Máximo Combate

Alex, notorious street fighter and thief, meets the kung fu master Sun in prison, who teaches him the deadliest of all martial arts disciplines: "the iron hand". However, after his release, Alex has to fight in "Kumitte" - brutal full-contact fights without rules. Alex quickly realizes that there is much more at stake. He has to fight for his life...

I didn't expect this to be better than Bloodsport, it's hard to top that 1988 classic, however this sequel isn't too bad. It's watchable at least for the kumite and there's plenty of matches featuring an array of different styles. Donald Gibbs reprises his role as Jackson. Daniel Bernhardt, who resembles Van Damme and Sean Connery, does well as the hero. He fights well, though he lacks Van Damme's unique Belgian charm. The main villain, however, is bland and not as imposing as Bolo Yeung. The bits between the fights are so-so and isn't as interesting. Overall, a passable effort.

This is basically a realistic documentary on the totally real Kumite that totally happened in real life! wow! basically its like Mortal Kombat but without the costumes...

Actors: Although it doesn't have the classic fued between Van Damn and Bolo Yeung, it does have Donald Gibb. The new guy Daniel Bernhardt does a good job.

Fight Scenes: The fights are well done and the actors are athletic.

Music: Sounds somewhere in between Mortal Kombat and salsa dancing music.

Philosophy: To own something one must earn it, not steal it...or maybe both?

Conclusive Thoughts: The characters are not as interesting, one guy had clown style makeup on while fighting the first female warrior allowed in the tournament. The fight scenes with the generic fighters combined with the Mortal Kombat Salsa music worked well together. A backstory for some of the tournament fighters would make it more interesting and would add some plot depth.

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'.

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.

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!