Secret Rivals 2
May 15, 2001
Review
Format: Mandarin VCD
Stars: John Liu, Hwang Jang Lee, Tino Wong, Phillip Ko (??)

Hwang Jang Lee (playing his deceased self's brother) is out for his brother's revenge and plans to fight against John Liu and Wang Chiang.

This film literally continues from where Secret Rivals 1 left off. It starts out with a beautiful widescreen transfer of the last fight against HJL in the first movie, which is exciting enough. Honestly, cropping a movie might do something that affects the score I give it, if SR1 had been wide screen like that I may have given it a 5/5 just for the huge amount of extra stuff you can see. So, GLARE at these, beautiful huh?


COMPARE, SR1 CROPPED VS SR2 WIDESCREEN!


I strongly feel that this movie, while said to be inferior to SR1 by MANY, is actually a step up from the original. It has a slightly different style, some times we lose the actual fighting spirit shown in the first where people fight in all planes (they do that in this as well but there are different styles shown too), and Ng See Yuen seemed to switch to a more, uh, directed style of fighting. The fights are MUCH longer this time, the villians are more interesting, and the finale is superior... except for one thing, and that's that Wang Tao wasn't able to be in this one. Instead, we get Tino Wong, who is definitely good but doesn't have half the spirit that Wang Tao had.

In the beginning we see 2 of these villians, one has a metal hand and can't practice mantis anymore (HJL's style in this film) so he does eagle. He has a small fast demonstration and then fights against someone who looks surprisingly like Yuen Kwai. It's very fast and not half as sloppy as some of the villian vs villian fights in SR1. They get into some weapon fighting which isn't too spectacular, some of the moves are repeated over and over. Still there's some interesting choreography, but something to note is that these 2 guys move back and forth along one invisible line the entire time. A monk and his friend butt in and fight eachother, which isn't too great, same moves over and over and the older of the two just knows when the punches are coming.



Then there's a training scene with Tino Wong and his student (Hung gar?) and Tino, well, he looks like a wimp here but he's better later. I've heard that he's a superkicker. I wouldn't have guessed, he has almost no kicking time in this movie, only punching. But there is this solo/duo scene.



The first 2 fighters of this movie go and challenge some people sitting around doing nothing and there's some ok choreography, the villians are the ones who look good. The other 2 are probably just stuntmen, but make a fair showing. But it's nothing to rave about.



Tino Wong and an outlaw fight for a bit in front of a government building after the outlaw had been fighting with some officers. Tino seems slow and stiff though, I still can't believe that he's a superkicker.



Tino and Liu team up again and start training. Liu does kicking on a wooden dummy, Wong does REALLY slow wing chun/hung gar on the other dummy, Liu obviously looking far superior. He does kicks, as always, with his right leg primarily, but they're all incredible, fast and accurate. He chains them later and looks amazing. Ah, Mr. Liu you're back.



Right after that there's a scene where a group of 4 kickers and one of 4 punchers are training under HJL. At first it's kind of a joke, they're all training in unison but then start pulling off some very impressive acrobatics, standard stuff but at least it's done properly. They hit wooden dummies as well. An interesting idea since the punchers are meant to fight against Liu and the kickers against Wong.



Wong's student is attacked at his house by 2 men. I kind of like this little guy, he puts himself into everything and, to me, seems more capable than Tino Wong himself. One of the bad guys has a staff and there's some ok choreography, but for the sake of story he has to die.



Wong goes after the killers and has some nice choreography, solid stuff, this is where the real tension fights of the movie come in. Wong faces an old man (from the beginning) and a guy with a spear. The choreography is very good this time, better than it had been with the previous fights (it only gets better too), and shows that Wong can do stuff, but he's doubled for acrobatics, his speed seemed to drop when the camera was in front of him. Still he's got some good handwork.



Ah, John Liu gets a fight, what a difference. I dunno why, it's just better when he fights. 4 men attack him with knives first (couldn't read the subtitles but I think this is one of those "I finally meet you again" fights) and he does some handwork, the enemies are kind of hopeless but do some good falls. Kicking, of course, is perfect, locking arms with his legs, spinning roundhouses, good stuff. Afterwords he goes against someone who looks like Eric Tsang (but isn't of course) and does some good kicking (though not half as fast as Liu). Liu creams him, but I think he's doubled for some acrobatics, though I'd like to think he did them himself. Guess he wasn't intended for that.



