BrickNash
China O' Brien II picks up where the first film left off and it's almost literally more of the same which means TV movie quality plot and acting interspersed with some martial arts action.As a film it's certainly not the worst ever made and it's about as solidly entertaining as any episode of Columbo or Walker Texas Ranger. As with the first one where the film excels is the fight scenes which are dynamic and very well choreographed with some brilliant OTT sound effects.The film's plot centres around some bog standard pap about an escaped convict terrorising the town and in that it makes some mistakes. As with the first film, the main bad guy is an older dude with no fighting skills whatsoever and so there is really no final threat or showdown, just a big free for all brawl involving loads of people.It would have been nice to have China go up against another female martial artist hench(wo)man or even a female villain with fighting skills. Even a bog standard martial arts villain would have done but alas no.Still in saying that, watching China beat the s-h-i-t out of endless waves of plaid shirted goons is satisfying enough although the story:fight ratio is a little off in favour of the "boring" bits.Still, as thin as the plot is it's executed well enough to keep the pace going and fans won't be disappointed by the highly satisfying action one bit. One for the collection!
ebiros2
Same thing I've said for China O'Brien applies to China O'Brien 2. They should have hired the guy who did the choreography for "Inspector Wears Skirts" for this movie, and upped the action to that level.Made by Golden Harvest, and produced, and directed by American producer and director, China O'Brien was in the perfect spot to take advantage of best from both worlds. Unfortunately, Raymond Chow probably didn't want to put in the budget to make this into a first class movie.It could have been like "So Close" if China O'Brien character was bit more edgier, but this is a product of the '80s, so edginess was not part of movie making. She kind of looks too wholesome that takes away from her sex appeal, and also lowers the tension of the movie.The producers failed to produce Cynthia Rothrock properly. She could have done lot better in these movies.
gridoon
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! (**)
hershiser2
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.
AD
