China O'Brien II

Its one of those movies that entices you in with the poster but after watching you realise you were duped! The poster gives the impression that Cynthia has a one on one showdown with a dangerous male martial arts expert opponent. However she is actually up against a late middle aged to elderly escaped convict wearing women's jeans and what appear to be women's boots?

In the follow up to China 1, a dangerous convict has escaped and is heading to confront an ex gang member who has made off with 5 million bucks, in the town Cynthia is now the Sheriff of. This is a slightly more convoluted plot than the average revenge movie, but its the usual "find reasons to kick men" fare. The first movie must have been a success for there to be a follow up, however this really plays out like an episode of Walker Texas Ranger. Why are so many of these movies filmed in the middle of nowhere? Cheap option?

This is really on a par with the first movie, it has most of the same leads, including the Dakota character who simply looks for opportunities to karate people for the slightest reason, but is meant to be a deputy. There are the obvious goofs to be seen during the action, men in wigs standing in for Cynthia when the stunts required too much upper body strength. There is an Oddjob type character who seems to have stolen the claws from the set of Enter The Dragon and some odd choices in death scenes. The strangest one being a woman who is shot that we never see getting shot.

This is average at best Rothrock so if that's your thing this is for you.

I noticed that she is back working, however I am not sure how successful she will be, based on her age and even the male action stars are struggling these days. I do wish her all the best however.

Just having sat through the 1990 movie "China O'Brien" and been positively surprised and entertained by it, I opted to carry on and watch the 1990 sequel "China O'Brien II". And just like the predecessor, it was a movie that I had never seen before, given my lack of interest in Cynthia Rothrock in general.

Writers Robert Clouse, Craig Clyde and James Hennessy put together a script and storyline that wasn't as entertaining as the predecessor. Sure, it was a watchable movie, but the narrative was a bit all over the place, and there wasn't really a properly cohesive red thread throughout the course of the movie, making it feel rather erratic and random.

It was good to have the three leads from the first movie return to reprise their characters and roles in the movie. And the acting performances in the movie were fair.

"China O'Brien II" was held afloat by the action and martial arts sequences throughout the course of the 92 minutes that the movie ran for.

This sequel, from director Robert Clouse, was disappointing in comparison to the predecessor.

My rating of "China O'Brien II" lands on a five out of ten stars.

As long as you go into this movie knowing that it's terrible: bad acting, bad "effects," bad story, bad... everything, then you'll love it. Though this one isn't as good/bad as its predecessor, it's definitely good for a handful of laughs. Also, the drunker you get, the better the movie gets... have some wine with the movie's cheese.

This time China O'Brien has trouble with a dealer who puts a prize on her head because she had spoiled an important drug deal of his. But all the world's criminals will not be enough to ... She's back... and deadlier than ever.

A bit slow to get moving due to the set up, but at around the third act the sequel of China O'Brien gets moving with some spinning kicks which our trio ( Rothrock, Norton and Cooke) hand out with unrestrained relish. It's not as good the first film, the story not as engaging, however it's a joy to see some straightforward martial arts, blocks, strikes and locks. I especially am impressed by Keith Cooke, who clad in leather jacket, channels Bruce Lee but with more leg action. Boy is he nimble and fast. Pity he didn't have a film career of his own, he got the moves. All in all, China O'Brien is a standard yet satisfying sequel.

Although this film is a Golden Harvest co-production, don't expect the fight choreography to be much better than average. For one thing, the villains are not very skillful fighters, and even those few who appear intimidating at first are defeated rather easily (I hate it when that happens). There is still some of the usual good stuff from Richard Norton and Cynthia Rothrock here, but the rapid-fire Keith Cooke easily outshines them both. Biggest disappointment: early on, the movie introduces a super-fit stripper / assassin, and I was hoping for a climactic fight between her and Rothrock; not only does that never happen - she also disappears completely from the film! (**)