Black Mask 2: City of Masks (2001)
Review by Doc Ezra
Film:
DVD:

Written by Tsui Hark, Jeff Black, Charles Cain, Julien Carbon, and Laurent Courtiaud
Directed by Tsui Hark
Starring Andy On, Jon Polito, Scott Adkins, Traci Lords, Tyler Mane, Andrew Bryniarski, and Teresa Herrera

Features:

• Trailer
  

Released by: Columbia-Tristar
Rating: R
Region: 1
Anamorphic: Yes

My Advice: Rent it for crazy kung fu cheeziness

Despite mediocre success with the original film stateside, somebody decided a sequel was a good idea, and so we get the continuing adventures of Black Mask. This time, the titular hero/superagent is played by Andy On, who is a sort of jarring disconnect from Jet Li's original, but that's neither here nor there. Helmed by legendary Hong Kong action guru Tsui Hark, the sequel actually succeeds where its predecessor failed, hurling headlong over the cheezy line and into full-blown four-color fists of fury territory. With a plot ripped straight from a comic book, Black Mask 2 makes no attempt to be even vaguely connected to the first film, pushing for a more over-the-top hero feel than the initial installment, which too often made the fatal mistake of taking itself seriously.

The story goes something like this: Black Mask's genetic modifications are a mystery to him, so he's seeking out geneticists to help him figure stuff out. The organization that made him wants him back and wants him ignorant, so another nasty agent is dispatched to kill said geneticists. Then, there are wrestlers. Wait, no, really, it makes sense. Okay...no, it doesn't, but it doesn't matter. A sleazy promoter is doing quick-n-dirty gene jobs on his stable of professional wrestlers in hopes of making them a bigger draw at the arena. Appropriately named for their DNA-splice partners, these wrestlers are starting to lose control of their transformative abilities, and going steadily insane because of the treatments.

At this point, the secret agent assassin and the quest for Black Mask's answers pretty much take a back seat to myriad excuses for Black Mask to throw down against the super-modified pro wrestling camp. Pretty much anything that gives Andrew Bryniarski a chance to throw down onscreen is cool by me, and seeing Tyler Mane play what is essentially Sabretooth with more dialog is kind of interesting too. Traci Lords is thoroughly underwhelming, but I'd wager that surprised nobody whatsoever. She's in the movie to be a wrestler chick in tight leather, and that's about it.

Now, none of this is to say the film is good. It's not. But it's not offensively bad, and if you're a sucker for kung fu goodness like myself, there's enough to go around. The action sequences in the movie are the kind of thing that Tsui Hark is famous for putting in his movies. Physics and realism matter nary a bit, and gravity gets ignored with wild abandon. Lots of rooftop kicking and jumping, followed by some falling, followed by more outrageous kicking and jumping on street level. Wire fu at its finest. For the fight choreography alone, this one merits a rental by the serious kung fu afficianados in the audience.

The film has nada in the way of bonus features, which is a shame. Somebody should interview Hark, as he's probably the most legendary Hong Kong director living aside from possibly John Woo. And there are enough special effects shots in the movie to have merited an FX featurette, as well as enough interaction with the guys playing the wrestlers (most of whom are actually pro wrestlers in the real world, in as far as using the term "real world" when talking about pro wrestling applies) that some discussion with them would have been entertaining. The set design is also pretty damned impressive. Basically, the production values are high enough that somebody should have put together some kind of featurette about them to pad this disc out and make it more of a draw for purchase and not simply a throwaway rental title.