MovieChat Forums > Kickboxer 2: The Road Back (1991) Discussion > Really disappointed with this movie

Really disappointed with this movie

posted 19 years ago by warpig-1
34 replies | jump to latest

I loved the first movie, watching how Van Damme goes through all that pain and suffering as well as surviving those extreme training methods just to get a chance to fight Tong Po and avenge his crippled brother. It was inspirational and very satisfying watching Van Damme beat all the odds just to finally kick Tong Po's ass. Quickly it became one of my alltime favourite movies and I couldn't wait for the sequel to come out.

What a bitter disappointment when it did. How the hell can you kill the main star from Kickboxer in the first 2 mins of the film and expect the audience to just continue watching and enjoy the rest of the film.

Where'd this secret brother come from too - in the first flick there was no mention of him. And if he did exist how come he didn't come to Thailand to kick Tong Po's ass instead.

Anyway, i know its just a movie and shouldn't take it seriously, but i thought it really sucked how the studios would stoop this low just to make extra bucks off the popularity of the first flick. Just goes to show that Hollywood loves milking a movie's name for all it's worth in the name of money. A real shame that. It could of become another classic series similar to Rocky but instead it's just a bunch of corny sequels that gets worse and worse...

[–] ripBRANDO 19 years ago

yeah i agree the first one was totally awesome and then they had to kill the title with awful sequels,

[–] 19 years ago

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[–] The_Shockmaster 19 years ago

Well, as a kid, I liked the second one better for some reason. The first one kind of bored me for some reason, back then. Now, I like the first one better and more than the second. Watching the sequel now, it's not bad, but it just feels like a total cash-in, and on paper seems even worse. But it's still decent.

[–] lordzarconian 19 years ago

well i arent as a great fan of kickboxing, i think sasha mitchell was much better as he looked the part more and had a lot better martial arts skills

u will all find that van dam was never a proper martial artist he claims to hold a savate title but it was never proved he was merely a gymnast

i like a van dams films but coming from someone who eats breathes and sleeps muai thai i prefer the second one :)

hope i havent offended any of you

[–] dragonfistjkd1 16 years ago

You are WRONG about Van Damme. He fought under his birth name Jean-Claude Camille François Van Vaerenbergh. That's why people couldn't find his official fight record. But since people loooooove them some conspiracies they set out to ruin his name without properly research him. See for yourself if you don't believe me..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Claude_Van_Damme

[–] metcaster1 19 years ago

I totally agree with you... this movie seems like it has a budget of no more than $10 and was complete and utter garbage -- I don't even know how they could have made a sequel considering how bad Van Damme kicked Tong Po's *ss at the end of the original... also kind of reminds me of the Van Damme flick "Bloodsport" which was decent, but the name was tarnished by endless crappy, and cheaply made, sequels with a bunch of no-name cast members... what's hollywood thinking???

[–] AlienTerminator 19 years ago

I have to disagree. The first movie only had the theme of training and revenge. What I liked about this one was the theme of corporate takeover by Peter Boyle, as well as the pupil betraying his teacher to join the corporate sponsor, along with Sasha Mitchell regaining his love of life through Xian. Plus, Cary Hiroki Tagawa is a great villain. I loved his backstory about the whole objective plan was to kill the pupil to get the last living relatvie to fight in his brothers' place. And then having the pupil killed, and the teacher have no choice but to step in to avenge his brothers, Xian's niece, and his pupil. Also, I too was bothered by the fact that there was no mention of Sasha Mitchell in the original. My dad explained to me that they probably couldn't get Van Damme or Dennis Alexio to come back, so they invented a relative, which seems to be a Hollywood rule. For a real explanation, maybe David was illegitmate, or only a half brother or a lot younger than them, and he was still a kid when the orginial took place.

[–] mooselundgren 19 years ago

No. Kickboxer 4 was the best sequel in the series, it had tons of nudity and lots of action. While Kickboxer 2 has it's merits, there's just no way one can justify saying 4 is worse than Kickboxer 3. Of course the first one is the best of them all.

[–] king_blinky2000 19 years ago

Yes Hi,

Well I don't think so, Sasha Mitchell did an excellent movie. They used very good karate moves, and I really enjoyied it.

But some people have a different tase to the movie.

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[–] gunsnroses393 18 years ago

the 2nd one is decent and enjoyable, but the original is better imo

[–] Mr5STARRVD 18 years ago

Sasha Mitchell's acting makes Van Damme look like Al Pacino LOL The acting in this movie was bad all around, Sloan's friend belonged in some crappy info-mercial.

Anyone who thinks the sequels are better than the first should be lined up against a wall and shoot in the balls.

