Brandon Gaines, Keith Vitali, Kelly Gallant, Chuck Jeffreys, Cliff Lenderman, Patrick Lung-Kong, Brian Ruth, Feihong Yu, Jim Steele, Rob Van Dam



PLOT THICKENER: 
In terms of future careers, kids have a tendency to dream big. Many aspire to grow up and enter practical fields like medicine or education, while others dream of odd or completely unrealistic jobs: penguin milker or mermaid supermodel. The protagonist in 1995's Superfights falls into the latter group. Probably with a much louder thud than the other kids, because he’s roughly 20 years old.

By day, young Jack Cody (Gaines) works a boring job as a clerk in a sporting goods warehouse.  By night, he’s a lifelong fan of a fighting organization called Super Fights. The competition could best be described as the love child conceived during a drunken night of fun between WMAC Masters and pro wrestling. The fighters have colorful costumes and unique personalities. The live events feature martial arts battles between heroes and villains in front of packed crowds. Jack is so enthralled with the sport that he spends the majority of his work hours going through training drills with an elaborate system of pulleys and mannequins. This is not so unusual. When I worked at American Apparel, I rigged up a similar system to simulate heated confrontations with people in overpriced v-neck shirts who had nothing interesting to say.

During a contemplative night drive, Jack notices a girl being mugged at an outdoor ATM and makes the save. Sally Wong (Yu) is only the latest in a long line of young women who failed to avoid using the cash machine at night in a poorly lit area. (They're called "best practices" for a reason, Sally). The resulting media blitz piques the interest of Super Fights president Robert Sawyer (Vitali) and he sees dollar signs. Not because he’s on LSD, but because the young media hero represents a great business opportunity.

Sawyer extends Jack a lucrative offer -- an American flag-themed costume and a roomy townhouse -- and the one-time superfan joins the ranks of his idols as a competitor. He finds himself brushing shoulders with guys like No Mercy Budokai (Lenderman) and Dark Cloud (Jeffreys) in the locker room and the gym. He hones his skills in a high-tech training center under the tutelage of Sawyer's right-hand lady, Angel (Gallant), herself an active Superfighter. Throughout the film, you can cut the sexual tension between Jack and Angel with a knife, because the sexual tension is room temperature and easily spreadable on bread. Kelly Gallant side-boob has that effect on things.

To balance out the friskiness of this mentor-student relationship, Jack occasionally trains with Sally's grandfather (Lung-Kong). A Tai Chi master, Grandpa Wong doesn't think much of Jack's fighting skills, his new gig as a famous fighter, or even his townhouse. The elder is right to be suspicious because things in the world of Super Fights are not as they appear. The fighting roster is encouraged to gargle down an odd vitamin cocktail and selected fighters regularly cruise around in a white van and leave a trail of destroyed restaurants and crippled drug dealers in their wake. What are they up to? Why doesn't Jack close the deal with Angel or Sally? Why did the filmmakers dress up Chuck Jeffreys like a Jamaican Jack Sparrow?

As stated in the past, the real sweet spot for American DTV martial arts movies is that holy intersection of a zany premise, good fight sequences, and hilariously bad acting. The latter element here, while hammy, isn't consistently awful enough to be funny, but the premise, characters, and fantastic fight sequences in Superfights make this a delicious slice of action cheese. In his American directorial debut, Siu-Hung Leung took a bit of a risk by relying on a first-time actor in Brandon Gaines to carry the film, but Gaines hits most of his character’s notes to perfection. He's enthusiastic to the point of obnoxiousness and naive to the point of stupidity, which makes the journey into his passion's sleazy underbelly all the more compelling. Or ridiculous.

Given his easygoing demeanor and a serious lack of vocal gravel, one could argue that Keith Vitali was a poor casting choice for the Robert Sawyer character. However, I’d make the case that these traits, in some ways, enhance his Sawyer’s veneer of warmth and generosity. Such a personality guise made Gaines’ buy-in all the more plausible. Furthermore, his fight scene at the back-end of the film is one of the better scenes you're likely to find in Stateside martial arts output. It’s shot competently, the choreographers make good use of the physical environment, and the performers move with that elusive mix of speed and fluidity.

