The Magic Kid

Kevin Ryan (Ted Jan Roberts), 11-year-old Michigan martial-arts ace, journeys to Los Angeles. The boy dreams of meeting his idol, real-life kickboxing champ (and star of many Pepin-Mehri productions) Don "The Dragon" Wilson, and his wish is granted thanks to his West Coast host Uncle Bob (Stephen Furst), a failed talent agent with $10,000 in gambling debts. As mob thugs try repeatedly to collect, Kevin beats them up, then lectures a repentant Uncle Bob on self-esteem. When the mob sends their meanest men after Kevin and Bob, Don "The Dragon" shows up in person to help out. Vanquishing the bad guys alongside his hero, Kevin so impresses the film folk that he lands a contract to be an action actor himself. An epilogue states that Uncle Bob later changed his name to Mike Ovitz (one of the film's better jokes, which is unfortunately ignored in the immediate Pepin-Mehri follow-up MAGIC KID 2).

Hollywood seemed awfully slow in realizing young children were deep-dyed martial-arts fans, loyally attending Jean-Claude Van Damme's kickboxer carnage or Steven Seagal's aikido bloodbaths despite the well-deserved R ratings. The TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES series and its successors proved that the F-words and hardbodied sex scenes could be jettisoned, with kung-fu mayhem scaled down to mere slapstick and roughhouse mischief, to create a new species of kiddie film. This is thin stuff, notable for attempted mythologizing of the relatively little-known Wilson ("A lot of martial-arts stars don't practice what they preach--but the Dragon's for real!") as a wholesome role model, though his actual screen time is brief. Further footage is wasted on gratuitous plugs for the Universal Studios theme park and its BACKDRAFT tour, which the protagonists happily patronize when they're not fighting for their lives. (Violence.) leave a comment