The Martial Arts Kid

The Martial Arts Kid (2015)

When a troubled teen from Cleveland experiences bullying in Cocoa Beach, he soon learns Martial Arts to gain confidence and self-defense skills.

Date of release
2015-04-11
TMDB
6.2 / 10 (14)
Runtime
1h 41m
Genres
Action, Drama, Family
Director
Michael Baumgarten

Casting

Interesting facts

The Martial Arts Kid is a 2015 martial arts film directed by Michael Baumgarten and starring Don "The Dragon" Wilson and Cynthia Rothrock as a couple who take in their nephew Jansen Panettiere, and teach him martial arts when he is bullied. Most of the supporting cast of the film are actual martial artists, some of whom appear as themselves in the film.

Production

The film was developed by James Wilson, the brother of lead actor Don "The Dragon" Wilson, as a modern-day version of The Karate Kid. When the film was announced, the filmmakers started a Kickstarter fund, in which they exceeded their target goal with $173,486 from 430 backers.

An open casting call was done in April in which over 250 people showed up. Production began on the weekend of June 7, 2014 in Cocoa Beach, Florida and Melbourne, Florida, for six days followed by eight days in Los Angeles, California.

To bring the spirit of martial arts in the film, many well-known martial artists (aside from Wilson, Rothrock, Ziff, and Storm) make cameo appearances in the film, either as instructors or as themselves, which includes Olando Rivera, Christine Bannon-Rodrigues, Jeff W. Smith, Glenn C. Wilson, Carl Van Meter, and Dewey Cooper. Panetierre himself was a real-life black belt in krav maga.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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