Bloodfist II

Don "The Dragon" Wilson returns as Jake Raye a kickboxer who is forced out of retirement to face altered warriors in this Enter The Dragon knock off. Bloodfist II maybe a definite improvement over it's awful predecessor, but it still isn't all that good, however some decent fightscenes as well as a fast pace makes this less painful. Don "The Dragon" Wilson may be the only martial arts action star to date that has killed the same bad guy twice, while playing the same character.

...And perhaps deservedly so? OK, so any movie, especially a martial arts movie starring "B"-movie Kickboxing phenomenon Don "The Dragon" Wilson, with backing by Roger Corman, is bound to not be good, right? Yeah, pretty much. I'll admit to watching and video-recording the first two "Bloodfist" movies that feature "The Dragon" as American Kickboxing champ Jake Raye, who's kicking the bad guys' butts in the Phillippines. In both movies, Raye has to fight in brutal martial arts tournaments and also get out of some sort of convoluted mess of a plot. But in "Bloodfist II," Raye returns to Manila, this time to help out a friend named Vinny Petrello (former UFC champ Maurice Smith) who is in some sort of trouble. It turns out to be a trap, and Raye is kidnapped along with six other martial artists (whose styles range from Greco-Roman Wrestling to Judo to Shotokan Karate) and forced to fight a group of chemically enhanced brutes in a series of Roman-style, to-the-death gladiator fights arranged by Su (Joe Mari Avellana). Now with the rising popularity of mixed martial arts all over the world and my own personal interest in this sport, it would make sense that a movie like "Bloodfist II" would get some more attention, since it deals with fighters of different styles coming together to show whose style is the best. (But didn't they do that in 1988 with Jean-Claude Van Damme's movie "Bloodsport"?) Yet, this entry, by director Andy Blumenthal, has pitiful acting, lousy dialogue, Jake's poorly timed relationship with Su's daughter Mariella (Rina Reyes) and just about everything else, except the fights, with the actual tournament not starting until the third act of the picture. The illegal underground martial arts tournament story has been done to death already. How about fighters competing in a legal martial arts tournament for once? And lastly, there's Wilson. He's far from a great actor, but his performance is pretty much limited to his Kickboxing skills, which shows that his title as "The Dragon" seems rightful. Too bad, he could've been a great cult movie martial arts star if his career and "B"-movie choices had panned out a little better.

4/10

BLOODFIST II is a shambolic production: clearly made on the ultra-cheap, consisting of non-actors who couldn't look more wooden if they tried, with a threadbare story that shamelessly rips off ENTER THE DRAGON at every opportunity from the island tournament to the chunky henchmen and urbane criminal overlord. And yet it's still ten times better than the truly execrable BLOODFIST, which remains one of the worst films I've ever watched.

The reason this sequel is better is purely because it has more action – and a lot more action, at that. In fact, there's a fight scene regular as clockwork every five minutes or so, and sometimes even more frequently. Sadly, the fights aren't up to much; the choreography is about as boring as it could be, and the opponents display no discernible talent, merely running towards the hero and falling down when they get kicked in the face. But at least there's stuff happening, unlike in the first movie.

Sadly, the numerous faults are still too major to make this even remotely resemble anything approaching a good movie. Don "The Dragon" Wilson is a humourless and extraordinarily wooden leading man, my least favourite of all the martial arts stars, and he goes through the motions here. The supporting cast are even worse and some of the performances are downright appalling. The plot is dull and tired and far too simplistic, and in the end this is nothing more than moving wallpaper, or a film version of the old side-scrolling beat 'em ups where exchangeable thugs are mown down by a one-dimensional hero character.

Jake Raye(Don "The Dragon" Wilson) is back in action, only this time the action is more extreme. In "Bloodfist II", Jake and several other fighters go down to the Phillipines, where a friend of Jake's calls him out to help him. It turned out to be a booby-trap for all of them. Jake's friend seem to got himself way over his head. Working with the wrong people and getting greedy from those people. Jake and his friends fight for their lives when their opponents take a steroid which makes them impervious to pain, but some of the fighters didn't do too well. They kill off whoever doesn't last in the fight whether it was Jake's friends or the opponents. Looks like those who took the steroid, didn't have a clue that they were pawns as well. Jake friend took the same steroid and he paid the price for betraying him and his friends. The steroid may have given him immunity to pain, but it didn't make him indestructible when he took a roundhouse to the neck. Once the old saying goes, Once a pawn, always a pawn, forever a pawn! That steroid had only one purpose, and look what happens. That movie was a lot of fun, and the plot of the movie was great, I liked that. Rating 3 out of 5 stars.

This movie is one of the best movies that Don "the dragon" Wilson has made!! its really good to watch and what makes it more better is the fact that there are some great fighters in this movie, i really like this movie it has a lot of mysteries in it!!