This is the fourth of seven essays to focus on “The Seasonal 7”, the seven films that Hong Kong production company Seasonal Films released from 1985 to 1997 with a mostly American cast and crew. All images courtesy of Seasonal Films and Imperial Entertainment unless otherwise noted.

After making the No Retreat, No Surrender trilogy, Seasonal Films decided to make a new film that would bring something fresh and exciting and no longer bear the moniker the name. The story may have started simple: a New York City cop is hired by Interpol to take down a snuff film ring. However, there would be a twist in that the star of the snuff films is the man who killed his brother a decade ago. One thing was certain about the film. They already had their lead star in Loren Avedon, who would finalize his contract with the company.

Keith W. Strandberg would once again write the script as he would do with all of the “Seasonal 7” and Lucas Lowe, the director of No Retreat, No Surrender 3: Blood Brothers, would be at the helm again. Despite a little rift between the two with their previous collaboration, they seemed to have gotten along better the second time around with production shifting to Thailand and New York City.

The film, titled The King of the Kickboxers, revolves around Jake Donahue, played by Loren Avedon, a NYPD detective who is known for his arrogance and unorthodox ways to catch criminals. After stopping a drug dealer and his men, he gets reamed out by his captain at first. However, knowing Jake is their best man, Interpol is looking for a cop to go undercover as a fighter for a snuff film. When Jake learns the assignment is in Thailand, he refuses at first. That is, until he sees the man killing people in the film and it is Khan, the man who ten years ago, killed his brother in Thailand. Jake takes the assignment but is going to need some help.

With Avedon already cast as Jake, casting for the other roles began. Richard Jaeckel, a veteran film and television actor perhaps known just prior for his role as Lt. Quirk on the series Spencer for Hire, was cast as Jake’s superior in New York, Capt. O’Day. Another veteran, Don Stroud, perhaps memorable for his role in The Buddy Holly Story, would be cast as Anderson, Jake’s Interpol contact.

Sherrie Rose, an up-and-coming star of indie movie fare such as Summer Job, would be cast as Molly, a model stuck in Thailand who becomes Jake’s love interest. Rose had a small role in No Retreat, No Surrender 3 as a hostage Keith Vitali saves in that film’s opening sequence. She would go on to appear that same year as a badass enforcer in Martial Law II: Undercover, starring Jeff Wincott and Cynthia Rothrock.

The next two roles were vital to the film. That of Khan, the man who killed Jake’s brother and is the star of the snuff films and Prang, Jake’s martial arts mentor who must help Jake stop Khan and is the only man who came close to defeating him. It is here where at first things were confusing, but Strandberg later clarified who exactly Khan was. American martial arts world champion and actor Billy Blanks was cast as Khan. To play the role, Khan had to fake an accent of sorts, and some had wondered why Khan, who has an Asian name, would be played by an African American actor.

We learn later in an interview with Strandberg that the character of Khan was the son of an American G.I. and Thai woman. When the American G.I. left the family to go back to America, Khan had resentment towards Americans. This explains why in the film’s opening sequence, he tells Sean Donahue, Jake’s brother, that an American should never have won the Muay Thai championship against a local kickboxer before killing him with a three-kick combination.

As for Prang, the mentor of Jake, the producers needed someone who could play someone who was still dealing with the defeat and yet when needed, show he is more than a useless drunken hermit. Fresh off shooting his debut role of Dakota in China O’Brien and its sequel back-to-back, Japanese American wushu champion Keith Cooke was cast in the role. He would bring a bit of comic relief to the more serious nature of the film as at times, his scenes with Avedon proved to have a “buddy comedy” aesthetic.

Other martial artists would make cameos in the film, such as champion kickboxer Jerry “Golden Boy” Trimble (in only his second film after working with Jet Li in The Master) as a NYC drug dealer; Operation Condor villain Vincent Lyn and Once Upon a Time in China villain Steve Tartalia as the drug dealer’s goons; Bruce Fontaine as an unlucky actor in one of the snuff films; and Bloodsport II villain Ong Soo Han as Thasi, a kickboxer who tells Jake about Prang after he sees Jake’s less than impressive kickboxing skills. Rounding out the martial arts cast is Michael DePasquale Jr. as the ill-fated Sean Donahue in the film’s opening scene.

