"Caught Between Honour and Revenge, How Far Will One Man Go?"

"The Honour... The Spirit... The Sword... The Ultimate Fight"

With this movie, Daniel Bernhardt exploded onto our screens for the first time (ok, let's just forget about Future War for a second here) and unleashed his devastating Bernhard-as-iron abilities on unsuspecting audiences dubious of the successor to Jean Claude Van Damme's original blockbuster.

Co-starring James Hong as Master Sun, this movie tells the reflective flashback tale of Alex Cardo (Daniel); a suave thief in Thailand who bites off more than he can chew the day he steals a sacred sword from the wealthy Mr. Leung (Karate Kid's Pat Morita); that turns out to be the ceremonial award for the winner of the infamous 'Kumite' martial arts tournament featured in the first movie. When double-crossed by his partner, Alex is arrested by the local police and thrown into prison where he meets his future master (Hong) and his nemesis... the sinister powerhouse of a warden known only as 'Demon'.

After suffering savage beatings at the hands of both Demon and the native prisoners, Alex is nursed back to health by Master Sun and taught the ways of the 'iron hand'; a devastating and spiritual martial-arts method that he hopes Alex will use one day in the fabled Kumite tournament. It turns out that Mr. Leung has bought Alex out of prison in the hopes that the very thief who stole the sword from him can retrieve it from those who stole it during the deception. In doing so he also plans to honor Master Sun by participating in the Kumite tournament, that Demon has also entered.

And so begins our tale of kickin' ass, whoopin' ass, beatin' ass and kickin' just a bit more ass. If you've seen the original or indeed any other movie of this style (such as Kickboxer or Shootfighter) then you know what to expect... alternatively, if you've played Street Fighter 2, then you also know what to expect... albeit without the superpowers.

Daniel here, in his first major-role plays fantastically as the lean, mean smooth-talking criminal-turned-remorseful-student - he shows off just why he's got what it takes to be on the front of the box and why you're here reading this right now! He effortlessly performs gravity-defying aerial maneuvers and displays a physical prowess that most mortal men are thoroughly incapable of achieving. Especially me. After watching this, I was convinced Daniel should retire from acting and simply become a 24/7 superhero!... Of course then he wouldn't make anymore movies, so screw that idea - but he absolutely kicks ass!

The only returning character from the original movie is Raymond (or 'Tiny' to his friends), played by Don Gibb. This time, the lovable oaf has returned as a 'handler', sort of the equivalent of a WWF manager - just kinda hanging around ring-side and getting into unofficial fights whenever needed. This is no-doubt made possible thanks to his amazing technicolor dream T-shirt! Watch with explosive excitement as his shirt magically changes between cuts - one second it's a skull and cross bones exclaiming "SUDDEN DEATH"; the next, it's a lightning-lit Native American Indian! Fan-freakin-tastic! Maybe I should stop watching this movie so much?

James Hong is actually quite cool in this movie... no incessant cackling or hobbling around causing poorly-thought-out mildly evil deeds... in fact this is the only time I've ever seen the guy in a heroic role and it actually works really well. Once upon a while he was the excellent villain Lo Pan in the awesome Big Trouble In Little China, however he's sadly never been able to find a role to ever replicate the awesomeness of that character... but this'll do. Pat Morita is excellent as always, performing with such cultured etiquette that those only familiar with his chants of "Wax on, wax off!" may find it slightly disorientating at first, but ultimately he plays the role brilliantly. As for Demon, well this dude doesn't talk much and just goes round kickin' the living crap out of people and eventually kills a Samoan guy, so although he won't cause any tears at the Oscars with scenes of powerful emotion and artistic passion... he does however perfectly recapture the essence of Bolo Yeung's character from the original. So the whole cast does what they came to do and do it well! Also look out for Daniel's brothers in there too... Cliff's the easiest to spot out of the two... providing the movie with an almost Where's Waldo-like interactive secondary adventure! How's that for a free bonus?

As for the martial arts on offer - well, to be honest, the tournament isn't exactly fantastic. It's major issue is that it's not really dramatic enough, it's just that there's few announcements of the combatants, no real feeling of progression through the tournament - it feels more like a series of snapshots of random fights until familiar faces clash at the end. Thankfully however, the fights themselves on offer are always cool, with loads of varying martial arts styles unleashed against each other; from Judo to kick-boxing, from Karate to Tae Kwon Do, from Kung Fu to monkey-style! In that respect, what more could you ask for?

Unfortunately, the final battle itself between Alex and Demon is a rather lackluster affair; it follows the predictable pattern of flashbacks kicking-in just as Alex starts to get his ass kicked, but not long before the adrenaline starts pumping and Alex serves him a can of whoop-ass with a side order of fries... which has left me tempted to deliberately go get my ass kicked outside McDonalds on a Friday night just to see if this all happens in a real fight. To top it off, the whole battle appears on screen with no announcement, no warning, no delay, no build-up whatsoever... it just comes straight after the previous fight and it's like "we ran out of footage, here's the climax!"

However aside from the final Kumite not exactly being a work of cinematic magnificence; the movie is full of great action, cool characters, a kickass script and is one of Daniel's best movies to date! Even though Future War from the year prior was absolutely dire (sorry Daniel), this major-debut for the man still stands up alongside his greatest works and belongs in the collection of all Bernholics today!