Search - Black Mask 2: City of Masks on DVD

It's horrible, even for DTV standards

Casey de Fremery | 01/04/2003

(1 out of 5 stars)

"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."

A great terrible film to watch.

Casey de Fremery | 01/20/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"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."

Bizarre, but engaging

Mojo Jojo | 01/04/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"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 oh why did they do this ? ?? ?

onimusha257 | Leesburg, Va. United States | 10/15/2003

(1 out of 5 stars)

"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."