Bloodsport II - Die nächste Herausforderung

No pun intended - I don't know if the honor code and the fighting code even matters to you. It was quite the paper thin string that held the first movie together. Now I can't really say if this is supposed to play in the same universe as the first one. But you do get Jackson back (D. Glib) ... which I guess is a nice touch.

What I do agree with others: the fight scenes are at least as good as the first one. Sometimes probably even better. The main actor (from Swiss) is really good - he is a stunt coordinator or became one if I got it right. So he knows his stuff. And you also get two other greats in this: Pat Morata (Karate Kid/Miyagi) and James Wong - nice touch to say the least.

The story is paper thin - it even copies certain beats (like the last opponent of our main bad guy before he takes on our hero ... and the reaction to it. But even in that moment you can tell what the biggest flaw of the movie is: it does not have a good enough villain ... and by good enough I mean bad enough of course (yes my puns, you know you love them).

And all told like a fairy tale of sorts ... why not? Maybe a cautionary tale even? Who knows ... who cares?

It may have the usual tropes of a martial arts flick, but 'Bloodsport 2' is a decent dtv sequel that stands on it's own without ruining what came before it. I'm really surprised at how competent this turned out to be instead of a drag. The fisticuffs display decent choreography, plus some known faces and a story that traces betrayal, redemption, friendship. This was my first time seeing Daniel Berndhardt too though the man was no stranger to these types of flicks.

Alex Cardo (Bernhardt) a self centered thief steals a valuable katana from wealthy businessman Mr. Leung (Pat Morita) in Thailand. When his partner John (Philip Tan) betrays him, he's caught and sent to prison where he meets Sun (James Hong). A man who teaches him to be a better person and a mystical martial art 'Iron Hand'. He also learns about a Kumite coming up and how brutal head prison guard Demon (Ong Soo Han) has entered. Leung uses influence to free Alex who enters the tourney, but at the price of getting back the katana.

Coming in at a light 80 mins nothing here will surprise a seasoned viewer of b-movies and there's some undeniable weak elements. The Kumite just happens to be taking place there instead of Hong Kong (as before) and you just have to roll with it. Ditto a lone lady fighter which doesn't come off very well. On the plus side, Alex's arc from being an a-hole to trying to atone for his sins comes off well. Morita, Hong are fun to see though the latter shouldn't be in a fight scene. Like the first title, different fighting styles get shown off and it was a hoot to see Donald Gibbs return as Jackson too.

Obviously low budget fare, 'Bloodsport 2' suffers from a scattered story and some suspect editing. Definitely juggling one too many friendly characters by the end. However I was glad it didn't trash the original unlike 'Kickboxer 2'. Demon is shades of Bolo Leung and Berndhardt comes off pretty well. I'll give 'Bloodsport 3' a chance seeing as how decent this turned out.

I just finished watching this movie right now, I've seen it a flew times now, and I like it, its a good martial arts movie, al thogh...it still dosnt come close to the first Bloodsport, which is one of my favorite films of all time. its a classic.....you should see this movie if you like movies like this......but, I gotta say, the guy who plays Alex is the best Van damme rip off I have ever seen!....I think they should make a new bloodsport , and call it, Bloodsport 5: the return of Frank Dux! lol, and have Van Damme fight this guy that trys to imitate him in these movies! That would be funny!

There are some movies that you actually are supposed to hate. Kind of like a dish that isn't good for you or doing a small bit of gambling, you know you aren't supposed to enjoy it because it's wrong. But hey, we all have vices, right? Bloodsport 2 is one of those movies for me.

The premise of the movie is pretty simple. An arrogant thief named Alex Cardo, played by Daniel Bernhardt, gets caught by the police after being setup by his partner. It turns out that Cardo is already a good martial artist, but when he goes to jail, he meets a person with even "stronger kung fu", named Sun (James Hong). The rest is pretty straight forward from there. A reformed criminal seeks redemption, a student learns the Ultimate Technique from his master. Said reformed jailbird/student enters to the Ultimate Death Match tournament to honor his master and gain back his honor. Along the way, we get a lot of new faces (and some old ones as well if you've seen the first movie), a ton of fights, some big bad evil former student, and some pathetic facsimile of a romance happen.

Probably the strongest point of this film is the fight choreography and action sequences. I actually believe that when they were brainstorming this film, they decided to make a tournament fighter featuring different styles of martial arts. But they needed something to try and ensure some modicum of notoriety, so they tied it into the languishing franchise of "Bloodsport" (thanks for Dux getting tacitly outed as a fraud), picked up the services of Pat Murita, and called it good.

But back to the point, you see a ton of different styles in this film and nearly all the fights are very well done. Bernhardt does a reasonable job as a Van Damme-clone (despite being his first film) and special mention go to Ron Hall and Ong Soo Han for their roles in this film as well. Gibb reprises his role as Ray Jackson as well, but it's more for comedic effect. That said, he does a fine job hamming it up.

Otherwise, there isn't anything wrong with the technical aspects of production. The story has a ton of clichés, some of the dialogue is downright awful ("You are a true warrior, Alex" is one of the single most out of place lines of all time. It's the Bloodrayne sex scene of dialogue, but without Loken's umm... assets). The romance sub-plot is outright horrible and seemed like it was forced in as an afterthought for the purposes of trying to mirror the success of the original film as much as possible. The musical score isn't anything fantastic, but they at least made the pieces "fit" as best as possible and a few of the tunes are catchy. Some of the segments of the film are legitimately funny (as intended) and provide a welcome relief from the boring secondary plot elements.

On the whole, there isn't much to the film other than the fight sequences. It does take some time to get to what we all want to see. It's worth the wait (or just the use of the fast forward feature on your DVD or other methods of delivery). If you enjoyed the first film, are a fan of tournament fighting movies, or are a fan of Bernhardt or Donald Gibb, you'll enjoy it. Otherwise, you might be best passing on this.

After watching "Bloodsport" and enjoying that movie to the fullest, I just had to watch the sequels too even though van Damme has nothing to do with them. Instead, Swiss Daniel Bernhardt takes the role of our fighting hero. In my opinion, he makes a really good replacement for van Damme. The fight scenes are really great in this movie too, and there are lots of it to make every martial arts fan out there satisfied. The villain in this movie, 'Demon', is unfortunately not nearly as interesting as Bolo Yeung's 'Chong-Li' was in the first. But that's a minor detail. But seriously, this "Iron-hand"-stuff should have been removed from the script. It was just too ridiculous in a movie that tries to be a bit realistic. On the upside: It was really cool to see that Donald Gibb returned as 'Jackson'.