Retroceder Nunca, Render-se Jamais 2

No Retreat, No Surrender 2: Raging Thunder (1989) was a sequel only in name to the first film. Corey Yuen is back, Seasonal Films decided to make another film to the series. This time the movie's featured star is Cynthia Rothrock. The action is also co-directed by Hoi Meng.

The movie takes place in Southeast Asia. A couple of commandos along with a female agent are sent on a deep cover assignment. Their mission is to take out a suspected Soviet clandestine operation. Whilst in Thailand they discover that their mission has become a whole lot more complicated than they could have ever imagined.

The acting is not that great but it's adequate. Who's kidding themselves. Who goes to a movie like this and expect a cast full of thespians. The action set pieces are what we expect from the team of Hoi Meng and Corey Yuen, bone breaking action with a fair amount of blood letting. Cynthia Rothtock is phenomenal in her role. More action and less gabbing from her.

If you like no nonsense action films then this one's for you. Others need not apply because you'll be turned away from the nonsensical plot and pedestrian acting. But the action scenes are excellent and fun to watch.

Despite being a sequel, this has nothing to do with the first movie. There's a whole new cast, and a brand new plot. A quite good one, actually. No Retreat, No Surrender 2 is the perfect example of pure 80's fun. It has lots of really cool fighting, fun background music and almost everything else we all know as bad (but really entertaining) 80's action stuff. The last fifteen minutes of the movie are excellent. Movies with totally evil Soviet military bases are always fun! And Matthias Hues is perfect as an evil Soviet military. The last fight between him and Loren Avedon must be considered as a classic.

Same score as the first movie: 7 out of 10!

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?

This was originally intended to be a direct sequel to the first 'NR, NS' which launched the career of a certain Jean Claude Van Damme. However Van Damme pulled out feeling the film would not have furthered his career while persuading co-star Kurt McKinney to do the same. As a result, the story was changed with Tae Kwon Do expert Loren Avedon and Matthias Hues drafted in to play the American and Russian stereotypes.

The basic synopsis sees Avedon's character call in some friends in an attempt to rescue his Thai girlfriend, while strangely coming across a contingent of the Russian army (camped out in the Vietnamese jungle!) in the process, as well as a group of fake Shaolin monks. (Blame Keith W. Strandberg for the script!).

Surprisingly, for an American film, there are some well executed and imaginative fight sequences predominantly showcasing the excellent kicking skills of Avedon. This is clearly the influence of Yuen Kwai who was not prepared to concede too much to the American filming and time constraints. The finale, while inferior to the first films final reel, features Cynthia Rothrock as a hard-hitting, tough talking helicopter pilot (not a cop/CIA/FBI agent for a change!) showing some of the moves which made her name on the Jade screen. This movie is one of the only 80's flicks that uses her real voice! Loren Avedon did not follow Jean Claude's example and stayed on after this film fulfilling his 3 picture contract, notably with the decent third instalment of the NR, NS series: 'Blood Brothers' with the excellent Keith Vitali (Yuen Biao's opponent in 'Wheels on Meals') and I am surprised he was never used in a 'real' Hong Kong picture as he is clearly skilled and quick enough to have made a good screen villain.

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.