What an awesome direction for the series to go in. Instead of an official legal tournament we
shift to an illegal kumite which is generally always the way you wanna go with
these. The Las Vegas setting is a great
call too because the greed, shallowness and vanity of the villains completely
suits the town. C’mon, you know there’s
some shit like that happening there right now.
Understandably only Travis, Alex and Tommy are brought back this
time. Sonny and Virgil were weaker
characters from part 1 and weren’t very good fighters either. Alex and Tommy were the ones that formed the tightest
bond so to continue to see that friendship flourish is wonderful. They all moved out to Vegas together and
support each other and hang out at the Mexican buffet and it’s just so touching.
And I absolutely love that the bad guy from the previous
film, Dae Han (Simon Rhee (Showdown in Little Tokyo, Lethal Weapon 4, The Substitute: Failure is Not an Option)), travels all the way from South
Korea to attend Travis’ funeral and show reverence for a fallen comrade. He even teams up with Alex at the end to help
kick ass. Dae Han fuckin’ rocks man.
Expanding the action beyond the ring is another stroke of
genius. Newton’s henchmen chase after Walter,
Alex and Tommy so they hide out at Tommy’s grandmother’s place in the desert
(side note: Tommy is part Native American?
Didn’t see that coming). This
gives them the chance to train with Tommy’s cousin James played by the
incomparable Sonny Landham (Predator, 48 Hrs.). He’s an ex competitive martial artist who
stole from the family to fund his overseas expedition in search of
greatness. He got injured by fucking
Brakus during that time (what!) which ended his career so now he’s an
alcoholic.
One of my favorite parts of the movie is when James wasted
as a motherfucker in the afternoon eggs on Tommy to fight and gets two
roundhouse kicks to the face to which he replies in his gravely ass voice
“…pretty good, but you’re gonna have to do better than that boy”. Every scene with James is some of the most
entertaining shit in here.
The finale involves Tommy being forced to run through a
gauntlet of challengers at The Coliseum in front an ecstatic mob to get to
Brakus. These fights are gripping
because Tommy, Alex and Walter’s lives are on the line. Each adversary gets tougher and weapons are
introduced at one point. The escalation
is remarkable with the ultimate one on one, Tommy vs Brakus, being a nail
biter.
No bullshit guys this second installment is a
masterpiece. Like Brakus is a total
piece of crap but he actually has a bit of a moral code viewing guns as “unmanly”
which gives him some dimension ok I really should stop. There’s so much incredible shit. It’s executed pretty perfectly and they
seriously upped the ante in every single area.
It also has the rare distinction of being an R rated sequel to a PG-13
original. Weird whenever that
happens. Anyway, if you haven’t checked
this one out yet get right on that. Best
of the Best II truly is the best of The Best of the Bests.
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