Alicia I love this movie so much

Protraph Lack of good storyline.

Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Helloturia I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

IkhwanArif I'm guessing a lot of hate for the movie is coming from western audience (although I'm reading Slavs like it). First, the good news. Hong Kong movies are infamous for mediocre and derivative stories. SPL 2 is an attempt to be more, and I think it succeeded for the most part. Was the narrative unnecessarily convoluted? A little bit, but the overall motivation somewhat justified the plot. It can feel long-winded but not insufferable.The action is top class. Tony Jaa, Wu Jing and Zhang Jin all displayed some real top class martial arts choreography that would humiliate feeble Hollywood action sequences. The reason is, Hong Kong movie industry understands pain and violence; every hit an actor gives or receives is expressed with realism through their motion and their countenance. Every facial feature is captured so that the audience can see that our hero/villain is suffering, and we love it. Special mention must be made to the Knife Assassin for a great knife scenes in the stairwell and his fight with Wu Jing at the hospital reception. In fact, the best thing about SPL 2 are the bad guys. Zhang Jin is just delicious as the Chief Warden of Thai Penitentiary, portraying the final boss with great relish and panache as well as even learning Thai language to make his role more authentic. His final fight scene with both Tony Jaa and Wu Zhing, in an all white hall room with dramatic classical music playing, is masterfully executed.Yes, I also have to mention the really good stages and locations. Scenes from the airport, the prison riot in Thailand and the Hospital are all very well built and captured. All in all the production quality here is also solid. Now the not-so-good news.The pacing could've been better. The beginning and middle of the film was devoted to plot and if it wasn't for the action scenes, it would've been completely boring. The editing and screen write could've have been more polished, considering that they had a budget of USD 23 million, but like all Hong Kong films, they never take put in the effort to make a cohesive fluid narrative. Which is why I think many Westerners won't like this show, especially with IMDb's snobby, pretentious reviewers who think they are Roger Ebert. But screw 'em. The show is a good Asian action film, and Asian action films are like Marvel summer blockbuster films. You want to see people kicking butt, this is well recommended.

lovesmykimmy When I think back on Tony Jaa's movies I remember mostly "B"/"C+" movies with "A" or "A+" moments. This is his first "A" movie. A majority of his movies in the past were really bad plots that led to fights where he demonstrates his talent as a stuntman, and his fighting style, which is always really tight on his ability to cut distance and overpower his opponents using his short strikes from long distances with his ability to tough out and withstand beatings that should kill him. This fight has all that but unfortunately it seems like they traded his stunt work for CGI...go Hong Kong... they did give him a scene where he and Wu Jing get into an amazing tight out of character fight, almost like an Iko Uwais scene, just still very Jaa. There was also a lot of character development and identity in the choreography, which is nice to see. This adds to my thoughts 15 minutes in when I was thinking about the maturity in both Jaa and Wu Jing. There are no elephants or statues causing a city to get terrorized in this one, it's all about family.I agree that there were too many coincidences in the plot to consider it great, but I still found it all interesting and well done, up until the last ten minutes. At that point you could almost see the writers cutting the ribbon. None of this is as important as the work from Jaa, Wu, and Zhang.This is the first non period piece that I'm going to get my girlfriend to try to watch with me. A scene that I predicted at the beginning of the movie made me tear up, and I think that even though she's not as into the action as I am, she'll enjoy it.

BeDeeJames I was super excited to watch this film after seeing the action packed trailer. Flying knees, elbows and shoot outs seem like a no brainer for any action fan. After the initial opening you will come to realize it isn't just any run of the mill martial arts film and you get a sense that they try to inject story behind the punches being thrown. The film itself is outstanding to watch but you cannot dismiss some of the flaws in storytelling, plot and pacing.The story follows two main characters and many sub characters. Chai works as a Thai prison guard trying to support his ailing child suffering from leukemia. Kit is an undercover cop from Hong Kong investigating a black market operation of organ theft. Their paths intertwine and eventually they uncover the importance of how they need each other's help to save Chai's daughter Sa. It seems simple but how this concept is presented is a bit confusing. During the intro they focus on Chai and then switch to Kit. As you get invested in Chai's emotional desperation to help his daughter you get pulled away and presented with Kit's story and his own battle against his inner demons. Then sub plots with sub characters get their time to shine afterwards and the story loses its focus before fully developing the main characters. To make matters worse the director uses flash back sequences and the locations of Thailand and Hong Kong randomly jumps making you confused of the language change and locale. It can also be argued that Chai's character is a bit selfish as he seems only to care about saving his daughter at the expense of others. Kit's character is generally just recovering from his drug binge so neither character has a strong hold on the viewer. As a martial arts movie I generally don't take story too highly into account since your here mainly for the action but since a huge chunk of the run time focuses on plot it cannot be ignored.The action can be brutal and some crazy wire work is involved but most of the choreography is realistic. You won't see people flying across roofs and running up walls and all the main combatants bring their A game. The fights are beautifully shot and the ending battle is one of the best I've seen. Some things that pull you away and can be quite distracting is that characters will often suffer injuries where you believe that they will be critically disabled, but those said characters will be in the next scene without any problems. It pulls away from the immersion and doesn't make sense when you knew for sure that person had died or should've died.Kill Zone 2 also suffers from pacing issues. Some areas of the story can be very slow since they are trying to flesh out the characters. You can probably tell they didn't do a superb job of it and so for the first half of the movie you get a little action and a lot of dialogue. Then the movie starts to pick up and for the ending they kind of said eff it and threw non-stop action with very little story. Kill Zone 2 has everything a martial arts fan can ask for. Story, top action stars and beautifully shot battles make it for a thrilling viewing experience. You just can't help but feel that this could've been a true classic if some the story plots were ironed out and connected you better with the main stars. The pacing may turn off action junkies for the first half but as the pace picks up it won't let you go.

Nick Dees I loved the story and at times it actually gets a little hard to follow since a lot is going on but eventually you will figure it out. After seeing this film TIFF midnight madness I raced home and I am currently trying to get a copy of SPL 1 Kill Zone. The fight scenes are incredible and if you are into that stuff you will go gaga for this film. It is strange some scenes are straight hand on hand combat, while others rely on knives and yet others focus on guns. But in the end the hand on hand fighting wins hands down. The jail house riot was well shot and the final fight scene had some incredible choreography. I really cant wait for SPL 3. The best part of the whole film is that after all the fighting, dying and blood shed it actually had a moral which is always nice. Do yourself a favor and see this movie. And if you can do so on the big screen even better.