*SPOILERS
AHEAD*

The No Retreat, No Surrender series
is a benchmark of western martial arts cinema and a personal favorite of mine.
Ask a casual fan how many installments it contains and they’ll say three, but
ask me and I’ll say seven – pointing to the stylistic similarities between all
seven of the U.S. movies produced by the Seasonal Film Corporation. In this
regard, The King of the Kickboxers
may be called No Retreat, No
Surrender IV, and I’m happy to say that it retains many of its predecessors’
strengths. A few glaring shortcomings make it pretty weak in some respects and
repeat viewings have definitely sobered my initial impression, but nevertheless,
it’s still a cult classic and arguably the last good movie that Loren Avedon
starred in. Fight fans with a taste for the exotic will love this.

The film opens energetically in 1981 at the Samrong Stadium of Bangkok, where
American kickboxer Sean Donahue (Michael DePasquale, Jr.) wins the “Thai
Kickboxing Grand Championship” while his younger brother Jake (Patrick Shuck) cheers
him on. As the brothers depart the arena in a tuk-tuk taxi, Jake expresses
concern that some of the spectators seemed angry at an American winning the
title, and it turns out that his fears aren’t unfounded. In a rural part of
town, the taxi is stopped and Sean is accosted by a group of thugs. Their
leader, a rifle-toting man of African descent (Billy Blanks), informs him that
“An American can never be champion. You should not have won the fight tonight,
and you won’t win this one.” He attacks Sean, easily killing him with a set of
three devastating kicks. For good measure, the stranger breaks the
championship belt in half and beats Jake unconscious, leaving him with a facial
scar and a singed photograph as reminders of the night.

The assailant’s name is Khan, and in case this post fails to convey it
otherwise, know that he’s one of the most over-the-top villains I’ve
seen in a martial arts movie.

TRIVIA: The stadium in the movie may
allude to two actual locations in Bangkok – Muay Samrong Boxing Stadium and
Samrong Boxing Stadium. Both are located on Samrong Road and feature fights on
Friday and Sunday nights.

Ten years into the future, Jake has become a New York detective of particular
caliber. Our first scene of the grown boy – now played by Loren Avedon – is of him engaging in an
undercover drug deal. After the dealers incriminate themselves (and
voice a disregard for the wellbeing of children to boot), Jake purposely blows
his cover so’s to fight the aggressors hand-to-hand. After
thoroughly beating them and using a space heater to fry the face of their
leader (Jerry Trimble), his backup arrives, furious because Jake purposely
provided them with the wrong location. In summary, Jake is the consummate 80s
karate cop: too good for guns and too ahead of the curve to regard protocol,
whose use of police brutality is only fleetingly mentioned afterwards. New
York’s crime scene is no match for him, so his enraged captain (Oscar nominee Richard Jaeckel) assigns him to an Interpol case regarding snuff films produced
in Bangkok.

Clearly feeling his dark past, Jake is initially against the idea of working in
Thailand, but once he realizes that the man beating people to death on the tape
is none other than Khan, he becomes determined to take
revenge. Naturally, he decides against telling anyone about his personal
investment – not his captain, and not his Bangkok contact (Don
Stroud).

It’s interesting that while Jake is upset by the memories the tape
brings up, he regains his cocky confidence by the time he makes it to
Southeast Asia. He looks like a tourist in the introductory montage, and even
after he meets with his contact, he doesn’t seem particularly perturbed that the
three agents who’ve worked on the case before him have been killed. To be fair,
he can take care of himself: in an attempt to get noticed by the criminals, he
shoots his mouth off at the “Bangkok Kickboxing Academy” and handily wins an
impromptu brawl against three boxers. Perhaps he’d be a little more cautious if
he knew that Khan had only recently killed a fighter who likewise had held his
own against three attackers, after being tricked onto the set of the latest
snuff movie. While Jake will have the opportunity to address his own arrogance, the unfortunate fighter – played by Bruce Fontaine – is
left hanging by his jaw on a meat hook.

Khan and Jake are indirectly connected through a new character: Molly (Sherrie
Rose), an American model who’s presented to Khan by his unscrupulous filmmakers
as an unwilling prize. Molly escapes a near-rape but is pursued by Khan’s
thugs, from whom she’s rescued by Jake. Jake finds a temporary haven at her apartment,
and to be honest, the scene which follows is where I begin to tire of the
character. Not only is Jake an ace cop and awesome warrior, he’s now also
presented as a reader of women who lays Molly’s backstory bare for her – no
need for her to assert her character at all. The movie ends up handling the
relationship between these two with relative decency, but Jake’s become a real
problem. He’s way too cocky for me to admire the extent of his talents, and just isn’t very likable.