Right after that he fights the monk and the man with the iron hand. The monk, as before, is useless as an enemy (but is still interesting) but the other is talented. However, Liu's kicking still beats them without any trouble, and that's almost all he does, kick.



Tino Wong is challeneged by yet another villian, and again the hand choreography is awesome, Wong gets some really cool stances and very interesting punches. The villian looks sloppy in comparison. One of the stances is "Tiger Stance Kills Ghost" or something like that and he goes into a flurry of precise punches, very nicely done. Also the movement is strictly one dimensional, moving left and right in front of a huge staircase, nice background. On the second CD he continues his challenge after leaving and things are even better, this time the villian looks much better. They start by fighting DOWN some stairs, nicely done, and the handwork is awesome, very unique and stuff I've never seen before. You could say it's an example of what was superior at the time, as was YWP's stuff in the late 80's. Liu butts in and BAM, still great stuff, fast kicking and the same fast choreography only this time against Liu's legs. The villian runs away.



Once more the same man fights against Wong in some deserted moutain area except this one is much shorter than the others. But still, more VERY fast and great stuff.



After this same bad guy runs off to his master HJL, he learns he made a big mistake and has to fight the big man. Hwang does some kicking, though it's not much, and the hand work is again great, though I'm getting a little tired of Hwang doing mantis. Still the villian keeps things interesting with cool backhands and there are some nice slomo shots, like one where the other guy picks up HJL('s double), throws him and he does a front flip but goes right into an airborne horse kick. I dunno if they tried to get some comedy in here or what, but Hwang starts off by telling him he'll beat him within 7 rounds. He knocks him down, the guy is still alive, and Hwang says "This is the seventh round", and the man realizes this and drops dead. Funny.



Wong and Liu go to find Hwang and here there's more great choreography. I guess now is a time to say that I'm much more impressed with this than the first, everything seems so much faster and crisp, the hand movements are very nice. Tino Wong, well I hated him the first time I saw this, but then when reviewing I realized that he's got a nack for fast handwork, plus I hear he's a superkicker but we see almost no kicking from him, sadly. Hwang does some good kicking here and some fast hands depending on who he's fighting. Some good slomo shots too. Ah great stuff, all taking place in the middle of nowhere, a big white nowhere land.



The 2 groups of kickers and punchers go and fight Wong and Liu, respectively. Wong is good, but Liu owns the show when he basically turns his right leg into an arm, just hopping all over the place kicking it everywhere. Amazing, this goes on for so long and it's a great spectacle. All of this happens while the non-fighters do acrobatics everywhere. Liu and Wong can't seem to win though, and switch positions so they can take their own kinds and easily win.



Amazingly, the last 9 minutes of this movie are one big fight between the partners and Hwang. It starts off with Hwang having these little rotating rods on his hands that they can't touch, so it makes things pretty tense. Wong pulls out some short swords and there's some good choreography again, as expected, fast stuff, but Wong's doubled a lot it seems. As much as I usually hate these kinds of fights though, this one seemed right to me and I found it as enjoyable as the rest of the battles. Weapons are lost soon though and Liu jumps in with really fast kicking and punching combos, and when he does punching with Hwang it's done really well, awesome stuff. It goes on and on, eventually the two team up on him and there's one rediculous slowdown where the doubles of all three (I imagine) go do a ton of stuff. Wong dive rolls, Hwand diverolls over him, Liu diverolls over HIM, and they all land and do backflips. HA! Great, good old stuff. And Hwang does this one kick where he kicks Liu, runs IN THE AIR over to Wong who's about 3 feet away, incredible, I can't wall-run that well. Wong eventually sacrifices himself to beat Hwang and Liu does some kicking to take him down. Ah, awesome, one of the BEST end fights I've ever seen.



Well, though the first batch of fights weren't too great, things quickly picked up and this turned into an excellent movie. Besides, the first fights were better than the majority of fights in SR1. Sometimes the sound effects were a little late (in earlier parts), but it didn't bother me much, seeing Liu and Wong fight was truly awesome. Both of them had real talent (and probably still do). I liked this even more when I found a liking to Tino Wong, I dunno why I hated him on the first viewing so much, maybe because of his looks. But he's got skills, even though Wang Tao is a more powerful actor. Also this has about twice the action as the first and a fairly interesting story (usually I don't follow well but here I was fine). And it's WIDESCREEN, ah yes this VCD is widescreen, not CROPPED like the orignial. So, do yourself a favor and get both of these and decide which you like more. Oh and if that really was Phillip Ko, he does nothing and just kind of disappears later in the movie.

5/5

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