Customer Reviews

Black Mask 2: City of Masks [Region 2]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I've always really liked the original Black Mask, starring Jet Li as the costumed hero fighting fellow supersoldiers. With it's exciting wire fu action scenes to the charms of Jet Li, (which came through despite the dubbing) it was a fun movie to watch. The sequel isn't. Although it's credited to Tsui Hark as director and Yuen Woo Ping as the choreographer, it bares none of the qualities that made either famous. Most of the action combines badly done CGI, even worse CGI characters, and villains in Power Rangers-quality prosthetic make up.

The new Black Mask is played by newcomer Andy On, who will probably never work again. He's a horrible actor with nothing to work with. The rest of the cast is made up of people you've seen before, but don't remember. WWE superstar Rob Van Dam, ex-WCW wrestler Tyler Mane, and ex-porn star Traci Lords make up the wrestler villains, along with a token black guy to take on BM in a series of unexciting fights. They're lead by 2 guys I didn't remember until the end, one played by the shop owner from The Crow, and one played by the military dean from Episode 39 of the Sopranos. Neither do well in their cardboard cutout roles.

For fans of bad movies, you might get some "so bad it's good" entertainment, since this is grade A material for that.

If you love bad films, this one is a must. If you don't, don't bother reading this, just forget this film ever happened. Ok here is what happens; Black Mask dude doesn't like Goggle Guy. Goggle Guy doesn't like Blask Mask dude. They fight. People who couldn't make the grade for a WWC league appearance take hormone injections that make them into power-ranger monsters that fight Black Mask dude. Goggle guy is eventually defeated, after a great scene where he is hanging in the middle of a room by wires for god knows what reason. Queen of Porn leftovers Traci Lords makes the film all the funnier. Surreal, bizarre, awful. Enjoy.

I agree with many reviewers when I say "What the hell is this movie on?" Black mask versus a giant brain versus evil wrestling mutants? Very strange. But in the end I think that's a good thing.

You're not going to see many movies like this. For its uniqueness alone it earns 4 stars in my book. While not nearly as good as the original Black Mask (the loss of Jet Li doesn't help) it is a heckuva lot weirder. The story seems cobbled together from different elements, but they still managed to make something coherent.

Tsui Hark's direction is always more interested in being cool than clear, and here it shows. The action scenes can be hard to follow. But how many mutant martial art movies are there? Guyver 1 & 2 are the only ones that come to mind. This movie is better than Guyver 1, not nearly as good as Guyver 2.

But a unique film experience and well worth seeing if only for the "Wow, did that snake guy just swallow a security guard?" moments.

Why? By the gods of hell did they make this movie. The first Black Mask was difficult enough to watch. This was probably the worst movie ever made. They tried to make it look like a comic book but failed. I mean the plot (if you can call it one), seamed to be written by a 10 year old with brain damage. A giant brain in a jar was given credit for creating Black Mask and another guy wearing messed up glasses. Another freak was using animal and plant DNA and splicing it with his wrestlers. Well, one wrestler freaks out and turns into probably the worst looking monster ever created. They all end up turning into really poorly thought out monsters (all except the lovely Traci Lords). The whole movie is filled with terrible CG and bad fighting. The makers of this movie tried using big named low grade actors and just E grade supporting players to try and pull this crud fest off. Tyler Mane (hoping to do better than his Sabretooth role, nope), Rob Van Dam (he really should hurt his manager for this movie), And Traci Lords (the poor woman really needs a good break, but sorry this aint it). If these people ever get together to make another movie we all should run away.

I thought there was nothing wrong with Black Mask 2 whatsoever! The action was beautiful, the costumes were "on-point", and style was like how a "super-hero comic-book"-style movie is supposed to look like and be like ...with the regular people as inferior back-drops and minimal, but necessary cop-show droppings. The producers, creators, and directors of this movie should do all the superhero comic-book movies this way. The costumes --like the character(s) powers-- should be unique to each of their personalities, and not look like something that is seen every day. We should be in AWE! I'm ordering this DVD for myself and, as a teaching tool. Highly Recommended!!!

jet li wasn't inthis movie :)
this was an ok dvd. the fighting is on point. The actting is hmm.. unique. It'svery comic booky. Black masks hair annoyed me.
They fleshed him outsome more character wise, but I alwayswonder how do vigilante heros afford all the cool stuff they have since they don't work.

i'd say part 2 goes ina different direction then one. 2 is lighter, he's not as brooding, andthere are room for sequals now withthe introduction NEW CHARACTERS who lived till the end of the movie :)

OK, This movie is there as a B-Rated Movie.
The CGI is to fake and yet still cool.The Fight Scenes are not like Jet Li's style.Andy On makes a great Black Mask,But I cant really except him well as I did with Jet Li.
His Style of fighting is well done with Yuen Wo Ping's Fight director.
Story:[Stinks].
Plot:[Stinks]
MOVIE:it's ok
To Buy this movie:Go ahead if you have BLACK MASK 1
Also This movie doesnt have the HIP POP soundtrack Like it did with the like the first movie.And theres Too many Monster's.
And to much to take this Movie seriouslly.
I love HK Movies,but this makes it too amature than Pro.

Behold a prime example of why Tsui Hark is the craziest director in all of Hong Kong. I've considered who else might have the gall to make such a flashy, loose-screw follow-up to the downbeat original film, but I doubt even Tony Ching or Stephen Chow would have braved putting morphing animal wrestlers, giant talking brains, limitless CGI landscapes, and the disembodied head of Tobin Bell into the same movie. The hodge-podge isn't harmonious, making the film feel pretty disjointed and probably contributing towards its current collectively poor rating, but I appreciate it in the same way I appreciate the infamous Bodies exhibition: it's an interesting look into the inner workings of a pretty creative man, but I wouldn't want to dive right in and sink my teeth into it.