TRIVIA: Loren Avedon and Sherrie Rose
didn’t actually get along. Following a rocky behind-the-scenes relationship, Rose reportedly bad-mouthed Avedon to producers at the PM Entertainment studio after landing a contract with the company. Avedon claims that word got around and he was effectively blackballed from Hollywood.

Luckily, the humbling of Jake Donahue begins the following morning, when he’s
accosted by a fighter from the gym. “Thasi” (Ong Soo Han) engages
him in a quick fight, showing him that in fact even a modest boxer can actually
best him. Upon hearing that Jake is after Khan, the spirit of comradery moves Thasi to point Jake in the direction of Master Prang – a secluded hermit living
in the jungle, and the only fighter to have almost beaten Khan. Jake
ventures there but is disappointed that the master (Keith Cooke)
appears to be an alcoholic loser who shares his home with a pet chimpanzee.
Jake leaves in disgust, but not before the chimp steals his passport. When Jake comes back looking for it, he finds Prang confronted by a gang of knife-wielding thugs – likely
sent by the malicious filmmakers to abduct him for their upcoming
film. Jake holds his own, but as things get tough, Prang leaps into action and
demolishes the attackers with a series of amazing kicks.

Prang builds a rapport with Jake, and their exchanges end up being a highlight
of the movie. Prang’s alcoholism is revealed as a façade to make
him appear less threatening to Khan following their close fight. He
agrees to train Jake, and as tends to be the case in martial arts movies, these
scenes are a blast to watch. Prang’s methods are a combination of novelty and
brute force: instead of teaching Jake new fighting techniques, he primarily
assaults him with a club and tortures him with rope & pulley contraptions.
Prang claims that the point of the training is to prepare Jake for Khan’s
fearsome triple kick attack, and to simulate this, he swings whole logs at him.
It’s refreshingly human to see Jake lose patience at times, but it’s sort of amazing
that he survives the ordeal.

I wish that the screenplay focused more on Prang and his quest. While
Jake’s journey is a direct parallel to the mythical hero’s, Prang is in the
unique situation of having downplayed his own heroic qualities. He assumes the
role of the mentor, though the interactions between Jake and him (not to
mention the closeness between the actors’ ages) make them seem like equals. Most
unconventionally, Prang has very little moral high ground: though he claims that
he won’t train a murderer, that’s largely what he ends up doing, and despite
his attempts at emotional detachment, it’s not a stretch to assume that he
resents his predicament and wouldn’t mind seeing Khan dead. Prang’s
story is probably more interesting than it’s given credit for, and it’d be neat
if he had more time in the spotlight.

Having recently evaded another kidnapping attempt, Molly ventures to Prang’s
place, and Prang arranges for her to spend the night with Jake. There’s a scene
wherein Molly joins Jake in the bathtub, and the story behind it is worth a
tangent… According to writer Keith Strandberg, an actress who had previously
been cast for the role pulled out due to the required nudity. Sherrie Rose objected as well once filming had begun, being unwilling to
film the part where Molly bares her breasts. Shooting was halted as the
filmmakers tried to persuade her, going so far as to argue that someone who
had posed for Playboy shouldn’t
object to onscreen nakedness. Eventually, the nudity takes a condensed
form, with Rose’s breasts visible for only about two seconds. Rose’s protest – and especially her
successful compromise – is a rarity within the B-movie world, where catering
to male demographics could result in a demanding environment for actresses
and where a refusal to perform nude could end a career. (For a more complete take on
the state of sexuality within B-movies during the ‘90s, see Odette Springer’s
documentary Some Nudity Required.)

With his training complete, Jake engages in a series of underground fights and
successfully catches the eye of one of the snuff producers (David Michael
Sterling). He’s recruited with promises of starring in an action movie, and
despite the protests of his police superiors, he’s determined to risk death in
order to stop the crime ring. Following one more night with Molly and a
final exchange with Prang, Jake rows off to the shooting location. The set is an
enormous bamboo cage built in a river, with platforms to fight on rising out of
the water. Dozens of extras dressed in aboriginal garb watch as he enters the
cage, wearing an ornate mask and costume. It’s an impressive sight.

Jake takes on a number of spear-wielding assailants, but these guys are a mere warm-up for his true opponent. Khan appears, likewise
garbed in costume, and to Jake’s horror, he’s carrying the unconscious
Molly under his arm. He’s also carrying a sack, which he throws into the water
to reveal the body of the murdered Prang. With Molly now held in a rope net
and the filmmakers’ desired pathos achieved, Jake and Khan commence fighting. The
match is one of my all-time favorites, filled with back-and-forth action, and
both performers are at their best. Particularly Billy Blanks looks extremely powerful and more than capable of
hanging with the Hong Kong-style choreography.

