Labor day weekend was my 30th birthday. I took a little time off to watch some fun stuff, as well as spend time with family and friends. 30 is supposedly a big deal, and I'm not sure I actually felt its weight hit me ... but I did realize that I'm pretty happy with how life is going. It is a strange feeling, as it actually hasn't been like that for a very long time. I have some amazing friends, the best wife in the world, and I love doing what I'm doing, writing these articles, sharing my opinions and criticisms with everyone, doing other online work, taking care of the house and cooking and cleaning.
It all kind of hit me as I was eating birthday meal with my parents. We cleaned up and I was just talking with my mother about all of this, writing and cooking and cleaning, and we started talking about cooking, and as I was sitting there talking about the ribs I recently made and how I went about seasoning and broiling them, she turned to me and said, "so you really do cook, huh?" or something like that. At first, sure, I was a little insulted, but I realized that she was not being derogatory, but a little bit surprised and a little bit proud. I was really making something of my life. It isn't a great something in societal terms, sure, but it is a little niche I've been blessed to carve out for myself. Where I get to watch Power Rangers and wrestling and crazy nanar films like this one, as well as cook and clean and just ... yeah. Sorry, I kind of went a little nutty. I said all of that because we recently watched a film I got as a gift ... American Kickboxer 2!
This is an interesting one. You see, American Kickboxer 2 features very few Americans, two protagonists who are not kickboxers, and is not the sequel to American Kickboxer 1. The sequel to American Kickboxer is another movie that has nothing to do with AM2. And AM2 has nothing to do with either of the others. It features one C-list actor, Tackleberry from the Police Academy franchise. As you can probably guess, you do not need to have extensive or even slight knowledge of the happenings in American Kickboxer to be able to follow AM2. And ... just all sorts of hilariously bad stuff mixed with awesomely fun stuff awaits you if you do watch it!
Plot: A rich woman's daughter is kidnapped by helicopter assault in her backyard. She asks he two exs, one a renegade Dirty-Harry-esque cop who was her husband, the other the semi-Buddhist semi-sometimes-pacifist martial arts instructor horndog who was the man she cheated on the cop with, to both help her find her daughter, as the kid is one of those two men's daughter as well. They go around to bars, "massage parlors," underground fighting rings, a barrel warehouse, and a lagoon trying to save the girl, and they do not like each other!
The movie has so many things going wrong with it. It is wacky, with just awful editing and sound, very very run of the mill or lower acting, and is just hilarious. I do not think I caught a single name the whole movie except for Tackleberry's, Howard, and the little girl's, Susie. And man ... just ... the sound is so bad. You can barely hear martial arts instructor voice about 75% of the film. And the piped in dub for most of the bad guys are just ... just a little too loud. It just doesn't mesh, you can tell it is piped in. The little girl is clearly not an English first little girl, so in the very beginning you hear her voice dubbed in by a woman pretending to be a child. The ... this movie is just so wonderfully terrible.
To be fair, it has some awesomely fun fight stuff, though not as fun as Bloodmoon. In fact, Bloodmoon is a better ... and in a few ways worse movie. That's the beauty of nanar films, they are always a grab bag of hilarious problems and enjoyable entertainment. They are quickly becoming some of my favorite films to watch.
I really don't think I have much else to say. Finding a way to get this movie in your hands may not be easy, but it will super duper be worth it.
Grade: F+
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