Traci Lords Movie:

Editorial Review:
This outlandish comic book of a movie stars newcomer Andy On as the genetically altered warrior played by Jet Li in the original Black Mask. As Zeus--the gigantic brain-in-a-vat that created Black Mask--sends his newest super-warrior to track Black Mask down, the nefarious owner of a professional wrestling network has a plan to genetically alter his wrestlers and turn them into animalistic half-humans--meanwhile, Black Mask falls in love with a beautiful geneticist who's paralyzed with phobic anxiety whenever a man touches her... None of the plot makes much sense, but sense is hardly the point. Though the computer-generated special effects are fairly crude, the relentless camera movement and rapid-fire editing of Hong Kong action master Tsui Hark (Peking Opera Blues, Time and Tide) and fight choreographer Yuen Wo Ping (The Matrix) keep the spectacle rolling along entertainingly. Also featuring Traci Lords as a kick-ass wrestling queen. --Bret Fetzer

Black Mask 2: City of Masks [Region 2] Reviews:
Not what you might expect
2006-07-04 - okay, i have watched this movie a couple of times, and i cannot disagree that it is terrible. however, i think it is one of those movies which is so utterly pitiful that it becomes comical.
there really isn't any redeeming quality to this whole movie; acting, special effects, choreography, character development, plot, ect. - all bad.
Thing is they are over the top bad, so when you watch it the first time don't go into it thinking that it will be some great martial arts movie like the first, otherwise you'll just be bitterly disappointed. Instead, you should watch this for the goofy action and ridiculous storyline, then its entertaining. I like to get a large group of friends together and watch bad movies like this to laugh sometimes.

Don't bother with this sequel
2006-03-10 - 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.


bizarre, but engaging
2006-01-05 - 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.

what were they thinking?
2005-03-03 - what do you get when you mix the power rangers' villians with wrestling? this load of crap called black mask 2. the computer animation was par with lets say the old apple computers that they had in schools back in the 80's. the acting was just about as bad as you could have in a movie mass produced. i will not be surprised if i learn that they lost money on this project. maybe i will make "black mask 3: crap kicked sideways" with my personel cam corder and use my pc for the special effects and they will release that for me. that would be about as entertaining as this, but i guess i would need some wrestlers like triple h or booker t as the main characters.

Hi, My name is Rob Van Dam, and I'm not really an actor . .
2004-10-14 - ok, nice touch trying to tie wrestling to a movie that had nothing to do with it in the first place, but it didn't work that well. The only wrestler that was even remotely good as an actor was Adam Copeland (Edge) and he didn't even get that big of a part in the first place. It's not that great of a movie, but it's fun if you like bad movies with 'alternative' casting.