Silk 2

This movie was really bad: Monique Gabrielle is my favorite scream queen of all times (one of my favorite women on the screen, in fact), but her too brief shower scene is not enough to heaten up a terribly boring actioneer, too slow and too talky for his own good.

Monique looks beautiful as always and she tries hard to be an actress (she has a very sexy voice), but it is not good enough to be a tough cop as she should be in this movie.

All in all, a waste of time from start to finish

Since Cec Verrell didn't reprise her role as Silk(She was doing "Hunter" playing Iris in the episode, "City Under Siege"), so another actress has taken her place as the tough cop. This time around, it's a case of counterfeit scrolls. She gets supported by regular people who help her avenge her slain partner. A art expert, and a college student who is traveling. They were unwilling at first, but they have proved themselves by helping the cop.

There was more sex appeal in the film than the first one. Makes it less boring. The action is still there. So nothing was lost in the film, but getting the scrolls was only the challenge. Mild to say that.

2 out of 5 stars.

"Silk 2" replaces Cec Verrell with Monique Gabrielle in the title role. This has both its advantages and its disadvantages: Monique lack's Cec's muscle tone, her voice is a bit too soft to be taken seriously in such hardcore lines as "Silk, what do you think you're doing?" - "What needs to be done!", and she is very obviously doubled for many of her stunts (even for diving off a boat!). But she IS gorgeous, she does have some moves, and, in the film's most memorable sequence, she takes a shower, complete with full-frontal nudity, and then, wearing only a barely-tied bathrobe, she fights a home intruder, kicking him all around the place while her breasts are bouncing up and down! The whole thing doesn't last more than a minute or two, however. Anyway, the film has some of the trademark Cirio H. Santiago amateurishness (check out that laughably fake head that gets shot in the opening scene!), but at least its plot is more coherent than the one of its predecessor. In fact, I thought the villain had a pretty neat plan and I almost wished he could get away with it! ** out of 4.

My review was written in January 1991 after watching the film on MGM/UA video cassette.

Hawaiian actioner "Silk 2" has an all-new heroine, but it's business as usual in the chasing-around department. This is a mnor video title from Roger Corman's Concorde stable.

Monique Gabrielle, mis-advertised as former "Playmate of the Year" (she was a Penthouse mag model, not a Playboy gatefold girl), takes over the title role of a Honolulu cop from Cec Verrell in a drastic contrst of body shapes and hairstyles.

She's out to solve the mystery of missing Japanese scrolls that no-goodnik Jan Merlin is using as part of an insurance scam at his art museum. Along the way she teams up with friendly tourist Maria Claire and bland action hero Peter Nelson.

Pic's high point is a self-homage by Filippino director Cirio Santiago to his 1974 classic "TNT Jackson", with Gabrielle having a high-kicking martial arts fight in topless format, just like Jeanne Bell did so long ago. The slow motion sex scene of Gabrielle and Nelson in bed is shot in blurrr-o-vision, however.

Just another one of my laments about titles unavailable on DVD. I've been searching six years and only found a snippet on the Net which fortunately was the shower scene, so I am thankful for that, Monique is really nice-looking with clothes, but even better without. But where is the full movie? I see a VHS is available on Amazon but I need a DVD. So, people, I saw it donkey years ago maybe twice, but can't remember the story-line like your other reviewers, who must obviously have the VHS. I'm just here to beg the powers-that-be to release this wonderful performance by Monique on DVD or a pre-recorded memory card or make it available for downloading, because this great thing got stuck in my mind, or at least the swaying breasts did, and I have to see it again on my big screen.

Addendum, 12 June 2021

Okay, it's years and years later, I now finally have a download made from some shoddy VHS copy that's been floating out there on YouTube. This will never ever be released on DVD, but at least I can get to see it again on my small screen. I'm watching bits at a time and I will be reporting back. Meanwhile I'll be posting quotes. Very excited about seeing if there's at least one bit in it worth all my searching.

Uh, okay, here then, The Raven once again got knocked on the nose. Hell, people, either I am more nuts than I actually thought, or another version of this movie (as in with no removed scenes) exists. I distinctly remember an abduction scene, a girl driven off in a car, it involved, well, I can't really go into too much detail here on a family site, but topless, if you get my drift? I have tried to see something I distinctly remembered in a vague way (er, I know how that sounds), but now I've really just encountered a bigger mystery. We're talking 1991 or thereabouts when I saw it, I was much younger then, so don't go tut tut tut and tap your head. Something is amiss here. I will not be able to prove it. I will never be able to prove it. But I could not have been wrong.

If anybody has a response to this, please enter it as a review of your own.

Anyway, my final word on the downloaded movie: Except for the shower scene with the kung fu fight and the bouncing swaying er... well, this movie is a waste of time. Monique is inconsistent, perhaps getting better at it as the film progresses, but overall, this is a paint-by-the numbers cookie-cutter very very standard action movie with a lead actress that really cannot really act. She does have a very cute body though. But see EMMANUELLE 5 for that. Okay. The Raven sighs. Curses! Back to the drawing board. Again.