American Shaolin

Plot synopsis:
During a martial arts tournament, the American finalist Drew Carson (Reese Madigan) is humiliated by his opponent, ruthless and sadistic kickboxer Trevor Gottitall (Trent Bushey) who pantses him during the match. To add to the insult, Drew's teacher Master Kwan (Kim Chan) confesses that he is not—as he had claimed—a Shaolin monk, and therefore he had not passed on the actual knowledge of Shaolin kung fu to Drew. Determined to learn the actual art to prevent another such situation, Drew departs for China and arrives at the Shaolin Temple. At first, the monks do not let him enter, but with the help of a pretty tea shop waitress, Ashena (Alice Zhang Hung), and an old monk (Henry O) who gives him a decisive advise, he waits outside of the temple for a week, after which he manages to be admitted. The old monk also turns out to be the abbot of the temple, Master San De, and he and his stern taskmaster train Drew and a number of other young apprentices in the ways of the Shaolin.
At first Drew causes much trouble as his American teenage temperament clashes with the tranquility within the temple and with his fellow student, Gao (Daniel Dae Kim), but under the rigorous physical and mental training he both improves his fighting skills and learns the meaning of discipline, humility, and patience. He makes friends with Gao and also manages to pass the two final tests: the Test of Spirituality, and the Test of the Chamber. Accepted as a full-fledged member of the Shaolin Monastery, he accompanies—along with Ashena—a delegation of his fellow students and the abbot to a martial arts tournament in Shanghai.
At the tournament, Drew encounters Trevor once again. Trevor taunts Drew before proceeding with this match against Gao. Gao initially gains the upper hand, but Trevor resorts to his dirty fighting techniques and injures Gao. With Gao pinned against the ropes, Trevor demands a match against the "American Shaolin". Drew rises, but sits down again, refusing to fight Trevor on the principle of non-violence and selflessness. Infuriated, Trevor continues to beat up Gao and hurls him out of the ring. Encouraged by Master San De, Drew finally enters the ring to fight Trevor. Trevor immediately used dirty tricks again, but Drew prevails and even offers his hand to the defeated Trevor. The crowd voices their support for Shaolin, and Master San De declares that "this is the future of Shaolin".

Tags: violence

Review:
Fast paced and exciting.
This was a great martial arts film.
The action sequences are exciting and fast paced.
The Shaolin training sequences was a highlight, especially when the new monks demonstrated with weapons.
Reese Madigan was a bit annoying, but he still can prove he is a tough fighter on screen.
I don't know how they did it, but they made non-martial artist Trent Bushy look great as the evil Trevor.
A must-see for all fans of martial arts films..
Daft as a brush.
Some 'Gee whizz' kid goes to China to learn Shaolin Kung Fu after getting knacked and humiliated in a martial arts tournament.
They teach him Kung Fu, he teaches them to rock n' roll with broomsticks.
God bless America!.
Follows the same great path as it's predecessors.
An unofficial follow-up to the No Retreat, No Surrender movies and King of the Kickboxers, this movie continues to entertain with the same amount of quality as the earlier movies.
Being the first movie in this series without Loren Avedon, it still delivers on all levels.
And by that I mean it delivers on the fighting.
The action is great.
The rest of the movie is just total goofiness of the highest order, and that's the way it should be.
It's a really lighthearted movie where the focus is on the action and the fact that you just don't take it seriously at all.
Sit back, enjoy this movie for what it's worth and have a great time..
American Shaolin: King of Latrine Diggers.
If you've ever seen a movie about the Shaolin Temple, then you've seen half of this, what sets 'King of the Kickboxers II' apart from the rest is the inability of the hero to keep his pants up, and air-guitar styling of the Shaolin disciples.
Awesome.'King of the Kickboxers II' opens with our hero, Drew Carson, facing a bad-dude known as Trevor (what an evil name) in a martial arts tournament.
Trevor beats Drew by pulling his pants down (just how does he untie Drew's belt whilst wearing gentlemen's sport gloves?).
The obvious solution for Drew is to go the Shaolin Temple, so its off to China and good-bye to Trevor for most of the movie.
Somehow, Drew doesn't have any communication troubles in China, because everyone at the Shaolin Temple speaks English, even when in the villagers talking to people speaking Chinese.Anyway, most of the movie is your standard Shaolin Temple stuff - training sequences and fights, but all from the perspective of a loud-mouthed American who constantly gets in trouble.
