Film Review

Lady Dragon II


Year: 1993

Directed by: David Worth

Cynthia Rothrock: stars as a widow intent on revenge.

Other Players: Billy Drago, Sam Jones

Plot Synopsis: CR is married to an Asian soccer hero. After returning home from a World Karate Association tournament where CR has successfully defended her title, her husband discovers $25 million in diamonds hidden in his suitcase, which have been stashed there by Columbian gangsters in order to get them through customs. The husband decides to keep them in order to help the poor (!), so when the gangsters come looking for their loot he denies having it, even though they threaten to cripple him (and do) and to rape CR (and do). Some spouse. Eventually they go away, but they keep returning, usually with something horrible in mind (they eventually kill off the husband, for example). CR begins to play a kind of emotional cat-and-mouse with the gang leader, while knocking off his thugs one by one. Eventually, of course, there is a showdown.

General Impressions: Not bad. The film is pretty much an exact duplicate of Lady Dragon: a raped widow intent on double-revenge. The villain (Billy Drago) is truly cruel. CR wears some pretty dopey disguises--her dignity is hanging by a thread in some scenes. The fight sequences are not exactly inspired, and the psychological motivations of the characters, particularly for CR, are a bit wonky--it's evident that the writer tried to portray a more complex set of emotions that usual, but the results seem a tad simplistic. The rape scene is particularly disturbing, even though there is, of course, no nudity.

Watch It?: Yes, but not if you have a phobia about home invasions.