Starring: Jalal Mehri, Bolo
Yeung, Cynthia Rothrock, Ong Soo-Han, Paul Rapovski, Evan Lurie, Mike Chow
Director: J. Stephen Maunder
Action Director: Mike Chow
Okay, this was a real
odd duck. The first movie was a prototype for superior fare like Bloodmoon and Kung Fu
Jungle (at least I assume the latter is superior), a film
that gave the "cops vs. serial killer" cliché a martial twist. It was
moderately entertaining, but ultimately done in by its amateurish acting and
fight choreography, among other things. This movie is technically superior: the
production values are better, the photography is (generally) more competent,
the supporting cast is more solid and Jalal Mehri ditches the Seagal-esque
ponytail and is a little more convincing this time around.
But then there's that pesky plot...
Mehri is back as NY cop Tarick Richards. When we meet him, he and his new partner are trying to take down an arms dealer, Victor (Evan Lurie), which results in the death of his partner. Victor is almost arrested, but is saved in the nick of time by Patch (Paul Rapovski, of Jet Li's Hitman and Extreme Challenge) and Hood #1 (Mike Chow), who work for Dai Lo Fu (Ong Soo-Han, of Dragon, the Bruce Lee Story and Bloodsport 2). Dai Lo Fu is the fellow student of Chong (Bolo Yeung) and has his men spring Chong out of jail on the day of his hearing. Tarick follows them to San Francisco, where he hooks up with his former partner/lover, Linda Masterson (Cynthia Rothrock).
That where things start going into WTF territory. You see, Dai Lo Fu is holding a martial arts tournament and needs Chong to participate. Why? Because the tournament is actually part of an age-old ritual needed to open a time/space portal to Ancient China. And with Victor's arsenal, Dai Lo Fu can accomplish *quite* a bit on the power accumulation front. So yeah, the film basically becomes a Mortal Kombat clone in the last act, which is a rather strange direction to take things in the first sequel. Yes, nobody can accuse the film of repeating itself, but did they really need to take the film into full-blown fantasy? Apparently, the second sequel does something similar, although Bolo Yeung isn't in it, so I won't be reviewing it for this Roundtable.
Outside of the rather daft plot twist, the first major problem with Tiger Claws II is that it takes too long to get going. There are three gunfights in the first half, but the martial arts doesn't really (heh) kick in until last thirty minutes. Even then, they're pretty muted until the last fifteen minutes or so, when the tournament really starts. Before that, we have a bunch of underground fighters running through a smoke-filled labyrinth and occasionally running into each other and fighting one another. Then we get a more traditional Bloodsport-esque sequence before the multiple final showdowns.
Jalal Mehri passed on the action direction duties to Mike Chow, who did some stunt coordination for other movies, like Johnny Mnemonic. Mehri looks a lot better in this one: his moves are crisper, his kicks are higher, and his exchanges are better. Cynthia Rothrock is given virtually nothing to do until the last 10 minutes, when she fights Mike Chow and Paul Rapovski. The former is a solid hand-to-hand fight, while Rothrock gets to use the sawhorse against Rapovski. Arguably better than them are the tournament combatants, who use a variety of styles, like tae kwon do, monkey kung fu, muay thai, and others. It reminds me of the best moments of The Quest and Bloodsport.
While Bolo Yeung doesn't get to fight as much as he did in the first movie, his character actually gets an arc here and redeems himself somewhat. He makes it to the end of the movie and Bolo fans will be glad to see him alive by the time AND WELL by the time the closing credits begin. Unfortunately, the film promised us a big standoff between him and Ong Soo-Han, who, as far as I'm concerned, is the non-union Mexican equivalent to Bolo (i.e. the guy you get when Bolo is too expensive). I was looking forward to seeing them fight, but the climax had them fighting for a few seconds while wearing hooded robes (so you don't know who is who, or if they're stuntmen fighting instead) and then Bolo kills Ong in such a dumb way that the first film was immediately redeemed in my eyes.
Tiger Claws II feels a lot more like a real movie, but the asinine plot development and even more asinine climax just ruined the film for me.
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