The fights are good, but nothing special.
If you're looking for Shaolin action ala 'Shaolin Temple', you will be disappointed, but if you just want some martial arts fun, then this is for you.5/10.
High Flying International Martial Arts Action -- at its Best!.
American Shaolin is a virtuosic display of the drama of martial arts combat, intertwined with the wisdom and lore of the Eastern Buddhist Tradition (Shaolin).
After a humilating incident in which his pants are pulled down by martial arts "bad guy" Trevor Gottiall, revealing his panties to a crowd of about 75 people in a high school gymnasium, Drew Carson escapes to the rural countryside of Communist China to learn the secrets of Oriental Martial Arts (Shaolin Fighting).
While there Drew must master the arts of manual labor (viz.
"latrine cleaning") and fighting wooden golems; but he also manages to impart a little "wisdom" on his Chinese captors:  he breaks up the monotony of another day of hard labor in the prison camp with a rendition of "The Shaolin Temple Blues" -- with eerily reminiscent of Buddy Holly's 1956 hit "Summertime Blues" -- and in the process teaches his Oriental associates how to sing and dance "American"-style.Except for some unnecessary (albeit, brief) digressions into Avant-Garde Symbolism -- mainly in the form of a trip to the mountain to visit the Zarathustra-esque Purple Magician (portrayed with fantastic charisma by Noriyuku "Pat" Morita of Karate Kid fame) and a panty-raid at the local high school dance -- American Shaolin is a film to be enjoyed over and over.
A veritable tour-de-force realized through the sheer acting-magnificence of its ensemble cast, that culminates with a breathtaking transition from the final test that requires Drew to destroy Wooden Golems in the basement of the Shaolin Temple to the final fight "all-out" bare-knuckle fight at the International Karate Expo where Drew must put his skillz to their ultimate test in mortal kombat with Trevor.
And let's just say that Drew doesn't "drop his pants" this time!!!Keep on Shaolin-Fighting, Drew.
Truly Amazing!!.
American Shaolin is undoubtibly one of the best film ever made.
It is a brilliant concoction of humour, action and excitement.
I was mezmerised whilst watching it, at its greatness and anticipated eagerly for the outcome of events.
It is an utter masterpiece in movie making and hasn't got the credit it deserves.
It is an excellently made film and is exciting all the way through.
I watch it at least once everyday, sometimes twice.
Thats how brilliant it is.
Well done Lucas Lowe for creating such a magnificent piece of work!!
"the tiger grasps the pearls.".
"Shaolin Temple Blues!".
Yeah, the only song this entire movie had (that I could remember) was "The Shaolin Temple Blues" which really didn't sound like the blues at all, but instead a strange perversion of a Bruce Springsteen song.
All of the lyrics are about working minimum wage and going out on dates Saturday Night...
But the chorus says "Shaolin Temple Blues", not "Summertime Blues" like they sing at first.
Of course, this can all be forgiven once we are shown Shaolin Monks playing Air Guitar.The movie's story is about as run-of-the-mill as run-of-the-mill can get.
Ugly American (and BOY is he ugh-lee this time around!) gets beaten and humiliated in the first 5 minutes of the movie, then goes and gets trained by someone who doesn't accept him at first, until he begins to understand the ways of the martial arts.
From that point, he goes on to defeat the bad guy in the last 5 minutes of the movie.This happened in "The Karate Kid", "No Retreat, No Surrender", and countless others!
Even "KING OF THE KICKBOXERS PART ONE"!Anyway, Corey Yuen did the fight coreography for this film, and it shows by the overall quality.
Unfortunately, the bright spots seen are overshadowed by some astoundingly bad parts...
whether it be the Shaolin Temple getting exposed to Playboy Magazine, a group of Shaolin Monks going to a high school dance, or Drew poplocking in front of his fellow student monks.
It's goofy as all hell.For $6.99 on DVD, I can't really say it's a loss of money, but at the same time you'd be better off sticking with something else.