Onto the movie, I didn't like the fight scenes in this one, they tried to do some weird contact angles and it looked really bad. I also wonder why they couldn't use any footage from the first one, they used it in the 4th. I also didn't like what they did with Xian, they made him waaaaay too goofy. The man didn't take any *beep* in the 1st movie and was tough as hell on Van Damme, now he's some weird comic relief. And Tong Po came off weak too.

[–] fmarkland32 18 years ago

No, Mitchell was about the same as Van Damme. Sasha's problem was that he was just too much of a nice guy. Mitchell was far more likable than say Daniel Bernhardt or Matt Battaglia who also took over for Van Damme.

I liked Kickboxer the best but liked all of the sequels. Except for #5

[–] Jsimpson5 16 years ago

I liked the movie, but I did have some problems with it.

Mainly the "US commission rules" for kickboxing. There exists no rules called that at all. The four main rules (A sub rule included) are

Full Contact Rules (Kicks above the waist, no knees or elbows allowed)
International Rules (Kicks allowed to legs abover the knee, no knees or elbows allowed)
Muay Thai (Knees and elbows allowed, kicks to knees allowed as well)
Modified Muay Thai (Knees allowed, elbows are usually restricted to the body not the head)
San Shou (International Rules with wrestling and Judo throws allowed).

[–] Conan_The_Barbarian 18 years ago

I agree. I thought this was an okay sequel but it just isn't the same as the original and without Van-Damme. It's mildly entertaining but not a patch on the first.

Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women!

[–] RobbLoww1-1 18 years ago

I like this one the most out of all the films because it's not all about just fighting and getting revenge on tong po. It went much deeper than part 1, it had better character development and the fight scenes were more realistic. And sasha mitchell is a good actor, I don't care what anybody says.

[–] 18 years ago

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[–] Private-Witt 17 years ago

I Enjoyied watching kickboxer 1 probley a 7/10, once I heard about kickboxer 2 "The Road back" I was quite excited, when I heard that Jean Claude Van Dam didn't take a role in the movie, I knew it isn't a proper kickboxer, when I watched kickboxer 2, I sorta liked it, and sorta hated it, the ideal about kirk not even mentioning david sloan whilst they were talking about there family.

I think they just wanted too do kickboxer 2, when they were shooting kickboxer "the original" they wern't thinking about kickboxer 2, which left the brother in the wheel chair.

When they asked JCVD to do the movie he rejected, so they just added a other brother in like that.

Like I said fighting was good.

Storyline bad.

Kickboxer 2 "THE ROAD BACK" (6.3/10)

[–] kissaholik4502 16 years ago

this movie sucked, the best part of it was the kid in the king diamond shirt within the 1st 5 min. i would have imagined that both freddy li and tong po would have been murdered for losing the fight, i mean did everyone forget that freddy had to borrow $1,000,000 from that warlord to bet on tong po? do people actually think that they just got away with losing the fight? if i learned one thing from this movie is that you can borrow that much $ from a warlord or a gangster, lose it and get away scott free! this and the rest of the sequels were unnecessary. kurt and eric had no other family, all they had was each other. they completely ruined xian by turning him into nothing more than a goofy old fool in this one, in the 1st he was serious most of the time and didn't take any crap but at times was still able to let loose and be a bit goofy. and another thing i don't get is how david felt as though he wasn't has as good as kurt and eric, yet he went through a lot less training with xian than kurt did, what the hell? you'd think he'd need more training, and he didn't go through any extreme training either! i think that if they made this movie about kurt and xian helping eric to walk again and beating the odds while preparing for a rematch with tong po would have made more sense than this garbage. since JCVD turned down the movie they should have at least hired some other no name actor playing kurt like they do with so many other sequels.

here's one last thing

SPOILER

one other thing that didn't make sense is how tong po killed brian and got away with it, i know that he killed him during the match inside the ring, but the ref and the announcers both tried to stop him and he beat them too. he just wouldn't let brian out of the ring alive. that's murder! shouldn't have he been arrested? maybe he can pull that crap in thailand but not in the US

RAP SUCKS
RAP IS CRAP

[–] edgie90 16 years ago

I think this one has better characters and character development that the first one. If it wasn't for the continuity issues and over the top violence in the fight scenes it would have been very good. Especially love the conversations between Xian and David at the diner thing before the fight, and how they repeat the "take your best shot" throughout the film. I have to admit this is one of a few films that has what I think is a perfect ending, and great credits song + montage. Just a pitty the start and middle didn't make much sense in a few parts. 8/10.

[–] huzdaman 15 years ago

edgie90 hit the nail on the head. The first movie had better production value, and Van Damme is a superior technician. Or at the very least, because of his gymnastic/dancing background, his fight scenes generally translate better to film.

