Overcoming an embarrassment is a perfectly righteous ambition; the ambition of Best of the Best 2 however is that it's also correct to overcome embarrassment without being rewarded.When embarrassment and when victory are part of the same situation, the logical truth is that the victory is not a victory and that the embarrassment is not an embarrassment. Instead, the victory is a defeat , and the embarrassment is a tribute.The defeat of a tribute, is the tribute of a defeat - the celebration of a weakness. And it's then at this point that Best of the Best 2's story starts to make sense.Celebrating a weakness, in actual fact, is a rational type of outlook on life. It makes sense to want to dwell on weaknesses. However, it's a correct part of the balance that celebrating a weakness isn't a reward: a reward is an objective, and it makes no sense for the celebration of a weakness to be an objective.An objective is a future. If the celebration of a weakness is a future, that means that history is meant to create a weakness so that it can be valued. By definition, a weakness is something that's meant to be moved past - so it doesn't make any sense to live history in order to celebrate moving past something. Because it's impossible, for history to conduct itself without celebration whatsoever, the balance is for the experience of tribute to be met with redundancy - the necessity of celebration gets dealt with by the relief and by the thankfulness of feeling redundant. The perversity of forced celebration is balanced out by the celebration of forced pointlessness

"Best of the Best" from 1989 is a VERY well done film. This is a review of "Best of the Best 2," so I will keep my summary of the first one short, but here it goes: BEST OF THE BEST is one of the very few movies that has emotionally touched and moved me. I can watch that film any day of the week, and each and every time, it leaves me happy, inspired, feeling good. It is a PERFECT "feel good about yourself" movie, and it is just PHENOMENAL with its writing and storyline. It has morals of brotherhood and teamwork, and it is just a FANTASTIC film. "Best of the Best 2" on the other hand...different story. I normally am a HUGE action movie guy. I love action movies to no end. "Best of the Best" was one of the very few movies to be mostly a drama, centered around the characters, and to move me as it did. Best of the Best 2 takes everything about the first movie that did that....and DESTROYS it. The plot, is basically just Rocky IV. Chris Penn of the first film is killed, so Phillip Rhee & Eric Roberts want revenge. Thats it. There is a completely over-drawn sequence where Tommy is being reunited with his family, and dealing with his alcoholic uncle James (Sonny Landham). That part is a bit too drawn out, and takes away from the films pacing. But basically, its a "fight for your life" movie, with ZERO morals and ZERO values, like the first one had. To me, that was an ENORMOUS disappointment, so see the likable characters from the first, emotionally driven movie, placed in a Gladiator-arena fighting movie. As an action movie, it is not bad, some very grizzly scenes where Rhee breaks limbs of other "gladiators," but I HATED how the film destroyed everything that made the first one such a powerful film. The end title song "(To Be) The Best of the Best" is a pretty inspirational, solid, soft-rock anthem performed by Mark Free, that is definitely a highlight of the movie...I just highly preferred the first film to this, because this delivers (besides fight scenes) close to NOTHING the original had to offer. Not a bad action movie, but I did not like it as the sequel to "Best of the Best." Perhaps if it was a stand- alone movie. 4/10

May contain spoilers! This is the next installment of the Best of the Best series. Some of the actors return (Robert, Rhee, Penn, and Gross) along with a new cast of characters.Alex (Robert), Tommy (Rhee), and Travis (Penn) open a marital arts school in Las Vegas. Travis fights in an underground fighting arena called the Coliseum, for money. After a friend gets killed by Brakus, in the Coliseum, Alex and Tommy going on a mission to stop Brakus.The violence is turned up in this film, which makes it some what better. The lines are cheesy one liners, like most martial arts films, and give a darker tone to the series. The fight scenes are done very well, and can be quite brutal at times. The acting could be better, but like most martial arts films, acting is not the number one concern.If you like good fight scenes watch this movie, you will not be disappointed.

This time Eric Roberts and Phillip Rhee return to avenge the death of their former teammate and friend, Travis(Played by the late Chris Penn) seems Travis enjoyed fighting the late night circuits of to the death matches and Travis met his match in the form of Brackus(Rolf Muller, Arnold Schwarzenegger look-a-like) however all bets are off (As is credibility) when Roberts and Rhee scar Brackus' perfection and let him know the son saw everything, naturally this marks them for death. The original was a dopey martial arts time killer that found an audience among those who really like the genre, the sequel though will probably disappoint even them. The movie has too many stupid elements such as Roberts telling the bad guys "My son saw you do it!" which is stupid when you think about it. Also the gladiator arena takes place supposedly underground in a hot disco club. Also one more dash of credibility is that Penn would actually bring a kid to a match where he could get killed. Ridiculous sequel is a lot like Rocky IV in how stupid and terrible it is. Some of it is funny but a lot more of it is boring. Although I must admit Wayne Newton as a fight promoter is ridiculous enough to almost skyrocket this one into camp classic badness.*1/2 out of 4-(Poor)