Kickboxer, o Lutador

I used to love this movie when I was a child, I used to compare it to karate kid but now that I'm watching it again I noticed all the differences, bad acting, terrible story.

With Italian genre film-makers always mustard keen to capitalize on financially successful film trends, the talented, opportunistic producer/director Fabrizio De Angelis formulated his very own blisteringly fight-packed, heroically headstrong hybrid of 'Kickboxer' and 'Karate Kid, setting his excitingly exotic, fleet-fisted, punch-fighting epic in picturesque manilla. Not long after sulky, estranged son Anthony Scott (Kim Rossi Stuart) arrives in the Philippines, the uneasy family reunion is further disturbed by fresh-faced Anthony's fateful barney with evil karate gangster Quino (Enrico Toralba), this grievous beating being the bloody catalyst which inexorably draws brave, unskilled fighter Anthony into the oracular orbit of sensei Kimura (Ken Watanabe), and before you can say 'Kumite', the white bread, piecemeal pugilist is thrillingly transformed into a steel-thewed, iron-fisted, majestically melon-mashing 'Karate Warrior' able to courageously meet the deadly Quino blow-for-blow in the climactic eye-of-the-tiger duel, wherein the once fey 'The Boy in The Golden Kimono' stoically fights not only for righteousness, but for his VERY life! Gifted exploitation impresario Fabrizio De Angelis's far-flung fight-flick is a bellicose, bloody-knuckled, blissfully 80s B-Movie classic!

This one tries its best to tie a story together. Does it work? Not really and our so called hero spends most of his time as a human punching bag. Also, a reclusive monk who ponders tranquility in a forest(?) is one that I've never seen in any Shaw Bros. film. The training scenes with casio background music are a highlight and yes, livestock will be harmed! A karate tournament is held in a boxing ring and it looked that the public was really getting into the movie. Honestly, it's hard to side with our "hero" and you can't blame Quino for blowing up after taking a foot to the groin. OUCH!! Unintentionally, the logic withing the dialogue seems flawed or maybe something is missing in translation. Otherwise, you're going to laugh at this low blow, B-grade karate romp.

I guess you could boil it down to that, though to be honest there are far more things that are "wrong" with this copycat. Karate Warrior - what you can say in a positive light, the movie is not just an exact copy of Karate Kid. It does have a bit of a different story. It also is way more violent than the movie this based it's idea and "success" on.

And yes while this can not be considered a good movie in any way of the imagination, it was successful enough to spawn a few sequels (which I have not watched ... yet). So not having seen them I can't say if they are as muddled, have the same history when it comes to dubbing or "original" audio (which kind of doesn't really exist, everyone talking in their native language I assume, even if Italian is named as main language here) or the pacing issues.

If you don't mind the countless flaws and relish in the b-movie nature of it all (with surprises along the way, whatever that may mean), you can be quite entertained by this

I am all for low budget and so bad its good movies as long as they are entertaining. This has MST3K written all over it but Ive no idea if they have picked this one apart.

Its the usual white guy goes abroad, annoys the local thugs, gets beat up with martial arts and then undergoes a training montage with an elderly martial arts master and guess the outcome? No spoilers mind.

The only novel thing about this version is its an Italian made movie and the hero is actually really annoying so at certain parts you are quite happy to see him being bashed. He seems to have this belief he is morally superior being from the USA and the locals really should fall in line when he spouts how things should be. Even though he is basically a tourist.

The dubbing is not just bad from a synching point of view but the dialog at times sounds hilarious. The fight scenes are fairly poor with ridiculous whacking noises for blows even though hits miss by miles. Also karate is an odd choice when this seems to be set in the Philippines.

There is a ridiculous goof in the final act, when the hero is having his showdown with the bad guy in a boxing ring, the camera cuts to the crowd.....and the bad guy is seen sitting in the crowd....apparently watching himself fight. That is quite a martial arts skill.

There is some stuff about animals (a la kung fu) and magic (from God knows where) shoehorned into the story to add some mysticism. Again more odd choices as karate has nothing to do animals or magic.

Is it worth watching? Maybe if you have caught the start on TV and are curious about the final act but this genuinely isn't worth seeking out.

There are some odd reviews on here saying they enjoyed this as a kid, but some of the violence is too bloody for kids. I doubt I will see another movie from this director or see these actors in anything else again but that wont be a bad thing.