Kickboxer 2: The Road Back

Rating:
Summary: Watchable...
Review: Albert Pyun is my absolute least favorite director. I hate his guts. His direction ruined "Cyborg" and was murky in "Omega Doom." This is his best flick, and it's not that good. In fact, it pales in comparison to the so-so original. Sasha Mitchell is highly entertaining in this sequel that is certainly watchable, but highly forgettable. The villain from the first, Tong Po, has returned after killing the Sloan brothers from the first movie. Now, he's out to redeem his honor by fighting little brother David Sloan. Standard martial arts fare. Some choppy fight scenes, but an interesting main character saves this picture from otherwise becoming complete dreck.

Rating:
Summary: Watchable...
Review: Albert Pyun is my absolute least favorite director. I hate his guts. His direction ruined "Cyborg" and was murky in "Omega Doom." This is his best flick, and it's not that good. In fact, it pales in comparison to the so-so original. Sasha Mitchell is highly entertaining in this sequel that is certainly watchable, but highly forgettable. The villain from the first, Tong Po, has returned after killing the Sloan brothers from the first movie. Now, he's out to redeem his honor by fighting little brother David Sloan. Standard martial arts fare. Some choppy fight scenes, but an interesting main character saves this picture from otherwise becoming complete dreck.

Rating:
Summary: They shouldn't have bothered without Van Damme...
Review: Alot of people think this is better than the original Kickboxer, however, I really don't think so. First of all, I think they probably shouldn't have bothered making a sequel at all without Van Damme. I'm not really sure the exact reason why Van Damme didn't do a sequel, I'm guessing he either wanted too much money to do one, or he just wasn't interested in doing one at all. (Generally, Van Damme was just never really big on sequels.) Perhaps it was a combination of both reasons, who really knows for sure. Either way, I don't think they should have bothered.

It's not that Sasha Mitchell(aka, Cody, the goofy kid from Step by Step) is bad in the lead role...in fact, he was very convincing, given his real-life Kickboxing experience...he just doesn't have the same style or coordination as Van Damme. On top of all that, the thing I find most irritating of all is that the writers felt the need to write in some really bad dialogue to explain what happened to Kurt and Eric Sloane from the previous movie. I was never a huge fan of the whole "everybody from the past movie are all dead" thing. By the time they got to Kickboxer 5, it was starting to get really ridiculous with this.

The rest of the cast is a mix...Peter Boyle gave a decent performance, and Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa always gives a top notch performance in anything he is in. Hell, even Matthias Hughes(who plays villains in a variety of B-action movies) gave a decent performance, but some of the other supporting actors left alot to be desired. Whoever the guy was that played McKaia(or is it McKaya?), I forget the name, gave a pretty lousy performance, as did Vince Murdocco(Brian). As for the Tong Po in this version(credited as "Michel Qissi"), I'm not sure whether or not it is the same Tong Po from the first movie, I don't think he is, as he looks a bit different, but he just seemed really weird in this version.

If they were intent on making a sequel without Van Damme, then they could have at least tried. The movie started out with a goo plot, and solid foundation, however, after the first fight with David and Neil Vargas, the plot starts to jump all over the place. Tong Po and Sanga are introduced into the movie very late, even though they are the entire focus of the story towards the end. On top of less-than-stellar writing and story development, the fight scenes in this one were terrible. The last two fights in the movie were shown ENTIRELY in slow motion. By the end of the last fight between David and Tong Po, I felt like I was going to get vertigo if I watched it any longer. They were really stretching some things, too. I find it hard to believe that the fight would have gone on that long after Tong Po knocked the referee out. Is it a WWE wrestling match or what? Also, what makes even less sense is that David is escorted out of the building by about seven security guards, and then a few moments later he is magically back at ringside just in time to see Brian killed.

As for the soundtrack, this movie had a couple decent songs; "My Brother's Eyes," "A Man Alone," "It's All up to You," however, once again the movie falls short in comparison to the first Kickboxer in this aspect. For those who did enjoy the soundtrack, good luck finding those tracks, as since a Kickboxer 2 soundtrack was never commercially released, those tracks are virtually impossible to get.

Even though I don't necessarily think this movie was great, I think it was at least better than some of the other Kickboxer sequels. It wasn't as bad as the third one(which was probably the worst of the series), and it couldn't possibly be as bad as Kickboxer 4, with plastic-face Tong Po and a plot that made virtually no sense. As for Kickboxer 5(which was ironically a half-remake of Kickboxer 2), it was actually decent, given the talents of Mark Dacascos, and better writers.

All in all I think this was a poor sequel and they shouldn't have bothered.

Rating:
Summary: Thumbs up for Sasha Mitchell
Review: I was pleasantly surprised with this sequel to Kickboxer. I found the story line interesting and I felt Sasha Mitchell did a great job acting and kickboxing. Although, he is no Jean Claude Van Damme...he still gets a thumbs up from me.

Rating:
Summary: Where's the fights?
Review: It was BORING. There were only 3 fights in the entire movie. This is supposed to be an action movie.

Rating:
Summary: Kickboxer Goes On Without Van Damme For The Better
Review: Kickboxer 2 The Road Back Deals With David Sloan. The brother of Kurt & Eric Sloan David is running his brothers kickboxer school tung po killed off van damme's charcter for the first kickboxer I say good sasha mitchell is a lot better tung po can only regain his honor by fighting david since kurt is dead so david vs. tung po with glue and glass is a bloody battle great movie the best in the series.

Rating:
Summary: Kickboxer Goes On Without Van Damme For The Better
Review: Kickboxer 2 The Road Back Deals With David Sloan. The brother of Kurt & Eric Sloan David is running his brothers kickboxer school tung po killed off van damme's charcter for the first kickboxer I say good sasha mitchell is a lot better tung po can only regain his honor by fighting david since kurt is dead so david vs. tung po with glue and glass is a bloody battle great movie the best in the series.

Rating:
Summary: Kickboxer Goes On Without Van Damme For The Better
Review: Kickboxer 2 The Road Back Deals With David Sloan. The brother of Kurt & Eric Sloan David is running his brothers kickboxer school tung po killed off van damme's charcter for the first kickboxer I say good sasha mitchell is a lot better tung po can only regain his honor by fighting david since kurt is dead so david vs. tung po with glue and glass is a bloody battle great movie the best in the series.

Rating:
Summary: Sasha Mitchell wins hearts!
Review: Sasha Mitchell is far fron his Step by Step family and for good reason! Whereas he does not put Jean-Claud Van Damme to shame, he does a great job of filling the martial arts masters shoes! Definatly worth buying!

Rating:
Summary: better than the first
Review: sasha mitchell is simply fabulous in this movie... I would say his kickboxing puts jean claude van damme to shame!!!