Showdown (1993)

Showdown (1993)
Aka: American Karate Tiger; Full Contact

Starring: Billy Blanks, Kenn Scott, ChristineTaylor, John Asher, Ken McLeod, Patrick Kilpatrick, Linda Dona, Brion James
Director: Robert Radler
Action Director: Jeff Imada

 

By the time Showdown had come out in the fall of 1993, it had nearly been a decade since The Karate Kid had come out. It was also four years since The Karate Kid III had bescumbered whatever good feelings people had about the series after a sequel and a cheaply-produced, unimaginative cartoon series. So it comes as a surprise that producers still thought the formula would be worth revisiting, unless this was made as a Roger Corman-esque mercenary cash-in on whatever hype The Next Karate Kid was garnering while in production. In any case, Showdown is hardly an original film, mixing the aforementioned 80s hit with a bit of Lionheart for good measure.

Ken Marks (Kenn Scott, who played Raphael in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze) has just moved with his widowed, unemployed mother to Los Angeles (I assume) from a small city in Kansas. I assume that since money is a bit of a problem at the moment, getting a nice place in a nice neighborhood is out of the question. Actually, the house those two rent is surprisingly nice, but is nonetheless located in a school district that could only be a front for Hell itself. Ken’s new high school is full of gangs, drug dealers, pranksters, skinheads, and God-knows-what-else. It’s currently being run by Tom (a 31-year-old[!] Ken McLeod, of College Kickboxers and Virtual Combat), a no-nonsense karate black belt who routinely beats up anyone who so much as looks at his girlfriend, Julie (The Craft’s Christine Taylor). Naturally, Ken thinks she’s cute, and, unaware of the pecking order, tries to talk her up, only to earn himself a nice ass-whooping.

Ken is nothing if not persistent, and stubbornly tries to make friends with Julie again. When Tom and his gang chase Ken into a gym, the latter’s rear is saved by the janitor, Billy Grant (Billy Blanks, of King of the Kickboxers and Back in Action). Billy is a former policeman and karate expert who quit the force years before when an attempt to subdue a gun-toting hooligan at a party resulted in the latter’s death. Initially, Billy just wants to do his job and have nothing to do with anything. After Ken gets a second beating, Billy agrees to train him. As luck would it have it, Tom’s sensei, Lee (Death Warrant’s Patrick Kilpatrick), is the brother of the guy Billy accidentally killed. So Lee is going to be really pissed when he finds out that his student was beat up by the man who occupies the top rung of his s*** list. And when Billy starts investigating Lee and finds out that he’s recruiting young martial artists into the pit fighting circuit, there’s going to be a big conflict of interests involved.

There’s not much originality here, so I won’t discuss the plot much. Billy Blanks has progressed a bit as an actor since King of the Kickboxers here, and has a nice everyman thing going in his performance. Patrick Kilpatrick, on the other hand, overacts a storm as the sadistic Lee. His character is so sadistic, in fact, that I can’t help but wonder how he stays in business as a dojo instructor. One can only physically and verbally abuse their students, still teenagers, so much before their parents would stop paying for lessons and pull their children out of the school. There would also probably calls made to the police if this happened in the real world. But not, here. He just threatens to kill his students whenever they lose fights outside of school and nobody bats an eye. I’m sure Tom puts up with his teacher’s bastardry because the latter’s assistant (Future Kick’s Linda Dona), who does the recruiting, has Tom in her grip…between her legs, if you know what I’m talking about, and I think that you do.

On the subject of legs, let’s discuss the fighting, brought to you by Hollywood veteran Jeff Imada. Jeff has been in the game since the early 1980s, and has studied a half dozen styles of martial arts, including jeet kune do, Shaolin kung fu, silat, kali and boxing. In addition to being a fight choreographer, Imada frequently works as a stunt coordinator and his credits include Rapid Fire and The Crow with Brandon Lee; Fight Club; Furious 7; The Green Hornet; Iron Man 2; and The Book of Eli. Imada doesn’t have a particular choreography style, but by all accounts is a dependable worker who’s been around for a long time, has taken his fair share of lumps, and knows his way behind and in front of the camera. Imada’s style comes across as being very similar to Jean-Claude Van Damme films of that era, which naysayers refer to as “punching bag choreography.” It’s certainly a far cry from the Hong Kong choreography that Billy Blanks was performing in King of the Kickboxers.

The fights are mostly one-on-one bouts, mainly involving Kenn Scott and Ken McLeod. Scott originally trained in Goju-Ryu karate, but eventually studied other styles as well. McLeod studied chun kuk do karate under Chip Wright, who worked as a stunt double for Chuck Norris, the style’s founder. Obviously, the early fights are more of a showcase for Ken McLeod, as Scott’s character doesn’t know how to fight at that point. There’s some decent groundfighting, and Scott uses more grounded kicks: front kicks, side kicks and the occasional spin kick. That fight is followed by the big…heh…showdown between Billy Blanks and Patrick Kilpatrick. I’m the sure the latter was cast based on his intimidating demeanor more than his skills. Blanks does fast punches and a few aerial kicks, while Kilpatrick uses simpler punches, fist hammers and foot stomps. Billy Blanks also gets a fight with genre staple James Lew, who provides the film with its flashiest kicks.