Ken McLeod | Through the Shattered Lens

Continuing my theme of low budget, direct-to-video, B-movie action films from the early 90’s, I found a movie called COLLEGE KICKBOXERS playing on Amazon Prime.

Also known as TRAINED TO FIGHT in some circles, COLLEGE KICKBOXERS follows James Caulfield (Ken McLeod, credited as Ken Rendall Johnson for some unknown reason), a young man with martial arts skills, as he navigates his freshman year of college. Things just aren’t going so well for James his first week of school. First, his roommate Mark (Marc D. Williams), an upperclassman, isn’t very nice to him when they first meet, so it appears that their dorm room may not be a place of peace and relaxation this semester. Second, the pretty girl he sets his sights on, Kimberly (Kendra Tucker), seems much more interested in saving the whales, the ozone layer and the planet than she does in dating him. Rude! And third, to cap it all off, one day while James and Mark are working out their differences through martial arts sparring, a racist gang called the White Tigers show up and hurl some very offensive slurs at Mark, who’s black. While James doesn’t seem to like Mark much at this point, he dislikes the racist bigots even more so he defends Mark’s honor, putting himself on a collision course of pain with The White Tigers and their A-hole leader Craig Tanner (played by Matthew Ray Cohen, whose only other role in his career was “Dancer #1” in the classic erotic thriller BODY CHEMISTRY). In all fairness, this clash with racists did result in James and Mark becoming best friends so that was a pleasant and unexpected surprise.

When it looks like things can’t get much worse for James, Craig Tanner and his racists show up at the Chinese restaurant where he works and proceed to take advantage of their superior numbers and kick his ass real good. That’s when something strange happens, the annoying cook Wing (Tak-Wing Tang), who had just messed up James’ chances to score with a chick a few minutes earlier, steps in and shows himself to be a kung fu master, easily dispatching the White Tigers with moves defined by speed, grace, balance, agility, and acupunctural science. Amazed by what he has just seen, James wants some of that and begs Sifu Wing to train him so that he too can become a martial arts master. Receiving the kinds of real-life lessons from Wing that could never be learned in a college classroom, James soon finds himself putting it all on the line in a martial arts tournament that gives him the chance to win $25,000 for his now-injured bestie’s martial arts dojo for at-risk youth. As a bonus, he’ll also get the opportunity to humiliate and destroy the White Tigers once and for all!

An impartial critical assessment of COLLEGE KICKBOXERS would probably not be very kind. For starters Ken McLeod, AKA Ken Rendall Johnson, is not a very good actor. Neither are Marc D. Williams, Kendra Tucker or Matthew Ray Cohen. To be completely honest, they’re pretty bad. I think it would be fair to say that both Ken’s and Marc’s line deliveries are awkward and amateurish, that Kendra is annoying, and that Matthew is over-the-top, and not in a good way. The script is nothing to write home about either, completely relying on the cliches of the genre and the cheesiest of dialogue. In another somewhat bad sign, clocking in at just 88 minutes, it doesn’t necessarily feel like a short movie as the middle portion definitely leaves you wanting more action to show up.

With that said though, I still had a great time with COLLEGE KICKBOXERS. I think the main reason is that I just love a good underdog story where bullies, and in this case racists, get their comeuppance, and at-risk youth get their own dojos. And I really enjoyed Tak-Wing Tang’s performance as Sifu Wing! He underplays the role in a subtle and humorous way that I found really appealing. Wing also completed the action choreography, which is the true highlight of the film. McLeod isn’t great in the acting department, but he does a fine job when called upon to kick butt. To further illustrate my appreciation of Wing’s action direction, the year after this film was made, he would serve as an action choreographer for Jackie Chan’s amazing POLICE STORY III: SUPERCOP, and a couple of years after that he’d work on Chan’s DRUNKEN MASTER II. The man is talented! And finally, COLLEGE KICKBOXERS has that intangible nostalgic charm that takes me back to the early 90’s when I’d scan over my local video store’s entire inventory, an inventory that was chock full of these types of movies. I enjoyed watching them back then even if they were silly and cheesy, and watching movies like that now takes me back to that more simple and undemanding time. There’s real value in that to me!

Are you a fan of THE KARATE KID? If you are, then I have the movie for you… SHOWDOWN (1993)! What’s better is that it’s now streaming on Amazon Prime, so you can go watch it right now!

SHOWDOWN is primarily the story of Ken Marx (Kenn Scott), a high school student who has recently moved to a new city with his mom. When he enrolls in the local high school, he catches the eye of the beautiful Julie (Christine Taylor), unaware that her boyfriend is a bullying asshole named Tom (Ken McLeod), a young martial artist trained by the ruthless sensei Lee (Patrick Kilpatrick). SHOWDOWN is also the story of ex-cop Billy Grant (Billy Blanks), who accidentally killed evil sensei Lee’s brother seven years earlier when breaking up a wild party one night when he was on duty with his partner Spinelli (Mike Genovese). Unable to cope with killing a man, Billy is now working as a janitor at the high school. The two main characters come together one afternoon when Tom gives Ken a good beating for having the nerve to talk to his property, I mean his girlfriend, Julie. Billy sees Ken doubled over in pain after taking a shot from Tom in the face and the gut, so he reluctantly decides to help the new kid, eventually introducing him to self-defense techniques and martial arts that will help him stand up to the bully. His teaching methods are quite unconventional and include such humbling tasks as cleaning toilets and urinals. The stories all come to a head one night when Ken and Tom fight it out in the ring. When evil sensei Lee tries to involve himself in the battle between the students, Billy gets his own shot at redemption when he steps in to enforce law and order for the first time in many years!

Based on the plot description above, it’s evident that SHOWDOWN is not afraid to wear its “Karate Kid” influences on its sleeve! I had never seen this 1993 B-movie before, so I found a lot of nostalgic fun in its familiar underdog story, with characters even specifically referencing key moments from the 80’s classic. Even if he’s somewhat limited as an actor, Billy Blanks just has this likable presence about him, and he’s definitely believable as a martial arts master. I enjoy watching him. Kenn Scott carries on the tradition of being a 25-year-old man playing a high school student, but he seems much older to me than Ralph Macchio did in THE KARATE KID. Scott in 1993 was much more physically developed than Macchio was in 1984, so while he doesn’t seem reasonable as a high school student, he does seem more reasonable as a fighter. Continuing my comparisons, Christine Taylor is cute as the love interest, but a fifth grade Brad Crain fell head over heels in love with Elizabeth Shue as “Ali with an I.” That’s not Christine’s fault though, and she’s fine here. Finally, I have to give a shoutout to Patrick Kilpatrick as the evil sensei Lee. In a career defined by playing bad guys, his deliriously unhinged, over-the-top performance here is a true highlight of the film.

As for the fight choreography in SHOWDOWN, it’s serviceable and delivered with conviction, but it’s not that great when viewed in 2025 and compared to the better movies of the genre. But that’s okay because the movie does what a lot of movies can’t do… it entertains and moves by at a fast pace. I enjoyed it, and I can easily recommend it to any person who enjoyed THE KARATE KID series or low budget, early 90’s, direct-to-video action.