It stars two men , a womanizer advocate at law , Michael Biehn , and the other an upright scientist , Matt Craven , who is happily married to Julia Nickson Soul . They tackle the climbing the world's second largest mountain, the K2 in Kashmir , northern Pakistan . They join a brave group formed by the wealthy millionaire Raymond J Barry , Patricia Charbonneau , Luca Bercovici , Fujioka , among others . All of them set out to scale a famous and risked mountain . The trip to scale the second highest peak involves a long palaver among them , and much parley between persons of different cultures or level of sophistication . As the climbers argue with porters , challenges from old rivals and beyond the cliche dialogue . Nice film with snowbound , spectacular scenes , thrills , emotion , rope and and piton daredevil drivel; and , of course , fight for life . Beautiful Canadian scenary fails to totally compensate for a great number of slow-moving scenes . Each person's true nature is revealed as they scale the peak , which many climbers have defied and failed in previous attempts .The main issue results to be the several dangers in which the cllmbers encounter along the way , including an ascent of sheer rock face , an avalanche and a fall down perpendicular mountain ice . Duo protagonist gives good acting delivering philosophical debating , such as Michael Biehn as the skirt-chasing lawyer and his old friend Matt Craven as the responsible physicist.The film is pretty well ; however, slightly overwrought ,with several dreary lapses , but exciting and stirring .This one belongs to Climbling Subgenre with important films as " The White Tower" with Glenn Ford , Claude Rains , " The Eiger sanction" with Clint Eastwood, George Kennedy, Jack Cassidy and recently "Himalaya" with Jason Clarke, Josh Brolin, Robin Wright , Jake Gyllenhaal , Sam Worthington and Kiera Knightley.It contains a sensitive as well as thrilling musical score by the prolific Hans Zimmer performed by synthesizer . Impressive photography by Gabriel Beristain who does wonders shooting the moutain outdoors , showing impressive landscapes and breathtaking mountains . Set in Pakistan , it was actually shot on location in Canada's Mount Waddington, British Columbia. The motion picture was well directed by Frank Roddan whose intention is made clear early on : climbing as metaphor , being based on a play .Roddan has directed a number of decent movies of all kinds of genres and adaptation based on novels , as Cinema as TV , such as : Cleopatra, Moby Dick , War Party, Aria , The bride, The lord of Discipline and his greatest success was Quadrophenia .

Plainly an insult to anyone who knows the least about mountaineering and mountain climbing, there are any number of mountains in the world where this story might have taken place but K2 is not one of them. People like Pete Athens and Conrad Anker do not shoot themselves with methamphetamines to complete a climb and the premise that a previous climber died because someone stole their drugs is pathetic.This movie is a series of bad scenes compiled of bad stock characters played by bad actors. Look at the credits list for this film and you will note that there are no photos for most of the actors even the stars. That is because they have no talent and they never made any good movies so that anyone would load their photos anywhere.Bad story badly made and an insult to the genuine sport.

Seen vertical limit. Thought it was a decent film so decided to get K2 on DVD but just wasn't as good. The plot was really straight forward. Get to the top of a mountain and come back down. The music seemed really dodgy and didn't seem to fit in. The ending was somewhat sudden. Thought there would be a short bit at the end showing Biehn and Craven back at home and the other survivors reflecting on their K2 visit. Moreover, who had actually heard of Biehn and Craven before watching K2. Although the acting was good, thought it could have been done with more famous actors. However, must give credit to the scenery. Must have been really difficult to film - one aspect that was much better than vertical limit. Another thing, thought it took ages to get to the point and once up on the mountain, it slowed right down and not much happened. Still, an OK movie but deserves no more than a 6.

I liked this movie enough to having watched it three times as of now. With few exceptions, it's a realistic adventure movie - this according to a friend who has done 5000+ meter climbs - with beautiful scenery, very interestingly developing plot, personal intrigues, good humor etc. Also, the acting is generally excellent, where the two main characters are the cream of the crop.The only thing I don't like is the kind of "Crap, we ran out of money, how do we put a quick end to this?" ending. Also, the quality of the picture is a bit "amateurish", the "home VCR" kind of quality at times with that dreaded bad contrast which makes for a "grey-biassed" picture. Not a good thing for an adventure/trek movie with beautiful scenery.All in all, it's indeed enjoyable to watch, though. Moderately recommended. Rating: 7/10