College Kickboxers

College Kickboxers (1992)

Runtime: 86 minutes

Directed by: Eric Sherman

Starring: Ken McLeod, Tang Tak Wing, Matthew Ray Cohen, Mark Williams, Kendra Tucker

From: Curb/Esquire Films

Yes, this is a real movie I watched, a real low-budget thing from the early 90's which has some pretty bad early 90's fashion and music, and it's pretty bad overall... yet it's unintentionally pretty darn funny too. The IMDb synopsis then what I wrote about it on Letterboxd:

"A college freshman who trains in martial arts is beaten up at work by a racist gang. His co-worker, a Chinese cook, beats the gang up and trains the young man in kung fu. When a tournament is to be held, the teacher tells the student that he will not teach him for money. However, when the gang beats up the student's best friend, the student now must make the choice of entering the tournament or keeping the promise to his teacher."

It's a long story as to why I finally watched this film; I've known about it for awhile now and I always thought its title was pretty darn funny. Basically, it was strongly suggested to me that I check this out, and as it's easy to find online that's what I did, and if you enjoy crappy action films of old...

The movie's pretty terrible, let me state that first. But it is so great to laugh at. It's a low-budget thing set in California about some surfer boy blonde dude who befriends a fellow martial artist, who happens to be his roommate, and he's also black. They run afoul of the local gang in town, THE WHITE TIGERS, led by a racist leader who looks like a cross between Scott Ian from Anthrax and Jason Mewes and has long stringy hair. If they were looking for a weasel character they succeeded. Of course everyone in the gang is a martial artist too. Well, they befriend a Chinese short order cook (named Wing!) who-shock of shocks-is a martial arts master and they learn from him. A “martial arts tournament” and ecology (?!) also factor into the plot.

Like I said, it's bad technically, from the plotting to the porn-level acting, the characters and the situation. Yet I laughed in a Miami Connection sort of way, although this is more incompetent aside from the martial arts itself, which range from fine to actually sort of good. The best part, though, was how the hero was really an annoying buffoon so whether it be from Wing humiliating him while training, his potential love interest recognizing his stupidity or from the villains, it was great watching the protagonist be made to look like a chump often and figuratively having his pants be pulled down many times. The fact that the hero has an Ambiguously Gay relationship with the roommate was like icing on top of the cake.

But really, what else would you expect from a movie that's sometimes known as Trained to Fight (which is a more accurate title) and is usually known as COLLEGE KICKBOXERS and yet I'd say that not much if at all of the martial arts you see is actually kickboxing?

I'll return tomorrow afternoon.