TRIVIA: The outfits worn by Jake and
Khan are costumes from Thailand’s khon theater. Jake’s outfit
appears to represent Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god, while Khan’s probably represents the demon lord
Ravana. In Hindu mythology, Hanuman was instrumental in the vanquishing of
Ravana by the avatar Rama.

Jake eventually defeats his opponent, and Khan is mortally wounded when he’s
thrown under the spiked gate of the entryway. His last act is an attempt to
kill Molly by loosening the rope holding her up, but Jake catches her.
As the filmmakers revel in excitement, thinking they’ll be able to replace Khan
with Jake, the Thai police and Jake’s superiors arrive to chase everyone into
the jungle. As the cage is incinerated with a rocket launcher – presumably
destroying the bodies of Khan and Prang inside – Jake and Molly embrace in
front of the flames. Richard Yuen’s pleasant
soundtrack ushers us into the end credits.

The King of the Kickboxers was
released a year after Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Kickboxer,
and while strong parallels between their screenplays are apparent, the former
manages to stand out for its style. Whereas Kickboxer
is clearly an American movie, The King of
the Kickboxers has a much stronger Hong Kong flavor. Personally, I think it has the more believable and stronger
characters. But like
Kickboxer, I’m disappointed by the
lack of actual Thai performers among the prominent cast. Ong Soo Han is Malaysian, but Thai actors are uniformly relegated to bit parts. Billy Blanks doesn’t pass as Oriental at all,
despite the use of eyeliner.

Speaking of Blanks, I was so curious about his casting that I contacted Keith
Strandberg and asked about the character. I wanted to know whether Khan was in
fact anything other than a “pure” Thai, and I speculated that he may be
half-Thai or even a foreign expatriate. Strandberg – who was very pleasant and
can be contacted through his website – affirmed my former suggestion and
explained the basis for Khan’s antagonism. He said that Khan is the son of a
Thai mother and a U.S. serviceman who abandoned them while Khan was young,
thereby sparking his hatred of Americans. This is illuminating, but makes me
wonder about Khan’s relationship to the snuff filmmakers. They
certainly appear to be American, yet seem to have such control over Khan that
the Marlon Brando lookalike (William Long, Jr.) is able to make fun of
him without repercussion. There’s probably a lot more to this than I’m privy to, but despite being a
murderer and a sadist, Khan comes across as someone controlled by anger but who’s also been taken advantage of by other people.

The action content is really darn good, thanks in large part to the innovation
of fight choreographer Tony Leung. Leung would later work on the martial arts epic Ip Man, and you can definitely see a lot of his skill here in how he directs so many diverse performers to grand
results. I truly love the martial cast in this one, but the only real
drawbacks are the shortness of some of the fights and the fact that most of the
fighters only have one or two brawls apiece. Fans of Hong Kong regulars Steve
Tartalia and Vincent Lyn will be disappointed how uninvolved they are in Loren
Avedon’s first fight.

Speaking of Avedon, you have to love his enthusiasm. Loren would grow into a more
skillful actor as time went on, but at this point, all he had going for him was
fervor and the kind of natural charisma that most successful B-movie stars
have. Most of the acting in the film is along these lines, so if you can’t
stand extra raw drama, this isn’t for you. Of course, there’s some skillful
acting in here too, and while some viewers may name Richard Jaeckel or Don Stroud
the best performer, I give the title to Sherrie Rose. Jaeckel and Stroud play
stock characters they probably could have done in their sleep, while
the onus to create an original persona is on Rose. While she isn’t
given the opportunity to excel, she definitely gets her personality through and
is noticeably more nuanced than everyone she interacts with.

The King of the Kickboxers is
predictable and thematically unambitious, but no one can say that the
filmmakers didn’t put a lot of effort into it. As one of the most colorful
entries of the Seasonal Film series, it’s worth owning for both established
fans and general karate lovers alike. It’s definitely required viewing for
serious followers of the martial arts B-movie subgenre. Check it out!

The
King of the Kickboxers (1990)
Directed by Lucas Lowe (American
Shaolin)
Written by Keith W. Strandberg (screenplay, original story), Ng See-Yuen
(original story), John Kay (uncredited)
Starring Loren Avedon, Billy Blanks
(Tough and Deadly), Keith Cooke (Mortal Kombat), Sherrie Rose (Me and Will)
Cool costars: Hans Ong (Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story), Jerry
Trimble (The Master), Bruce Fontaine
(Outlaw Brothers), Michael
DePasquale, Jr. (China Heat), Steve
Tartalia (Death Cage), Vincent Lyn (Operation Condor). Hong Kong regular Mark King (Once Upon a Time in China) plays an uncredited police officer.
Title refers to: It’s written on a film slate visible after Khan’s death. Presumably, this is the name of the snuff film being shot and therefore would refer to Jake.
Potential triggers: Extreme violence, child abuse, violence against women
Copyright Seasonal Film Corporation