Having said that, this movie is a better movie because of the storytelling and character development. It is not strictly a revenge movie like the first, it has more layers, i.e. temptation (his friend taking steroids to compete), overcoming the odds, dealing with grief, etc.

It had more humor, like the silly examples master Xien was always trying to impart with stereotypical stories regarding 'a dragon and a caterpillar', or 'a tiger and a fox' or some nonsense. That was funny. I also like how this main character interacts with children, as he is trying to be a good mentor, even as Xien is mentoring him.

Anywho, good movie, bad fight scenes. It helps of you watch it not expecting a typical martial arts movie. 3 1/2 stars out of 4.

[–] destroyerwod 14 years ago

Personally i had fun watching part 2 exept one thing, that they kill Kurt just because Van Damme couldn't get back as the character. I mean seriously how can you take the first movie seriously if you take part 2 seriously...

Exept that crappy thing, the movie in itself is good, it would just had need to be with a total stranger, thats it, and Tong Po shouldn't had be the vilain because Kurt kick his ass in the first movie at the end. Some of you guys got point, Tong Po would have not be able to pull all this crap in the US, killing somebody in the ring and all...

Its too bad there is plot holes and loosy thing when comparing to the first movie, cause by itself its a pretty good fighting movie...

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] TheBeardedWonder 14 years ago

One reason this movie sucks, yeah. As others have noted, bad acting and slow motion fights don't help. It seems like they didn't even have a fight choreographer, they just made it up as they went along.

The 1st is light years ahead of this one... fun to see Cody Lambert on the screen though...

No fear. No distractions. The ability to let that which does not matter truly slide.-Tyler Durden

[–] Doc110894 13 years ago

Watching this again recently. It does have more of a storyline than the original, but it's not executed well. The first one has better fights, and better characters. The original is just more fun to watch.

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] corywiththet 12 years ago

The original Kickboxer is my favorite martial arts movie ever. I don't consider this or any of the sequels canon, they suck ass.

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] creatorof2002 12 years ago

This movie was dead from the start for one very important reason nobody else here has mentioned. The whole point of a martial arts movie is having a villain who seems invincible, who thinks he is invincible, and his promoters and supporters think he cannot possibly be beaten. The "hero" of the story is set up to beat the villain AND in almost all cases be the FIRST and often ONLY person to ever do so to prove that the villain is NOT invincible.

As soon as the villain is defeated, as soon as the metaphorical "mountain" has been climbed (literal mountain for Rocky 4 ahahahha) the villain has been used up and any repeat appearance of said villain will be boring because its already been proven that he is not invincible.

Note that being unbeaten or seeming invincible is only required of the VILLAIN, the hero is SUPPOSED to be an underdog and has no such restriction. That is why reusing the "villain" of the previous movie as the "hero" of the next one works so well with the UNDISPUTED films, though that cannot be done with an especially evil villain like Tong Po.

Bolo Yeung about a year after Bloodsport did a similar movie called BLOOD FIGHT. His character in Blood Fight was CHANG LEE while he was CHONG LI in Bloodsport. His character in both movies was almost exactly the same, same personality same abilities etc. However Chong Li was Korean while Chang Li was Vietnamese and Chang Lee had a tattoo on his forehead that Chong Li did not have. The filmers of Bloodfight knew Chong Li could not be reused so they got around that by creating an almost identical character.

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] HeinziX 12 years ago

Read Pyun's visions on KB2 I posted here.

He actually tried to give the story and the main character (likeably played by Mitchell) some depth, what isn't common within Martial Arts movies ... but he also didn't forget the bloody fights, the early-90s-cheesiness (the soundtrack..) AND Tong Po (the original one!), what makes this with its sophisticated approach an almost bizarre combination ... ;)

[–] Herreken 11 years ago

huzdaman

Anywho, good movie, bad fight scenes. It helps of you watch it not expecting a typical martial arts movie. 3 1/2 stars out of 4.

I thought the last fight scene was pretty good. It was brutal. The only thing I don't like about it is something that's common to most fight movies. The good guy takes an inhuman amount of punishment then hears some inspirational words and/or thinks of some inspirational moments and makes a comeback. It's not even like he has to make an uphill comeback during the fight. His comeback is instantaneous & overwhelming. That's boring & has been done to death. It's even worse in Kickboxer 1 because the only reason Van Damme was losing in the beginning was because his brother was a hostage. He could've kicked Ton Po's ass right from the beginning if he wanted to, ha ha :d

I'm a big fan of Van Damme's movie-fighting style but I like the one used in this movie too. Mitchell actually looked & moved more like a kickboxer than Van Damme. I don't remember how the other fights were. I don't recall there being many fighting or action scenes in this movie.

DISPLAY thy breasts, my Julia!