Karaté Tiger 2

This sequel has nothing to do with the original film, but is connected that American kickboxers fight Soviet killing machines. This marked the debuts of Loren Avedon and Matthias Hues. The only flaw in the film was the short fight between Cynthia Rothrock and Hwang Jang-lee. If this was longer and Hwang didn't have any padding, the fight would've been spectacular. The finale between Avedon and Hues is blistering, especially when Avedon unleashes his awesome kicking. Pretty good for martial arts fans to enjoy!!!

To me this is one of the best movie of its type. The chief reason being the interesting mixture of characters in this movie, and they're all good.

Of course this movie stars Loren Avedon, and Cynthia Rothrock, both of whom were at their early stages of their career, but they look fresh, and good. Even better than many of their later works, so the director of this movie must have been really good.

Each scenes has attention to details, and they have the clean looks to them that makes it easy on the eyes.

Story is pretty good too, perfectly matched to each of the characters.

This definitely is one of the best movie Loren Avedon, and Cynthia Rothrock has starred in. It's bit juvenile for me now, but when it came out, I was much younger, and it looked perfect to me at the time.

A Beat 'Em Up and Shoot 'Em Up all wrapped up into one high octane package of pure brilliance. The plot is shady, the acting is iffy and the music is cheesy but still this flick packs a punch. The opening scene post credits pits Terry (Cynthia Rothrock) and Scott Wylde (Loren Avedon) a Tae-Kwon-Do expert in a war of words and showboating. With bad edited dialogue, poor acting (both improve as the film progresses) and over-the-top martial arts, we discover that Scott with his poorly delivered one-liners is on his travels to Bangkok and he is looking for an old friend, Mac Jarvis (Max Thayer) for some reason. Soon we are catapulted into the thick of it, Scott's fiance Sulin Nguyen (Patra Wanthivanond) is kidnapped from a hotel in Thailand by Soviet trained Vietnamese military operating out of Cambodia. Not only this but Scott is framed for the murder of his girlfriends entire family, so the plot thickens or gets muddled or something along those lines. Enter Mac, weapons expert and the man full of cheese, Mac is the man you need to know who can get you anything you need to save your fiance from a military base on top of a mountain, especially if it is manned by Soviet trained Vietnamese soldiers. Soon Scott, along with Mac and Terry, who comes back into the fold are on a mission into Cambodia to save Sulin. We then get the pleasantry of been introduced to the villain Yuri (Matthias Hues) the Russian commander, with his French-German accent and super soldier abilities not far removed from M.Bison in Street Fighter 2, who's weakness is apparently a picture frame. Along this journey we are gifted with pretty good choreographed fight scenes (some over the top, some pure cheese but all entertaining) and great shoot 'em up action, ending with a great finale. Mac "She's gone Scott." Scott "Lets get the hell out of here, alright." This film doesn't pretend to be anything it isn't, it's pure fun action, that keeps the hits flowing.

A cheesy moment to savour: A grenade is rolled, a villain is turned over onto the grenade and a table placed on top of him.

No Retreat, No Surrender was a film about a dude who was having trouble fitting in at his new home after his dad got injured by the mob. He learns kungfu from the ghost of Bruce Lee and tackles a Russian martial arts champ at a tournament. The only thing this one has in common with that is a Russian being the big bad at the end. Oh, this one has Max Thayer too; granted, I do not remember him in the first film. This one has Cynthia Rothrock so point to this film! Granted, she kind of feels like a last minute add in...

So the story has a guy visiting an Asian country, at first seemingly to find an old chum (Thayer), but after running afoul of Cynthia he apparently has a fiance. She gets kidnapped so the guy finally finds his buddy and they make plans to rescue her. She has been kidnapped by a dude in a Russian camp. He is pretty tough, he obliterated Cynthia, but he kind of fought her unfair. Cynthia joins the heroes as a helicopter pilot and if she had a better fate I would have given this one a higher score.

The cast is good, as I have never seen the lead but he was pretty good; however, both Rothrock and Thayer are the two more charismatic leads. The lead Russian bad guy is good too, probably most known for his role as the killer alien in the Dolph film, I Come In Peace.

So it was enjoyable for what must of been a low budget action film. Plays more like a Rambo film during the ending scenes than anything found in the first film. Not sure why they tried to tie this one with that one, I guess they felt they needed a hook?

STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All Costs

Corey Yeun,whose dayjob is a fight chereographer on the sets of various martial arts films,makes his second directing effort with this sequel to his 1985 original No Retreat No Surrender.Oddly,the plot to this sequel bears absolutely no resemblance to the original at all,with none of the original cast members returning either (including the ghost of Bruce Lee).That's no real problem,though,because a follow up to that ridiculously awful film probably wouldn't have been appreciated too greatly anyway.This is a film in an altogether different league,with a cast of martial artists in the leads.Loren Avedon is a little goofy in the lead but engaging enough,whilst Richard Norton alike Max Thayer adds good support.Cynthia Rothrock gets some nice lines here and there but she has serious problems with her delivery.And,finally,Matthias Hues is a video game villain ,right down to his 'hahaha' interludes,though quite credible.Running at as brisk a pace as the first,this is itself pretty damn stupid,but features some nice action and,if only seen once,passes muster.***