Best of the Best II

Cocky loudmouth Travis from the first film (Chris Penn (To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar)) tries his luck at an underground fighting venue called The Coliseum.  It’s disguised as a dance club located in a Vegas casino and get this, Mr. Vegas himself Wayne Newton is the maniacal host who juices up the voracious patrons dressed in fancy suits while they gamble on the outcome!  The mighty behemoth Brakus (Ralf Moeller (Gladiator)) is the reigning champ who shows no mercy to his opponents.  He kills Travis in the ring but Alex’s son Walter (Edan Gross (Ren & Stimpy, Empty Nest)) witnesses this from the rafters (sorta long story) and tells his dad what happened.  Alex (Eric Roberts (The Pope of Greenwich Village)) and Tommy (Phillip Rhee (Kentucky Friend Movie)) want revenge but they also go on the run because Newton and Brakus want Walter dead.

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.