Customer Reviews

American Shaolin:King of Kickboxers 2 [VHS]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This film is pretty average. However, I am a fan of Ng See Yuen and Corey Yuen's fight chereography action films which is why I have rated this DVD number 4. Anyway, this film is about Drew Carson a normal teenager who is a martial arts competitor but is humiliated in front of a National Audience by his opponent. After losing miserably to his rival, Trevor in that particular martial arts tournament he decides to carry on his sensei's dream to become a Shaolin Monk and to seek further assistance from the monestary. When Drew arrived to the temple he was refused entry and thrown of the premises but refused to leave. Eventually, the monks agreed to take him on and Drew has become the first American Shaolin.

I have watched this movie at least 20 times. It is well written, has fantastic fight scenes, and the Shaolin Temple training previewed is OutStanding! This is a much watch. I keep looking for this on DVD.

The sequal to "King of The Kickboxers" goes in a completely different direction, and could easily just have been called "American Shaolin" and left at that. The same production company is involved, thus creating another cheesy movie, but with above average fighting compared to the typical American-made martial arts film. Although the whole idea of an American (Drew Carson played by Reese Madigan) coming to study at the Shaolin Temple is a bit unbelievable, it ends up being a fun and unique story that seemed to grab my attention eventually.

The beginning is a little slow, acting is poor, and everything is just downright cheesy. Drew is humilated at a local tournament, by a guy who fights dirty - including pulling down the pants of his opponent (don't worry, its not perverted or anything). Drew feels the only to way to become good enough is to train with the best, and travels to China hoping to become a Shaolin Monk. After painstankingly waiting for days, he is accepted. While in the Temple, Drew constantly causes trouble, which leads others to do the same. It actually becomes interesting to see if he can actually make it as a Monk. There are still plenty of cheesy scenes, but alot of it becomes fun, and you gotta love the soundtrack, which is a slightly different version of "Summertime Blues".

The action is sparse in the first half of the film, but began to pick up more and more. The real treat is the finale of the film. Drew once again faces off in the ring against his former opponent. There is a pretty good fight between the Daniel Dae Kim character and this guy, who eventually tosses Kim out of the ring. Drew has no choice but to fight, and does so in a well choreogprahed fight which lasts at least 5 minutes.

In the end, I couldn't decide how I felt about the film. I enjoyed the fighting the most, but couldn't decide if the story was just silly or what. It is fun for what it is, but I got that darn Shaolin Temple blues song stuck in my head.

This is sort of karate kid meets shaolin temple. Good fight scenes great humor & a good story. Comedy is mostly about east meets west cultures clashing. Theres a tiny bit of language But it teaches great lessons in humility, descipline, forgiveness & acceptance. Greatest line is when the instructor stops the other students picking on the main character for being different, it goes something like: "all of you are no longer white, chinese or mongal - you all are now shaolin!". Many lessons learned

In general, I don't like western martial arts movies. But I love this movie. If you wanna see a good Kung Fu movie, and American at that, see this movie. You will enjoy it.

Things eventually went downhill for the odd little pentalogy begun by Ng See-Yuen. After making introducing the world to Jean-Claude Van Damme and paying Loren Avedon's bills for four years, entertaining Corey Yuen and providing Lucas Lowe with purpose in life, the producer left the series before things could come full circle in the form of another martial arts film with an unknown cast and a preposterous plot that would eventually be forgotten by everybody except devotees of the series. Sadly for "American Shaolin", when pitted against the three No Retreat, No Surrender films and the three just like them, it's easily the most forgettable of the bunch. Mind you, it's probably the most professional-looking film of them all, but the absence of fight scenes every ten minutes provides an unwanted showcase for the film's dramatic and technical shortcomings.

The story: Drew Carson (Reese Madigan) is a young wushu practitioner who's humiliated in the finals of a tournament by the dirty champ Trevor (Trent Bushey). With the blessings of his master, Drew vows to become a better fighter by traveling to China and joining a Shaolin monastery. Once he achieves apprenticeship with the fighting monks, he must endure not only the hardships of monastery life, but also the racism that comes with being the only westerner in a land thousands of miles from home.

