Kickboxer 2: The Road Back [Region 2]

Customer Reviews:

better than the original.......2006-08-19

Kickboxer 2 followed up the first successful Kickboxer, but minus Van Damme. David Sloan (played by Sasha Mitchell) is now the focus, the apparent 3rd brother of Kurt and Eric Sloan from the 1st movie. Sasha Mitchell may not be anywhere as close to Van Damme in the athletic department, but that doesn't hurt Kickboxer 2 at all. Sasha Mitchell is a better actor and as a whole, Kickboxer 2 does a better job than the 1st movie in that department. The story is pretty decent too - this time both characters (good and evil) are out for revenge. The evil is Tong Po, who returns from the 1st Kickboxer, played by Michel Qissi. He only has one line in the movie and doesn't appear until much later on, but it is a grand appearance. Matthias Hues (Death Match, Blackbelt, No Retreat No Surrender 2) also has a role in the movie, fighting David early on in the ring, the 1st of 3 fights in the movie. Vince Murdocco (Ring of Fire, To Be The Best) is also one of the main characters, who fights Tong Po, the 2nd fight in the movie. This match is all in slow-motion, but it is the only slow motion fight I have ever enjoyed, creating a sense of suspense that supports a main element in the story. The final fight of course is between David and Tong Po, which is about 5-1/2 minutes in length. It is mostly slow-motion once again, but is still quite entertaining and bloody, with broken glass glued and taped to the fists (same used in the 1st Kickboxer).

Kickboxer 1 is definetly a Van Damme classic. Kickboxer 2 began a different path, but in no way did it succeed in being a bad martial-arts film. I highly recommend this if you want to see some good fights backed by a decent story.

KICKBOXER 2 is a Hit!!.......2006-04-05

KICKBOXER 2 has great fighting and action, with a good story. This continues with Sasha Mitchell (Step By Step), as Jean Claude Van Damme's younger brother. Instead of returning, Van Damme went to make the movie 'Double Impact.' Peter Boyle (Everybody Loves Raymond) and Dennis Chan (Kickboxer) are great additions to THE ROAD BACK. The KICKBOXER stories are really raw for the action movies of that time period. Sasha Mitchell probably does his best performance of his career. After enjoying this, continue with KICKBOXER 3 & 4!

ranks up with the first one.......2005-06-26

Its hard to believe that some people gave this movie a negative review just because it didn't have Jean Claude Van Damme in it. Sasha Mitchell does a good job in this one. He plays David Sloan, the younger brother of Jean Claude's character who we learn was murdered by former champion Tong Po at the end of the first Kickboxer. The trainer (I don't know his name) from the first Kickboxer comes to help David prepare for his fight with Tong Po. Yes, like the first movie Kicboxer 2 is about avenging the death of a brother and like the first it delivers good martial arts action along with the return of Tong Po. As with the first movie, the Kickboxer 2 dvd has no features and is not widescreen.

They shouldn't have bothered without Van Damme..........2004-09-06

Alot of people think this is better than the original Kickboxer, however, I really don't think so. First of all, I think they probably shouldn't have bothered making a sequel at all without Van Damme. I'm not really sure the exact reason why Van Damme didn't do a sequel, I'm guessing he either wanted too much money to do one, or he just wasn't interested in doing one at all. (Generally, Van Damme was just never really big on sequels.) Perhaps it was a combination of both reasons, who really knows for sure. Either way, I don't think they should have bothered.

It's not that Sasha Mitchell(aka, Cody, the goofy kid from Step by Step) is bad in the lead role...in fact, he was very convincing, given his real-life Kickboxing experience...he just doesn't have the same style or coordination as Van Damme. On top of all that, the thing I find most irritating of all is that the writers felt the need to write in some really bad dialogue to explain what happened to Kurt and Eric Sloane from the previous movie. I was never a huge fan of the whole "everybody from the past movie are all dead" thing. By the time they got to Kickboxer 5, it was starting to get really ridiculous with this.

The rest of the cast is a mix...Peter Boyle gave a decent performance, and Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa always gives a top notch performance in anything he is in. Hell, even Matthias Hughes(who plays villains in a variety of B-action movies) gave a decent performance, but some of the other supporting actors left alot to be desired. Whoever the guy was that played McKaia(or is it McKaya?), I forget the name, gave a pretty lousy performance, as did Vince Murdocco(Brian). As for the Tong Po in this version(credited as "Michel Qissi"), I'm not sure whether or not it is the same Tong Po from the first movie, I don't think he is, as he looks a bit different, but he just seemed really weird in this version.

If they were intent on making a sequel without Van Damme, then they could have at least tried. The movie started out with a goo plot, and solid foundation, however, after the first fight with David and Neil Vargas, the plot starts to jump all over the place. Tong Po and Sanga are introduced into the movie very late, even though they are the entire focus of the story towards the end. On top of less-than-stellar writing and story development, the fight scenes in this one were terrible. The last two fights in the movie were shown ENTIRELY in slow motion. By the end of the last fight between David and Tong Po, I felt like I was going to get vertigo if I watched it any longer. They were really stretching some things, too. I find it hard to believe that the fight would have gone on that long after Tong Po knocked the referee out. Is it a WWE wrestling match or what? Also, what makes even less sense is that David is escorted out of the building by about seven security guards, and then a few moments later he is magically back at ringside just in time to see Brian killed.

As for the soundtrack, this movie had a couple decent songs; "My Brother's Eyes," "A Man Alone," "It's All up to You," however, once again the movie falls short in comparison to the first Kickboxer in this aspect. For those who did enjoy the soundtrack, good luck finding those tracks, as since a Kickboxer 2 soundtrack was never commercially released, those tracks are virtually impossible to get.

Even though I don't necessarily think this movie was great, I think it was at least better than some of the other Kickboxer sequels. It wasn't as bad as the third one(which was probably the worst of the series), and it couldn't possibly be as bad as Kickboxer 4, with plastic-face Tong Po and a plot that made virtually no sense. As for Kickboxer 5(which was ironically a half-remake of Kickboxer 2), it was actually decent, given the talents of Mark Dacascos, and better writers.

All in all I think this was a poor sequel and they shouldn't have bothered.

Orignal is better!.......2003-12-24

this movie is ok but it doesnt top the orignal, jean claude van damme is the best actor and he destroys Sasha Mitchell. Sasha Mitchell doesnt come close to the kind of actor jean claude van damme is. I say get the first one, its so much better.

Average customer rating:

Kickboxer 2: The Road Back [Region 2]
Starring: Sasha Mitchell , Peter Boyle , Dennis Chan , Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa , and John Diehl
Director: Albert Pyun
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Action & Adventure | Genres | DVD | Video

( K ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
ASIN: B00004VYFO

DVD:

DVD

DVD