Powerful

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Champion kickboxer Jake Raye quits the sport in anger after his opponent is killed in the ring. Two years later, Raye is called by his friend Vinny in Manila, who is trying to leave the country without being killed. Raye heads over to escort him to safety but is overpowered & drugged. Coming to, he discovers that he & several other champion fighters have been chained together & taken to an island where they are expected to fight in professional gambler Su's gladiatorial contest. Raye manages to escape, but sneaking into the mansion in order to free his friends finds that Vinny has been assisting Su in developing a super steroid that is undetectable & gives its user super strength & immunity to pain. Raye must help his fellow fighters in taking on the small army of thugs & drugged-up killers in order to leave the island alive.After the original Bloodfist made back its money & then some in its limited theatrical release, producer Roger Corman decided to greenlight this, the first of eight sequels. Don "The Dragon" Wilson returns as the hero (although this is the only sequel where he plays the same character twice) & a couple of his co-stars in the original Bloodfist return as well.The film is an improvement over the original, but not by much. Indeed, Bloodfist II has better fights & more action than the original. Here, the script has been developed to make a story that despite being nothing more than a thread to connect all the fights together still has considerably better drawn characters than the original ever did.The fights in this film are considerably better than those in the original. Here, the martial arts champions starring in the film must take on an army of drugged-up killers & an almost unlimited number of stick-wielding thugs in a climax that is so full of wall-to-wall martial arts action that you'll be almost overwhelmed by the sight of it all.While saying that, Bloodfist II is still not a particularly decent film. It is better than the original, but remains decidedly average. If you like the sight of muscular men beating the crap out of each other, then this will be a good choice.The acting is better than the first film, but still has its fair share of bad actors. Among the ones improving their thespian skills is hero Don "The Dragon" Wilson. He has improved considerably since the original but still has a long way to go. Richard Hill makes one of his early appearances as the Army Ranger combat instructor & Joe Mari Avellana returns as the sinister gambler & steroid maker Su (making him the only actor to be beaten by the same nemesis (Wilson) in two films).

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 is back, and in kickboxing-related trouble once again! Since the last Bloodfist film, Jake became a legit kickboxer, in state-sanctioned bouts with boxing gloves, etc., and put his punchfighting past behind him. When he accidentally kills his opponent in the ring, he vows never to fight again. After about two years have passed, Jake has hit the skids. His apartment is in disarray and he's not in shape. One day, he gets a call from his friend, a Black man inexplicably named Vinny Petrello (Smith), who lures him back to Manila once again. Once back on his old stomping grounds, Jake and a bunch of other fighters are kidnapped and spirited away by boat to the private island home of sinister kickboxing fan Su (Avellana). He forces the men to take part in an "illegal high stakes tournament" - death fights, or as Su calls them, "gladiator fights". But Su's men have an unfair advantage. He pumps them full of a special steroid that makes them impervious to pain. So the good fighters don't know what they're up against. Luckily, the plucky Jake Raye and love interest Mariella (Reyes) get to the bottom of it. Will Jake live to see another sequel? For those that don't know, only the first two Bloodfist films are truly sequels. The Dragon plays Jake Raye in the first two films only. The other 897 Bloodfist movies are basically separate entities but renamed under the Bloodfist banner because presumably Roger Corman felt fans would rather see an eighth sequel to something, whether it's truly a sequel or not, than a new movie with an original title. Interesting logic.Nevertheless, the first half of Bloodfist 2 is very similar to the original film - the same locales are used and some of the situations seem oddly familiar. But once the fighters are on the boat to Su's house, things change. The movie somehow becomes dumber, yet more fast paced, even though a huge block of time is spent in one room as the fighters fight. Yet it never becomes a slog. That was pretty impressive. It was here that the film developed its own, more original personality. And of course, the film ends with a big, final brawl.Avellana is back as the bad guy, but not the same one from the first movie. And the rankings of the fighters/actors are back in the credits, but the movie outdoes itself in introducing these men to the audience, as Su names them all, and their titles/rankings in the movie as well. In the order Su introduces them, they are: John Jones (Warring), Manny Rivera (Samson), Bobby Rose (Hill), Ernest Santana (Rogers), Tobo Castanerra (Del Rosario), and Sal Taylor (Baker), the last of which sports a spiffy shirt throughout the entirety of his screen time. Additionally, Ned Hourani and Cris Aguilar return from the first movie, but in different roles. Don The Dragon gives his delightfully wooden delivery we all know and love.Bloodfist 2 is more of a typical punchfighter, but the action and humor elements are ramped up more, and the plot is tamped down to a minimum. Since all Bloodfist movies apparently had to be 85 minutes, the filmmakers decided to try a new structure, at least for the second half of the film.If you watched the first Bloodfist movie and wished it had MORE punchfighting, as well as more silliness, this, the only true sequel, is the movie for you.NOTE: in the end credits, Wes Craven and Stephen Tobolowsky are listed as "advisors". If anyone knows how Craven or Tobolowsky advised this movie, please write in today.For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

this movie is the better of the eight bloodfists movies it is about a guy called jake raye, and he gets a phone call from his old mate vinnie to fight for su, thats the drug lord, but vinnie wants jake dead so he tricks him by saying that they have been friends for years, meanwhile, jakes friends all get roped into going to this island where su drugs up his fighters because so wants jake and his friends to fight against su's people!!