The story: desperate to find a cure for his abnormalities, the genetically-enhanced superhero called Black Mask (Andy On, True Legend) finds himself under siege by two adversaries - his creators, who've sent a lethal doctor to retrieve him (Scott Adkins, Undisputed III: Redemption), and a pro wrestling federation led by a mad scientist (Tobin Bell, Saw series) who's enhanced his performers with animal genes to create vicious man-monsters.

There's also a bit about a "DNA bomb" that's going to mutate the entire human race, but you don't have to worry about until the last third of the movie. Until then...who let in the pro wrestlers? I wish I knew what genius thought to put this in the story (the film has five writers), but to the movie's credit, they got a pretty good draw of legitimate superstars-turned-actors to play the parts: Andrew Briniarski (an iguana), Robert Mukes (a snake), Tyler Mane (a plant monster), and Rob Van Dam (an octopus-insect thing), along with martial artist-turned-thespian Oris Erhuero (a wolf) and porn actress-turned-real actress Traci Lords (technically a chameleon). Wrestlers don't always make the best film fighters, outside of the ring, but with Yuen Woo-Ping supplying choreography, I felt confident that I'd see some cool stuff...until director Tsui ruined it for me. No doubt in wanting to give the film a Hollywood-type feel, the action content is less about well-filmed hand-to-hand matchups and more about erratic editing and a flying camera constantly trying to divert attention away from the actual onscreen fisticuffs (which are already in danger of constant interruption through the cutting way to other scenes). There's literally only one fight that's respectable, and sadly it isn't any of the ones featuring the wrestlers in their kaiju suits.

In keeping with the Hollywood-style production, Hark over-relied on CGI-modeled city- and ocean-scapes, not to mention digital inserts and models in every other scene. This goes on for such long stretches that occasionally you can't help but think you're watching a video game being played - a video game with outdated graphics, so after a while it seems like a SyFy production instead. There really is no around this, so it's enough to ruin the movie, but there's some enjoyable silliness to fall back on. A doctor character played by Teresa Herrera is so phobic of being touched by men that she freezes up like a mannequin whenever Black Mask lays a hand on her. At times, the movie tries to play this straight, but it doesn't top the scene wherein a mutated Black Mask and she wrestle around and sentimental music plays. (SPOILERS) Late in the movie, Scott Adkins shows ol' Jigsaw who's boss by separating his head from his body and keeping it sustained on a machine ("I got rid of the parts I didn't need"). The movie proceeds to end bearing a number of loose ends, including the state of a couple characters (Tobin Bell's among them) and failing to explain why it's supposed to be a happy ending since Black Mask is still being hunted by his creators.

If you go into this with high expectations, your rating will be lower than mine, but watch this like you would a National Geographic special and you can appreciate its strangeness. Whether or not this movie deserves three stars is debatable, since Tsui Hark's done much better, but all I know is that he provided a very interesting evening for me.

This movie definitely brings the franchise down several notches. The first movie gave you Jet Li in an exciting superhero/martial arts film with plenty of makes Hong Kong action movies great. This time not only don’t you get anything even close to resembling a Hong Kong action film you get a completely mess from what apparently is supposed to be a revamped version of Black Mask.

When I say revamped I mean butchered. As in they changed the whole concept of who the Black Mask is and what his past is. No longer is the Black Mask a military experiment gone rogue. He’s now a genetically enhanced mercenary who works for a giant brain… gone rogue. The plot is something I would expect from Roger Corman when he was making quickie monster movies in the 50’s. Basically the first movie didn’t even exist. Why did they even call it a sequel? The story kind of branches out into two different plots that seem to get mixed up with each other more than compliment each other. Character development on the good guys was entertaining enough with characters like Dr. Leung (Teresa Herrera) but the bad guys were hard to peg. You can’t really tell if you should either like or hate some of them and it stays that way throughout the entire movie.

The acting is functional with much of the main characters. Traci Lords and Teresa Herrera did give some depth in their performances. John Polito is always a good actor to have in your pool. He can give a shine to any script. The rest are average. The action itself is very lacking compared to the first movie. This being an American made film maybe they just couldn’t get the same choreographers I suppose. Still the martial arts are what made the first movie really stand out. Without that same level of action the sequel severely lacks. The worst part about this movie is the special effects. ALL of it is CG. Not just any CG. Bad CG. It’s painfully obvious every time a computer animated whatever happens. About the only good thing in production is the design concepts for our hero the Black Mask and the main mercenary villain.

Where the first Black Mask was a thrill to watch this one hardly measures up to even the most basic of martial arts or superhero movies. The plot feels contrived and the special effects are terrible. If you are a die-hard martial arts fan you might find this movie worth checking out if there is nothing else to do. For the rest of you I would just recommend doing something else. Anything else.

Black Mask 2 has to be the worst ever sequel to a fine Hong Kong action film. The original Black Mask had spectacular fight choreography plus the talent of one Jet Li. This sequel however, is cheesy from the get go. It's no wonder that Li refused to be in this misfire of a movie. Not only is the acting terrible, but we are bombarded with really bad CGI, and a plotline that makes absolutely no sense at all. About the only good things I can recommend about this film are the creature makeup and the fact that Tyler Mane is probably using this movie as acting practice to reprise Sabertooth with many more speaking lines in either an X-Men sequel or a Wolverine spinoff movie. In short, see the original with Jet Li instead of this pile of dreck.