By Geno McGahee
I know Jean-Claude Van Damme isn’t dead, but they killed him off in this movie, but let’s say his character is spinning in his grave. In 1989, Van Damme kicked some major ass in the original KICKBOXER as Kurt Sloane, an American kickboxer in Thailand that must avenge his brother’s defeat by taking on the undefeated monster that is Tong Po. Tong Po raped Van Damme’s girlfriend, paralyzed his brother and seemed unbeatable, but after going through incredible hell, fighting with broken glass on his knuckles and in some sort of thong thing, Van Damme overcame the incredible force. Now, two years later, they revisit the Sloane family and focus on the younger brother, David (Sasha Mitchell). Damn…they got Sasha Mitchell to do this…
So the story is that after beating the unbeatable foe and overcoming impossible odds to avenge his brother’s paralysis and rape of his girlfriend, Tong Po quickly got revenge and murdered all three. Unbelievable. I like to think that they got some bad information, but this is the direction they’re going with. I think they were like “oh Van Damme, you don’t want to be in the sequel. Well, fuck you. You’re dead now and so is Dennis Alexio and your girlfriend, and we will NEVER even mention your buddy Taylor, but if you do, he’s dead too.”
David runs a gym and is training kickboxers and mentoring children. He has retired from professional fighting and is focusing on inspiring people, but damn, Sasha Mitchell cannot act. I like bad acting, mostly, but there is something annoying about Mitchell. He’s monotone and has no emotion in this, even when his friend is being killed in the ring. He runs over to the corner and tries to convince his friend to stop fighting in the most insincere way. “Please stop.” “No!” “OK.” It is literally painful to watch Mitchell act.
To save the gym, David comes out of retirement to make some money and immediately gets a title shot against Neil Vargas (Matthias Hues), and I have to say that they got a great character to play this role. He was the alien in I COME IN PEACE and he has a great presence. When the two get in the ring, we find another major problem with this film…the fight choreography. They made up for the fact that Mitchell is not a trained fighter (I don’t think) by using close ups of the punches and kicks landing.
After some rocky moments, David starts to dominate Vargas. He obviously is not coming in peace. The referee, Gene Lebell, does a terrible job, only warning Vargas for wrestling, but when David has him out on his feet, the referee allows about 800 unanswered shots. With Vargas pinned against the ropes, David unloads with spinning kicks. Vargas is a bloody mess and is unable to fall while the referee is off somewhere jerking off or something. Finally, Vargas hits the ground and the referee counts to ten. After the beating he took against the ropes, Lebell could have counted to six million. For being a hero, David showed no mercy.
With David as the new world champion, he retires, which gets the promoter, Maciah (Peter Boyle) really upset. David must pay the price and a bunch of men in ski masks hit the gym and set it on fire. David gets one of them and rips off the mask and it’s Vargas! I don’t blame him. If I was out cold and some tool kept kicking me in the head, I would burn down his gym too.
Injured after the fire, David begins recovering when the trainer of Kurt Sloane shows up. Xian (Dennis Chan) must have heard that David was hurt and he came down to train him. Coincidentally, Tong Po (Michel Qissi), has come to the states and he must have been good friends with Vargas. After he kills David’s friend and student, he takes that fat ass referee and kicks his ass too. Tong Po isn’t nearly as menacing in this one, but he is still a force.
After the death of his buddy, David agrees to fight Tong Po the ancient way…in a modern day arena. OK, whatever. Tong Po begins winning, prompting Xian to jump up and say he didn’t hear any fat women singing and to go and kick his ass. What happened to you Xian? He did such a great job inspiring and training Kurt and here, he’s just full of stupid sayings and bad jokes.
Since they took a big shit on Van Damme, they decided to do it to the Tong Po character too. David puts his hands behind his back and allows Po to miss him and then kicks the shit out of him. I’m sorry. I know this is a movie, but NO WAY does Sasha Mitchell beat Tong Po, and what is with Po’s use of the English language. In KICKBOXER, he uses his limited English to tell Van Damme that he “bleeds like Mylee.” Here, he looks at a beaten David and says “you are the weakest of the Sloane brothers.” Maybe, but he put Eric Sloane away rather easily. I just think that Tong Po should use his second language to be positive every once in a while.
KICKBOXER 2: THE ROAD BACK is a bad film, but it’s not wretched. The biggest problem is that they cast the wrong guy in the lead. Had they got somebody that could act and show some emotion, this film would have come off a lot better. AMAZINGLY, I’m still recommending this. I found myself laughing a lot and enjoying certain elements. If you are a fan of action films, especially films like BEST OF THE BEST and ONLY THE STRONG, you’ll like this I bet.
Rating: 6/10
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