The film’s appropriately titled theme song, “Superfighter” is an inventive exercise in lyricism. Most action film songs would be content to pair thematically relevant cliches with a few killer guitar licks. Instead, the song “Superfighter” makes direct references to training techniques, the deceptions at the story’s center, and even specific character names. It is both endearing in its absurdity and completely awesome in its literalism. Yes, of course you can find it on YouTube with subtitles.

 

VERDICT:
For fans of both the martial arts genre and offbeat action, Superfights represents the colored, overlapping portion of the Venn Diagram. There are certainly better uses of your time than creating logical visualizations of related film genre concepts, but I just spent three hours writing a rundown of a chopsocky/wrestling movie. I’m not here to judge. If you like your plots zany, your characters bizarre, and your martial arts fast and technically proficient, Superfights fills all three of your needs. Also, side-boob.

6.5 / 7

College Kickboxers (1992)

PLOT: A college freshman named James finds friendship and romance after arriving at school. He also finds a racist gang which takes offense at his friendship with Mark, his African-American roommate and fellow martial artist. Can he convince the cook at the local Chinese restaurant to teach him kung-fu, assuming the cook actually knows kung-fu and James isn’t just projecting racial stereotypes?

Director: Eric Sherman
Writers: Roxanne Reaver, Theresa Woo
Cast: Ken McLeod, Mark Williams, Tang Tak Wing, Matthew Ray Cohen, Harry Mok, Kendra Tucker, James Langton

PLOT THICKENER:
For a lot of people, college is a non-stop party where the sex is casual, the beer pours down like cheap flavorless rain, and the weed practically grows on trees. Yet, for some, college can be one of the most challenging life experiences they’ll ever have. Cultures clash. Beliefs are shaken. Hearts and minds can be changed as often as bad jam band concert t-shirts. In 1992’s College Kickboxers, a group of young minds is engaged in a conflict that can only be resolved in one of two ways: punches or kicks.

James, played by Ken McLeod (credited here as Ken Rendall Johnson), is starting his first semester at Millbrook State University, a fictional college which rejected my fictional application about a decade ago. Ever so cocky about his martial-arts prowess, James is surprised to find that his roommate, Mark (Williams), is an equally decorated martial-arts instructor. This is initially a minor point of competitive conflict, but is quickly set aside when a faction called the White Tigers interjects during the roommates’ friendly sparring session on the campus green one morning. Sadly, Sherman manages to botch the authenticity of this scene; there were no hacky sack circles whatsoever within view.

Led by obnoxious leather fashion-plate Craig Tanner (Cohen), the Tigers are sort of like a racist Cobra Kai without a John Kreese. Neither Tanner nor his gang really articulate the philosophical underpinnings of their bigoted worldview, but they’re pretty adamant that races shouldn’t mix. (I’m pretty sure one of their members is either Asian or Hispanic, though). More offensive than their reliance on racial slurs in casual conversation is their collective dependence on using cheap tactics and weapons during fights. Nowhere is this more apparent than in their beat-down of James following his night-shift busing tables at the local Chinese restaurant.

Outmanned and overpowered, James is unable to gain an upper hand despite his obvious advantage in actual fighting skills (in a previous confrontation, he easily handled Tanner one-on-one). He gets hammered with bats and pipes and only escapes serious injury thanks to the assistance of the restaurant’s cook, Mr. Wing (Tang Tak Wing). In an impressive show of speed and technique, he sends the wounded Tigers scurrying before pressure-pointing the fuck out of James’s various injuries. The student is astounded at Wing’s healing abilities and fighting skill and repeatedly asks him for training. Citing the huge cash prize in the upcoming Millbrook martial arts tournament, James is hoping that either he or Mark can win and open a karate school for disadvantaged children. Despite the good intentions, Wing insists that “money makes people crazy” before driving off in his expensive sportscar.

