China O'Brien II (1990)

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

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

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

China O' Brien II picks up where the first film left off and it's almost literally more of the same which means TV movie quality plot and acting interspersed with some martial arts action.As a film it's certainly not the worst ever made and it's about as solidly entertaining as any episode of Columbo or Walker Texas Ranger. As with the first one where the film excels is the fight scenes which are dynamic and very well choreographed with some brilliant OTT sound effects.The film's plot centres around some bog standard pap about an escaped convict terrorising the town and in that it makes some mistakes. As with the first film, the main bad guy is an older dude with no fighting skills whatsoever and so there is really no final threat or showdown, just a big free for all brawl involving loads of people.It would have been nice to have China go up against another female martial artist hench(wo)man or even a female villain with fighting skills. Even a bog standard martial arts villain would have done but alas no.Still in saying that, watching China beat the s-h-i-t out of endless waves of plaid shirted goons is satisfying enough although the story:fight ratio is a little off in favour of the "boring" bits.Still, as thin as the plot is it's executed well enough to keep the pace going and fans won't be disappointed by the highly satisfying action one bit. One for the collection!

Same thing I've said for China O'Brien applies to China O'Brien 2. They should have hired the guy who did the choreography for "Inspector Wears Skirts" for this movie, and upped the action to that level.Made by Golden Harvest, and produced, and directed by American producer and director, China O'Brien was in the perfect spot to take advantage of best from both worlds. Unfortunately, Raymond Chow probably didn't want to put in the budget to make this into a first class movie.It could have been like "So Close" if China O'Brien character was bit more edgier, but this is a product of the '80s, so edginess was not part of movie making. She kind of looks too wholesome that takes away from her sex appeal, and also lowers the tension of the movie.The producers failed to produce Cynthia Rothrock properly. She could have done lot better in these movies.

International female Karate sensation Cynthia Rothrock has never made a perfect movie in her 20+ years as a high-kicking, "B"-movie martial arts maverick. In all likelihood, especially now in today's time, it doesn't seem like she'll ever make a "perfect movie." Of course, for the longest time she was probably the most well-known female American martial arts champion to make a name for herself in the movies. "China O'Brien II" is a sequel to the 1990 first film, and has Rothrock returning as the title character, the sheriff of a small Midwestern town who has to deal with an escaped convict who has ridden into town and puts a price on her head when she foils his latest drug scheme. Together with a fellow Karate champ (Richard Norton) and an Indian biker ("Reptile" Keith Cooke), they set about making sure the bad guys get the proper punishment. "China O'Brien II" has three things going for it that really make it even worth viewing as a rental: Rothrock, director Robert Clouse, and producer Raymond Chow; the names Robert Clouse and Raymond Chow should be ringing bells because they collaborated in 1973 on the greatest martial arts movie ever made, "Enter the Dragon," which starred the late, great martial artist to top them all off, Bruce Lee. With such a collaboration behind "China O'Brien II," you wouldn't expect cinematic gold like "Enter the Dragon," but you would expect something better than what we get here. Rothrock is not a particularly good actress (and neither are many of the other performers, I'm sorry), but I guess her biggest saving grace are her phenomenal fighting skills, and that is when she (and the film as a whole) is at her best. With such strong talent involved in the production of this film, "China O'Brien II" probably would not have become a classic, but it could have been something much more memorable.3/10

Although this film is a Golden Harvest co-production, don't expect the fight choreography to be much better than average. For one thing, the villains are not very skillful fighters, and even those few who appear intimidating at first are defeated rather easily (I hate it when that happens). There is still some of the usual good stuff from Richard Norton and Cynthia Rothrock here, but the rapid-fire Keith Cooke easily outshines them both. Biggest disappointment: early on, the movie introduces a super-fit stripper / assassin, and I was hoping for a climactic fight between her and Rothrock; not only does that never happen - she also disappears completely from the film! (**)