While Strandberg and Lowe got along better on the set of the film, things weren’t exactly peachy when it came to the cast. The film may be known for having a bit of overacting from Avedon, but it isn’t his fault. In the scene where Jake sees Khan for the first time in a decade, he is seen doing a Sylvester Stallone-like scream. Avedon has stated he didn’t want to do the scream, but Lowe insisted he do it. Avedon wanted to throw the tape into the fire and to be quite honest, Avedon’s idea would have had a more dramatic impact on the scene leading to the Bangkok scenes.

Sherrie Rose had issues on the set as well and one event led to her co-star having had enough. According to an interview with co-star Avedon, Rose was acting like a “prima donna” constantly complaining and one day, he finally had enough and told her to shut up. This led to a rift between the two despite the fact they played love interests. Rose also complained that she didn’t want to do a full-on topless scene. Rose was cast after another actress who was cast, didn’t want to go topless either. Once it was time to shoot the scene,  the filmmakers compromised with Rose in terms of the length of the scene which lasts a few seconds. However, the U.S. version released from Imperial Entertainment shows Molly about to get topless and cuts straight to Jake without having to show anything. Perhaps this was a compromise between producers and the distributor after talking about the scene with Rose. Who knows?

One can wonder why the film is called The King of the Kickboxers. Well, it does sound like a bit of a rip-off of the film Kickboxer, which was released the year before and starred Jean-Claude Van Damme as a man who learns Muay Thai to avenge his brother’s crippling. However, we later learn that the final “snuff film”, featuring the long-awaited battle between Jake and Khan, is called “The King of the Kickboxers” as it is set in a bamboo dome with traps and platforms.

Once again, Tony Leung Siu-Hung came in to serve as the film’s fight choreographer and we got to see the cast employ the old school Hong Kong action of that era with its frenetic style of martial arts skills on display. However, in an interesting twist, producers flew Corey Yuen in to choreograph one particular scene that stands out in the film. When Jake returns to see Prang after getting rebuffed the first time, he is ambushed by some local thugs only to see Prang show what he is capable of and unleash a barrage of kicking skills that would make Hwang Jung-Lee proud as hell. The final battle between Jake and Khan would be known to fans as one of the best martial arts fights in the golden age of American martial arts films.

The film would go on to impress, of all companies, Capcom. The makers of Street Fighter II were looking to add a new character to the mix and according to James Goddard, who at the time was working at the Research and Development team, Khan would be the influence for the character of Dee Jay, a Jamaican kickboxer and karateka but with a more fun and energetic personality compared to Khan’s brash and anti-American hatred.

The film would be released straight to VHS in the U.S. on August 9, 1991 from Imperial Entertainment. The U.S. version had cut about 3 minutes of the film. Aside from the aforementioned topless scene with Sherrie Rose, a huge section of Bruce Fontaine’s scene was cut, from his discovery of a dead topless woman to his actual death from Khan by getting hooked in the neck like something coming out of a horror film.

The film would once again gain a cult following among the martial arts film community. While the Stallone laugh provided unintentional laughs, the action was the heart of the film, notably Prang’s kicking and the finale pitting Avedon and Blanks. This would be the last film in Avedon’s contract with Seasonal Films as he would venture out to work in the genre for the next few decades while Billy Blanks would also make films and would be immortalized not just as the character of Dee Jay in Street Fighter II, but in the 2010s as the basis for Sgt. Burly in the Yo-Kai Watch series after the creation of his Tae-Bo workout.

Keith Cooke continued making films as well, appearing in the first two Mortal Kombat films respectively as Reptile and Sub-Zero. He recently appeared in the martial arts Western Black Creek. Sherrie Rose would continue in films and television, eventually working as a producer and director with 1999’s Me and Will, starring Patrick Dempsey. Jerry Trimble continues making films and also serves as a motivational speaker while his goons, Vincent Lyn and Steve Tartalia, would continue their success in the 1990s and 2000s in Hong Kong action films.

As of today, the film is not available in the United States on DVD or Blu-Ray, but you can find the title on European physical media under the name Karate Tiger 5 and also in Australia under its original name.

Next up with the Seasonal 7, I will talk about American Shaolin, the story of how one of today’s biggest names of Hollywood almost played the lead role and how it would launch one of television’s top stars and producers today.