At least "No Retreat, No Surrender" has Jean-Claude Van Damme.One last note: Am I the only person here disturbed by the fact that the only way the main villain seems to be able to win a fight is by pulling down his opponent's pants?!.
sad ...really.
this has got to be one of those films where the trailer is 50 times better than the movie itself.I first saw the trailer in 1991, it looked great.Since then i have always wanted to see it but could never find it.....until today, yes, 14 years later.lets just say I was so disappointed its unreal, OK i knew it wouldn't be an Oscar winner but still had hopes that it would be a fun no-brain film in the bloodsport mold.
Unfortunately it was not, it's Poohwhats with all the American rock and roll music and the acting was so bad it was quite frightening.The fight scenes were rubbish and look fake.this DVD only cost me £5 and I believe I was overcharged by £7Now I'm sad as I know that I will never get that hour and a half back..
Entertaining but no patch on the previous films.
Having been a great fan of the No retreat No Surrender films and King Of The Kickboxers since I was a boy in the 80's I had never got around to seeing this sequel to the series.As a direct sequel to King Of The Kickboxers first off I must say that its no where near as good.
The acting is more atrocious than usual in these kinds of films but the big flaw is that the fight's are almost no- where to be seen and for a martial arts film that's bad news.
After the opening fight almost an hour passes with no action whatsoever.
The ones that do crop up are acceptably choreographed but are slow, short and lack the intensity of any of the previous films due to some slow movements and very tight close camera-work.It's an OK film though, most likely because it is a complete rip off of Bruce Lee's Kung-Fu starring David Carradine.
A few monks talking with American accents sort of spoil the feel and the main character is pretty unlikable and a bit arrogant.A few more regular fights and more imaginative choreography and it would have been great but as it stands it's not a patch on King of the Kickboxers, or any of the Karate Tiger series for that matter..
The Pure evil of Trevor Gottitall!.
You better watch out for Trevor Gottitall (Bushey).
Just by his name you can tell he is an evil, arrogant jerk with a ponytail.
He is a kickboxer whose finishing move in the ring is to pull down his opponent's pants.
Fighting in a match with Trevor in front of an enthusiastic audience, young, idealistic fighter Drew Carson (Madigan) loses to Trevor's underhanded tactics and is humiliated when he falls prey to his infamous coup de grace.
After consulting with his elderly master, the All-American Drew goes all the way to the original Shaolin Temple in China to become a monk.
While there, the monks teach him, and he teaches the monks, and his fellow disciples a thing or two as well.
After an unspecified length of time at the temple, Drew emerges to take on Trevor Gottitall in a rematch."American Shaolin: King of the Kickboxers II", despite being one of the longest titles of its many titles, doesn't feel like a long movie while you are watching it.
It is quite entertaining and enjoyable.Madigan is perfectly cast as Drew.
He starts out as a "typical" American with his omnipresent backwards baseball cap, yellow walkman and sports jerseys.
Through his disciplined training, he learns humility and grace.
But not before teaching his fellow students how to dance and sing American rock and roll.
A highlight of the film is an impromptu music video where Drew leads his fellow monk hopefuls in a rousing rendition of "Summertime blues".
While they are cavorting around using sticks as guitars and microphones, Drew changes the lyrics to "Ain't no cure for the Shaolin Temple Blues".
If you don't wince in embarrassment, it is charming.
Later, at another dance sequence, the one and only song is "Summertime Blues".
It must have been the only song the production could afford.Also Drew teaches his Chinese friends about the ancient art of Playboy magazine and pranks.
This Martial Arts film almost becomes an 80's romp when they try to pull a prank on the head monk.
The film is mainly a long training sequence, and the title would seem to indicate that this film is a reference to "The 36th Chamber of Shaolin".
The culture shock is a major element.
He must overcome some prejudice as a Chinese monk says about Drew, "this Monk smells".
Apparently anyone can just show up at the Shaolin Temple, provided they sit outside on a tree stump for a day or so.Interestingly, this film bears no relation to "King of the Kickboxers" (1990), starring Billy Blanks.
Speaking of things bearing no relation, the box art for the Academy VHS release is somewhat misleading.
It makes it seem like a dark, disturbing and angry punchfighter.
The truth is that it is fairly light-hearted and there are many life lessons in the film."AS:KOTKII" is an above-average film of this kind.
The actors seem to care about the proceedings and the audience gets sucked into the plot, despite some clichéd touches here and there.Your collection hasn't "Gottitall" unless this is in it!
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