Yes, it sounds tough, but Drew really does make it all the harder for himself. Apart from hardly recognizing the honor of being allowed to join such a sacred order despite his nationality, he goes to great lengths to defy the rules of the monastery for no apparent reason: he complains about the food, hides porno magazines in his bed, makes fun of the abbot (Henry O, Romeo Must Die), tries to play tricks on his senior instructor (Cliff Lenderman, Superfights), and rouses the other students to sneak out of the temple and get into fights, among other things. This makes him a pretty unlikable character, which is further offset by Reese Madigan's rather poor dramatic performance. Sure, he can't hold a candle to how badly Kurt McKinney and Loren Avedon stunk up the screen when they weren't throwing kicks, but it's still a pretty sorry performance, as is that of bad boy Trent Bushey. The rest of the cast is passable, considering that it's mostly made up mainly of Chinese actors being fed English lines. Daniel Dae Kim as Drew's rival-turned-buddy does okay but had yet to gain the talent he displays on Lost).

The fight content is not nearly as abundant as it was in the previous films, nor as creative. There are five fights, but four don't occur until the film's second half. The best of these are definitely the two final showdowns between Trent Bushey, Daniel Kim, and Reese Madigan, which include a very cool move for which Bushey throws Kim into the air and kicks him in mid-flight. Other than these, however, the choreography is not Corey Yuen's best work. Though technically sound, there's absolutely nothing to the fights you haven't seen before, and many of the blows and blocks look very predetermined. To try and make up for this, there is a healthy dose of insanity inserted into the non-fighting scenes: there's a musical scene in which Drew makes clear that neither he nor his buddies can dance as they groove to "Summertime Blues" whilst working, and as his final test of monkhood, Drew enters the "wooden man chamber" and gets beat up by very intelligent dummies. These scenes are neither praise-worthy nor cringe-inducing, but are great for a laugh and reminding you what movie series you're watching.

Alas, no matter how amusingly silly the movie is, it can't make up for the lack of fighting that was the staple appeal of the films that came before it. If it weren't for the bloodiness of the meager battles, this might've made a better children's movie than anything, since it's never going to be recognized as anything to be taken seriously. If you own the rest of the series, it's worth picking up this one, even though it shares no continuity at all with any of the others (but then again, that's nothing new).

Not the best piece of art however, it is a hilarious and
action packed THRILLER. I recommend this film to all die hard shaolin lovers.If you are not a big shaolin fan you will probaly not enjoy this movie.

A young man named Drew loses a martial arts tournament and decides that he should go to China and become a Shaoln monk. When he arrives he is for some reason surprised that they won't let him in. He sits outside day and night, and they finally let him join the new Shaolin monk training group. He is constantly making trouble and playing tricks on his Sifu, but finally realizes that he must focus if he wants to become a fighting monk. After passing his training he goes to take revenge on the fighter who beat him at the start of the movie.

If you have seen the No Retreat No Surrender movies, then you are probably going to like this. It is very corny, but not quite as corny as a lot of the other movies from the Seasonal Film Company. One good cheesy part is where Drew teaches his fellow students the song Summertime Blues, except they change the words to Shaolin Temple Blues. Although the actor who plays Drew is not a great actor, the movie has a somewhat unique story and overall it is pretty fun.

The action is done by Corey Yuen Kwai and Yuen Tak. I like how they keep the fights on the ground and don't worry about using wires. The lead actor is a good screen fighter and the other actors are good. The young monks Sifu has a good short fight scene. This guy is amazing and I wish he had more than 1 fight. Once Drew passes his training wires do get involved, but it is done very well, and they only use wires about 4 times. The last 10 minutes of the movie has 2 kickboxing matches and the final fight is a ton of fun. The great thing about the fights is that there are a lot of exchanges without cutting. The choreography in the final fight is up their with any of the American type movies that Seasonal Films has made.

And be sure to look for a young fighting Daniel Dae Kim as Drew's rival at the temple. Maybe it is just because I am a big fan of the TV show 'Lost', but I thought it was cool to see him in action.

3/5

The DVD from Platinum Disc is full screen but it doesn't affect the action. I had to turn the volume up pretty high but the sound is good. Picture quality has a bit of speckling but overall it is good.

When this movie first showed on television...I have recorded it for prosterity....and have lost track of the whereabouts of this VHS TAPE OF THIS MOVIE....AND NOW TECNOLOGY has come out with DVDS....i have tried to find a copy of this movie...and now i have copy....but I havent been watching this movie every evening....I just wanted to have a decent copy of this movie....and now that i have a copy....i can view it any time ......