No Retreat, No Surrender 2

Despite being a sequel, this has nothing to do with the first movie. There's a whole new cast, and a brand new plot. A quite good one, actually. No Retreat, No Surrender 2 is the perfect example of pure 80's fun. It has lots of really cool fighting, fun background music and almost everything else we all know as bad (but really entertaining) 80's action stuff. The last fifteen minutes of the movie are excellent. Movies with totally evil Soviet military bases are always fun! And Matthias Hues is perfect as an evil Soviet military. The last fight between him and Loren Avedon must be considered as a classic.

Same score as the first movie: 7 out of 10!

STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All Costs

Corey Yeun,whose dayjob is a fight chereographer on the sets of various martial arts films,makes his second directing effort with this sequel to his 1985 original No Retreat No Surrender.Oddly,the plot to this sequel bears absolutely no resemblance to the original at all,with none of the original cast members returning either (including the ghost of Bruce Lee).That's no real problem,though,because a follow up to that ridiculously awful film probably wouldn't have been appreciated too greatly anyway.This is a film in an altogether different league,with a cast of martial artists in the leads.Loren Avedon is a little goofy in the lead but engaging enough,whilst Richard Norton alike Max Thayer adds good support.Cynthia Rothrock gets some nice lines here and there but she has serious problems with her delivery.And,finally,Matthias Hues is a video game villain ,right down to his 'hahaha' interludes,though quite credible.Running at as brisk a pace as the first,this is itself pretty damn stupid,but features some nice action and,if only seen once,passes muster.***

To me this is one of the best movie of its type. The chief reason being the interesting mixture of characters in this movie, and they're all good.

Of course this movie stars Loren Avedon, and Cynthia Rothrock, both of whom were at their early stages of their career, but they look fresh, and good. Even better than many of their later works, so the director of this movie must have been really good.

Each scenes has attention to details, and they have the clean looks to them that makes it easy on the eyes.

Story is pretty good too, perfectly matched to each of the characters.

This definitely is one of the best movie Loren Avedon, and Cynthia Rothrock has starred in. It's bit juvenile for me now, but when it came out, I was much younger, and it looked perfect to me at the time.

No Retreat, No Surrender 2: Raging Thunder (1989) was a sequel only in name to the first film. Corey Yuen is back, Seasonal Films decided to make another film to the series. This time the movie's featured star is Cynthia Rothrock. The action is also co-directed by Hoi Meng.

The movie takes place in Southeast Asia. A couple of commandos along with a female agent are sent on a deep cover assignment. Their mission is to take out a suspected Soviet clandestine operation. Whilst in Thailand they discover that their mission has become a whole lot more complicated than they could have ever imagined.

The acting is not that great but it's adequate. Who's kidding themselves. Who goes to a movie like this and expect a cast full of thespians. The action set pieces are what we expect from the team of Hoi Meng and Corey Yuen, bone breaking action with a fair amount of blood letting. Cynthia Rothtock is phenomenal in her role. More action and less gabbing from her.

If you like no nonsense action films then this one's for you. Others need not apply because you'll be turned away from the nonsensical plot and pedestrian acting. But the action scenes are excellent and fun to watch.

A Beat 'Em Up and Shoot 'Em Up all wrapped up into one high octane package of pure brilliance. The plot is shady, the acting is iffy and the music is cheesy but still this flick packs a punch. The opening scene post credits pits Terry (Cynthia Rothrock) and Scott Wylde (Loren Avedon) a Tae-Kwon-Do expert in a war of words and showboating. With bad edited dialogue, poor acting (both improve as the film progresses) and over-the-top martial arts, we discover that Scott with his poorly delivered one-liners is on his travels to Bangkok and he is looking for an old friend, Mac Jarvis (Max Thayer) for some reason. Soon we are catapulted into the thick of it, Scott's fiance Sulin Nguyen (Patra Wanthivanond) is kidnapped from a hotel in Thailand by Soviet trained Vietnamese military operating out of Cambodia. Not only this but Scott is framed for the murder of his girlfriends entire family, so the plot thickens or gets muddled or something along those lines. Enter Mac, weapons expert and the man full of cheese, Mac is the man you need to know who can get you anything you need to save your fiance from a military base on top of a mountain, especially if it is manned by Soviet trained Vietnamese soldiers. Soon Scott, along with Mac and Terry, who comes back into the fold are on a mission into Cambodia to save Sulin. We then get the pleasantry of been introduced to the villain Yuri (Matthias Hues) the Russian commander, with his French-German accent and super soldier abilities not far removed from M.Bison in Street Fighter 2, who's weakness is apparently a picture frame. Along this journey we are gifted with pretty good choreographed fight scenes (some over the top, some pure cheese but all entertaining) and great shoot 'em up action, ending with a great finale. Mac "She's gone Scott." Scott "Lets get the hell out of here, alright." This film doesn't pretend to be anything it isn't, it's pure fun action, that keeps the hits flowing.

A cheesy moment to savour: A grenade is rolled, a villain is turned over onto the grenade and a table placed on top of him.