Martial Law II: Undercover

the other person that reviewed this on IMDb must have seen a completely different movie than i did.everybody has their own opinion though.this stars two of my favorite martial arts actors.jeff wincott and cynthia rothrock.so you know there is going to be lots of good fight scenes in this movie.cynthia rothrock once again proves she is the queen of martial arts movies as she does some amazing kicks to the head in her many fight scenes.and just like he did in martial outlaw jeff wincott delivers some brutal kicks and punches to the villains.so my advice to anyone looking for a martial arts movie with lots of fighting in it should go buy this movie.

I can't claim that I was overly impressed with the 1990 predecessor titled "Martial Law", but I still opted to sit down and watch the 1991 sequel "Martial Law II: Undercover", as it was a movie that I had actually never watched before.

Writers Richard Brandes, Pierre David and Jiles Fitzgerald managed to put together a storyline that was a bit more enjoyable here in this sequel. Though it is still not top notch action entertainment. The movie does have that early 1990s cheese to it. But hey, if you enjoy that kind, then director Kurt Anderson does deliver something for you with "Martial Law II: Undercover".

"Martial Law II: Undercover" is a continuation with the characters Billie Blake (played by Cynthia Rothrock) and Det. Sean Thompson (played by Jeff Wincott in this movie), so that was a nice enough thing with the tie-in to the previous movie. "Martial Law II: Undercover" also have the likes of Billy Drago and Paul Johansson on the cast list, so there are some familiar faces here at least.

The acting performances in "Martial Law II: Undercover" were adequate, though you're obviously not in for an evening of Shakespearian theater here.

The action and martial sequences in the movie were nice enough, taking into consideration the production and type of movie that "Martial Law II: Undercover" is.

My rating of "Martial Law II: Undercover" lands on a five out of ten stars.

The plot is nothing new (police corruption, a crime syndicate that uses a night club as a front, a cop investigating the death of his partner, etc.) but the fight scenes range from good to very good (the best one might be an illegal 2-on-1 that doesn't involve any of the leads). Maybe they can't match up to the best that Hong Kong has to offer, but they are choreographed in a way that showcases the fighters' power, speed and technique. My two main disappointments with this film are: 1) as already reported by another reviewer, VERY short final fight between Cynthia Rothrock and the female bodyguard (what a bummer!), and 2) no arch-villain role for the master of such roles, Billy Drago (he's just a corrupted police chief). (**)

There are plenty of low budget martial arts flicks in the world, many of which are total embarrassments. Thankfully, this is not one of them. Martial Law II has a plot that's simple enough to be believable but also has a few bits of creativity thrown in to make it distinguishable but not stupid. Furthermore, the actors do a good enough job with their roles to make the viewer suspend their disbelief and care about what's happening. And, of course, there's plenty of fighting throughout the movie to make it fun. It's not a great movie, but considering the limited amount of stories one can do with this genre of films, it's pretty unique and makes for an entertaining watch on a Saturday afternoon.

One of the finest things on the disc was the introduction by Rothrock herself. I don't remember seeing something like that which can be considered a special feature or extra nowadays on a DVD or Blu Ray. Not sure where this was shown (on TV on other videos as a sort of trailer kind of things? Who knows?), but it is a nice curiosity.

The sound effects on the fights are classic and even when this does not display the best of the movies of that era, it's still decent enough. The change in the male leading role really helped and Cynthia is on her A-Game too. Of course you can ask yourself, why is no one shooting guns, especially when they are being almost used by the villains ... but there we go.