Bloodsport was released in 1988 and made Jean Claude Van Damme an action movie star, it told the ‘true’ story of fighter Frank Dux who was the first westerner to win the secret Asian martial arts tournament the Kumite.
Mysteriously, in 1996, a sequel emerged starring not Van Damme, but Swiss look-alike Daniel Bernhardt. He plays Alex Cardo, a high class thief who is on a mission to steal a sacred katana from David Leung(Pat Morita – Desert Heat) in Thailand. While at a party at Leung’s place, he meets a beautiful lady by the name of Janine (Lori Lynn Dickerson – Terminal Velocity) whom he agrees to take to lunch the next day. But as he escapes with the katana, he has to display his martial arts skills on a few policemen before making it back to his hotel. But the next day, his partner John (Philip Tan - Timecop 2: The Berlin Decision) sets him up and makes away with the sword as Alex is sentenced to jail. In jail, he encounters such characters as the sadistic warden who has been dubbed Demon (Ong Soo Han - Kickboxer) and quickly gets on his bad side by getting into a good few scraps with his pawn prisoner Chien (Chuay – in his only role), but befriends mysterious old martial arts master Sun (James Hong – Big Trouble in Little China). Sun trains Alex in the Iron Hand technique and the two strike up quite a friendship. Alex learns that Sun came to Thailand from China to teach soldiers the Iron Hand. When one of his students tried to rape a girl, and killed her brother when he tried to defend her, Sun killed him for shaming his technique, but it turns out that his father was a politician, and arranged for Sun to rot in prison forever.
Sun once fought in a contest called the Kumite, and he wants Alex to take part in it one day.
One day Alex is unexpectedly freed, and it turns out that Leung was responsible for freeing him. Sun tells Alex to get into this year’s Kumite, because the Demon is entering, and Sun feels he does not deserve to win.
Leung has had him released so he can get the sword, which is the prize for the Kumite winner, back.
Alex gains entry to the Kumite with a little help from Tiny (Don Gibb - Bloodsport) who becomes his handler. When during the tournament, he befriends a few fellow competitors including Cliff (Ron Hall – Triple Impact), Sergio (Nick Hill - Death Match) and the first woman to ever gain a Kumite invitation, Kim Cambell (Lisa McCullough - Desert Heat).
But he also encounters Janine, who is now working for John. She arranges for Alex to buy back the katana from John in 2 days.
But John knows that Alex knows that he set him up, so arranges for Alex to be killed by his henchmen.
Will Alex be able to defeat not only John to regain the Katana for Leung, but the Demon in the actual competition?

The acting in the movie is about as good as you could expect from a straight-to-video sequel to a Van Damme movie made in the 80s.
Bernhardt makes for both a good sleazy thief and likeable hero, which I guess was the whole point of the character, so fair play to him on that count. He really isn’t here for his acting, but his high-kicks that are almost as good as Van Damme’s (he lacks a hilarious trademark one though). But he is good to watch, so that’s one on the good side.
James Hong should be a legend solely on the grounds of his Big Trouble performance and this proves that he can also play a likeable old guy. This performance won’t live as long in the memory as the aforementioned one, but its good enough none the less.
Don Gibb may or may not be reprising his role from the original movie. He does say his real name is Raymond (his character in the original movie was called Ray Jackson) but he doesn’t make any mention of anything to do with the first movie. Anyway, he plays his role just like he does in the first movie, as a sort of likeable slob.
Ong Soo Han makes for a fairly intimidating villain when he is silent and sporting his really quite evil grin, but his constant idiotic pose striking (one of which is repeated, using the exact scene, creating a movie mistake because Demon changes trousers) and his one line of dialogue completely destroy any chance of him being taken seriously from then on.


The music in the movie is pretty cheesy, but incredibly well suited to the movie. If you were wondering what the full circle I was talking about was, it’s the music that gives away the reason why they chose to create a sequel 8 years later.

You see, it’s often stated that Bloodsport was the inspiration behind the videogame Mortal Kombat. the game series became incredibly popular, and it wasn’t long before the movie Mortal Kombat was released and was quite a large hit. The movie used cool but cheesy techno-style music in some of its scenes, and an almost direct rip-off of these songs is the soundtrack for Bloodsport 2. Demon’s theme even sounds not too dissimilar to Goro’s theme from MK. The less said about the end credits song, which actually blatantly makes it clear it wants to be the MK theme song by use of constant pointless samples, the better, because it is quite frankly atrocious.
The fact that the movie was released the year after MK the movie also gives it just the right timing to cash in on MK.

So first there was BS, which led to MK, which was in turn ripped off by BS2.

One thing that the movie has in common with its prequel is that the fight scenes in the movie are excellent to watch. While a lot of them are fairly short, this is some pretty great viewing for those who enjoyed the original.

The movie could be accused of being almost a remake of the original, and there are some striking similarities that anyone can see. Man steals sword, gets caught, enters Kumite, beats nasty fighter. But the fact that this applies to pretty much every Western martial arts movie post BS. The movie could be accused of being a bit of a remake, but it differs from the original enough to stop it from being a total retread.

At the end of the day, I went into Bloodsport 2 expecting to be disappointed. After the atrocity that was part 4, I really couldn’t see how any of the sequels could be any good. But this is an incredibly well made movie for being straight to video, and is also incredibly enjoyable, even if it was only released as a horrible attempt to cash in on MK.
I’m sure there are a few plot holes in there somewhere, but as a fan of this type of movie, I just can’t help but think this is one of the better attempts at this type of movie without any type of major star or great budget, and greatly surprised me with not only the fact that it was watchable, but was actually really enjoyable.
The movie isn’t as good as the first one, it never could be, but it certainly gives it a run for its money, and is leagues ahead of Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson’s effort at taking on Bloodsport in the incredibly disappointing Bloodfist.


At the end of the day, you will probably know before you watch it if there is a chance that you will enjoy Bloodsport 2. if you like this type of movie, then by all means give it a shot, because it is probably the best Bloodsport-a-like you will find.

If you want to see some choice fights with your standard Bloodsport style storyline, then you should look into Bloodsport 2. it isn’t as good as the first, but it is still an entertaining evening’s viewing.

Year: 1996
Titles: Bloodsport II
Bloodsport 2: The Next Kumite

Other Bloodsport series Reviews
Bloodsport
Bloodsport 3
Bloodsport 4: The Final Chapter

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups