Black Mask 2: City of Masks

ugh, and i mean UGH. dont see this, avoid at all costs. its a mix between the batman beyond "splicing" episode and universal soldier (the first black mask at least had real kung fu). altho * queen traci lords shows us she can still kick ass, as seen in first wave and blade. in this movie, jet li ran away, and for good reason, some fool picked up his role and took it, as best as he could i guess, he did look good. all that style was lost when he spoke tho. no wonder this came straight to video. get some real jet li movies if you want kung fu, or get universal soldier 1 if you want some killing soldier story...

"Crashman 79" Jan 30 2003...and I quote.."All in all, the movie was excellent." What can ANY straight-thinking, HALF intelligent person say to that? We're talking here arguably about one of the worst, insultingly stupid, juvenile, cruddy movies of all time! Little wonder Jet Li took a look at the script and said "You're kidding?" As a follow up to BLACK MASK (itself no Oscar contender) Hark has more than a LOT to answer for. Not far removed from a Japanese children's actioner of the 60's, this incomprehensible piece of CGI-enhanced buffoonery has no place even calling itself a "film," let alone a sequel. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the original...except for Tsui Hark's involvement. A few mutated world-wrestlers do not a storyline premise make. What the f---was Hark thinking? "Hey, this is a grabber?" This is one film WORTH a zero rating!

It's this movie, it stinks. I don't even know what to say. I bought this crap because I liked the first one a lot and figured it can't be that bad since the first one is no masterpiece. This movie is a steaming pile of dung. It is worth a rent just to see how bad it is but don't get ripped like me and buy this crap. I have to admit though, I laughed more during this movie than most comedies.

Brain-hurtingly awful action sequel from previously well-respected Hong Kong director Tsui Hark. What he thought he was playing at with this monstrosity is anyone's guess. I can only imagine that he rounded up the most clueless people he could find to consult on the matter of which red-hot global fads he should incorporate into his latest vision, and came out of that meeting with "wrestling" and "Power Rangers" scribbled on a Post-It note. Because that's basically what it is. The actual martial arts bits are pretty inconsequential - as is anything established in the original Black Mask, apparently. While I personally reckon I've seen worse, I will always remember Black Mask 2 as being the film that plunged a hardy co-viewer into a fog of stress for an entire weekend and drove him to claim that "it was so bad it actually made me ill".

Not much is left of the original Hak Hap, in which Jet Li went out to kick some ass wearing a silly little mask. This time, the language is English, Li's gone and the story became even wackier. The Black Mask has to fight a group of crazed and drugged up wrestlers who become demons in the process... it's got something to do with a DNA altering or whatever. In the mean time, someone is killing all the major scientists on the field of genetics... what does one thing have in common with the other? Confusing, silly, boring, let's hope this will be the end of the Black Mask... 3/10.