After James assures Wing he’ll abstain from the tournament, the cook eventually caves and soon enough, his new student is learning techniques through a combination of pain and perseverance. When he’s not translating these lessons for Mark and his karate class, James is trying to put his romantic moves on Kimberly (Tucker), the earthy activist from his ecology class. While the typical health-conscious environmental nutjob might reek of patchouli and have braidable armpit hair, it’s important to note that College Kickboxers is all about smashing negative stereotypes; Kimberly is a cute blond with the kind of huge 80s hair we all know and love. While initially disgusted at what she perceives as James’s meatheaded jockdom, she softens her stance upon learning of his interest in acupuncture. After an amazing first date montage consisting of petting zoo footage and beach frolicking, they bone in a hot tub and become inseparable.

The good vibes don’t last for long though; members of the White Tigers continue to make life miserable for James, Mark, and now Kimberly, and the douchebags declare their intentions to enter the fight tournament too. Things obviously don’t go as planned -- they never do -- but more important is the bond James and Mark forge despite the turmoil. Their dynamic reminded me a bit of the Jason Stillwell-RJ Madison pairing in No Retreat, No Surrender, but with reasonably good fighters and actors 10 years older than the characters they're portraying, instead of crappy fighters only five years older.

Generally speaking, the fight sequences are nicely choreographed and one would be right to attribute this to the involvement of a seasoned Hong Kong film veteran and martial artist like Wing. With credits including Supercop and Drunken Master 2 in his portfolio, he’s an obvious craftsman and it shows in the way strikes are both thrown and sold. His work is occasionally let down by clunky editing but the proficiency and fluidity of the fighters and stunt men on-screen overcome these technical missteps more often than not.

The film also contains some of the more interesting training sequences you’ll find in an American-made martial-arts film. The highlight finds Wing showing James how practicing forms while barefoot in the middle of an ice skating rink at 6 a.m. can help with balance. We do get a parade of ever-conventional beach jogging scenes but thankfully there’s no manual labor posing as practical fighting wisdom or flimsy philosophy about the inner self (well, not too much).

Played by Hong Kong stunt performer Tang Tak Wing, the character of Sifu Wing joins a cinematic laundry list of older, wiser, Asian fighting mentors. However, Wing also injects his character with light touches of humor, referring to James almost exclusively as “macho man,” and he has an engaging screen presence both dramatically and in action. Aside from his crisp fight scenes, he walks James through an interesting pressure point lesson and later does an impromptu form demonstration that leaves a massive Yin-Yang symbol carved into the dirt; it made for a genuinely cool visual.

While the mentor and lead characters are indeed likable, I found the film’s most memorable character to be Craig Tanner, who cements his spot in the pantheon of weirdly great American martial-arts villains. Despite a serious lack of fighting skills, Cohen owns the screen and proves that you don’t need to be a dumb skinhead to be a racist prick. His long, flowing mullet is among the most intense we’ve ever seen on film and were it not for his incredible overacting, it would easily be his best trait. While the White Tigers logo on his coat flaunts his gang affiliation, his fingerless leather gloves and leather pants with dangling chains scream “I just robbed the wardrobe rack on the set of Deadbeat at Dawn.” Pairing such a unique look with an unforgettable performance is a huge factor for why this film ultimately works.

VERDICT:
Overall, I really dug College Kickboxers but I’ll be the first to admit that tonally, it has a bit of an identity crisis. At times, it attempts to be a fairly serious student-mentor martial-arts film with good fights, akin to The Karate Kid. During other stretches, it’s classic DTV American martial-arts cheese with timely (and regrettable) wardrobe attire, a despicable but hilarious lead villain, and enough bad acting and editing to kill a small pachyderm. All of that adds up to a very enjoyable romp of a martial-arts b-movie.

AVAILABILITY:
Amazon or EBay. Only available as a standalone copy on VHS, which may be hard to track down. You may be better off going with the very affordable ($3!) Lethal Vengeance 4-disc set put out by BCI.

5.5 / 7