Kickboxer: The High School Musical Edition

Rating: 4/10 (20 March 2008)

Well what do we have here? A latent homo-erotic MMA film about pretty boys who love to fight. If you people by that, whats next? A hard-boiled crime thriller starring Zach Effron??? Being a student of martial arts for 10 years of my life and a fan of martial arts cinema for most of my life, it baffles me when people say how 'realistic' the fights were. If you mean glamorised by loud rock/rap music playing, slo-mo and sped up action at the same time, and quick editing to hide the inability of the stars... i guess you don't know much about martial arts movies.
The story is of some pre-puberscent high school kid who moves to Florida with his family and falls for the school hottie. But a metro-sexual bully feels threatened by his presence, so he offers a challenge in a MMA fight. He loses, you know the rest, he joins a school, bonds with his sensei, kisses/sleeps with the girl/wins a few fights and ends up victorious in the end.
If you've watched the 80's movies 'The Karate Kid', 'Kickboxer' and 'Bloodsport' (which are a lot more better) you know what this film is about. The fight choreography is possibly the worst I have seen in years, none of the lead actors possess the ability to kick ass with style as you would expect. It's kind of hard to believe such trash was released at the cinemas, it deserves to be straight to video schlock.
If you seek a decent underground fight movie of recent years, watch 'Fatal Contact' (2006), the fight scenes are better and much more convincing.