Top Fighter 2 (1996)

I love this movie so much

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Review: This is a decent documentary, about the old school Kung Fu ladies, who really kicked butt. It did look a bit cheap and the narrating wasn't that great but there are some decent interviews with the athletic ladies, who didn't have the advantage of special effects or string action, so they really had to show there top skills in the low budget martial arts movies that they made years ago. You do get to see some top class action throughout the documentary but some of the fighting is really slow and not that great, which was expected in some of the older movies. From big names like Cynthia Rothrock and Michelle Yeoh to Angela Mao and Kathy Long, it's definitely worth a watch if your into you Kung Fu movies and it's a deep insight into a world, were women risked there life's to entertain. Enjoyable!Round-Up: I can't help but think that this documentary would have been much better if they had some money behind it. The director, Toby Russell, has made 9 documentaries, mainly about martial arts, which include 2 films on Bruce Lee, so he's not new to the game. You can definitely see that he had a low budget, because of the terrible camera work during the interviews and the bad editing but the archive footage was enough to keep me entertained.I recommend this movie to people who are into their action/documentaries starring Jackie Chan, Sophia Crawford, Cynthia Rothrock, Michelle Yeoh, Pei-Pei Cheng and Angela Mao. 5/10

....and that problem is that it doesn't tell you which movie each clip is coming from. I recognized quite a few of them, but that's not the point - it couldn't have been so difficult to have a title card at the start of each clip, just like they have for each person that appears on the screen. And this time, the titles aren't even mentioned during the closing credits. Thankfully, what "Top Fighter 2" lacks in informativeness it makes up for in sheer enjoyability. Practically all the big names of HK female action cinema get their screen time - and some smaller ones as well (like the underrated Sharon Yeung). And most of the women interviewed are extremely charming - I think I just fell in love with Judy Lee. But my favorite segment is easily the one devoted to the very sexy musclewomen Sophia Crawford and Michiko Nishiwaki: their interviews are shot in a gym, where we can also see them work out and spar with each other, and we also get to see parts of Sophia's incredible nude fight scene that has been cut from most copies of "Escape From The Brothel". I won't say this compilation is worth getting just for that - it's worth getting anyway - but it's certainly a nice little bonus. (***)

This strikes you as it could have been so much better. It is good to see the likes of Angela Mao and Judy Lee given the credit they so richly deserve but 1) why are the interviews so poor, often done in noisy, inappropriate locations 2) why are the clips not identified. You see a clip from a film and think, I would like to watch that film, but no title is given within the film, in the credits or as an insert 3) why are some of the clips so poor - Hapkido with Angela Mao for instance looks washed out. Any fan will argue, are the clips the best they could find for a particular star but this may have been limited by rights issues. It was good to see stars like Angela Mao are still alive (and still beautiful I might add) but none of them give much of an insight as to what it was like to be in such films or to work for Shaw Brothers or Golden Harvest at their peak. Interesting but could have been far better.

Better not watch this one with your parents around, kiddies.I kid. 'Top Fighter 2: Deadly Fighting Dolls' starts off a little risqué, with the first segment trying to convince us that Amy Yip is representative of female action stars. Apart from that, 'Top Fighter 2' is an action-heroine version of 'Top Fighter'.Essentially, this is just a list of (predominantly Asian) female action stars, complete with video clips and the odd interview. While it uses the same formula as 'Top Fighter', I must say that 'Top Fighter 2' is a better documentary. While 'Top Fighter' showcased a lot of now-famous stars, most of the women in 'Top Fighter 2' don't enjoy the same fame as their male counterparts, and so we get to learn more about these women and see more of their work.Michelle Yeoh, one of my favourite actresses, is interviewed and a clip of her kicking arse is shown. Although she is well-known now for roles in 'Tomorrow Never Dies' and 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon', when 'Top Fighter 2' was done in 1996, Michelle would have probably been a virtual unknown outside of Asia. Cynthia Rothrock gets her share of screen-time. After those two, 'Top Fighter 2' is a showcase for a lot of talented actresses from Hong Kong and Japan who may not be that well known at all. I was a little disappointed that someone like Amy Yip was shown while Etsuko Shihomi was left out completely.'Top Fighter 2' is a nice documentary, and a little better than the first. I reckon any fan of martial-arts movies should check it out - 7/10