Ken is the new kid in town, struggling to fit in at a new school where the only person who will hang out with him is a goofy outcast who nobody likes. After talking to the ravishing Julie, Ken finds himself embroiled in a feud with Tom, Julie’s over-protective boyfriend, who happens to be a bit of a karate fan and also the biggest bully in school. The two get into a fight, and Ken is saved by Billy the janitor (played by martial arts expert Billy Blanks) who, wouldn’t you know it, turns out to be a martial arts expert. Halfway through the film, Billy agrees to train Ken, and so begins his path to glory and the eventual showdown in an underground kickboxing club.
It sounds a little familiar, and The Karate Kid even gets a mention in the script (“to let people know were aware of the similarities”, says the director in the extras), but Ken’s training is even less glamorous than that afforded to Daniel-san in the 1984 classic. “It’s like wax on wax off”, says Ken, to which Billy replies “no, this is called toilet cleaning. It teaches humility.”
There’s some fairly wooden acting from most of the cast – Ken is especially “drama school” with his post-scrap “pretend you’re injured and exit stage left” stagger, which we get to see a fair few times. There’s a few fairly abrupt edits, and all in all it’s a rather substandard 90s high school movie with nothing really to bother writing home about. It takes nearly 45 minutes to even get a hint of there being any sort of actual fighting going on, and those 45 minutes feel like 45 hours…
Unless you’re already a fan and might get a kick from revisiting it out of pure nostalgia, there’s not a whole lot to recommend about the film itself. But if you’re the sort of maniac that counts this as an all-time favourite, you’re likely to find something of interest in this Blu-ray release’s special features.
The extras include a brand new 100-minute Making of Showdown documentary in which Billy, Ken, and crazed dojo master Lee (Patrick Kilpatrick from Class of 1999, 3 Ninjas Knuckle Up and, erm, Free Willy 3) all thankfully appear much more at ease than they do in the movie. The same faces appear in the 47-minute Fights of Showdown which focuses on, surprise surprise, the fights of Showdown. Billy Blanks and director Robert Radler get their own 10-15 minute mini-features where they talk about their career highlights, and a couple of galleries and a bunch of trailers for other releases on the same label round off the special features. Oh, and you get a slipcase and a mini poster of the main lads looking all shiny and sweaty (and, weirdly, much better looking than they do in the actual film), if that floats your boat in any way. 5 for the film, a high 6 for the extras.
SHOWDOWN / CERT: UNRATED / DIRECTOR: ROBERT RADLER / SCREENPLAY: STUART GIBBS / STARRING: BILLY BLANKS, KENN SCOTT, CHRISTINE TAYLOR, PATRICK KILPATRICK / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
