Remember the first time you saw "The Godfather?" It was so good you were hoping it would never end. So Coppola made a sequel every bit as magnificent as the original. Hollywood saw the reaction to "Godfather2," and the age of sequels arrived. In Korea, the success of THE SECRET RIVALS convinced producer / director Ng See-Yung that he too needed to create a second movie. Therefore, I give you SECRET RIVALS 2 - but be warned! Make sure you see the first film...umm...first (Seecret Rivals 1 review here).

Master Chin-Ho's men await the arrival of their master and his brother. When Chin-Ho appears, the men are surprised to see he is alone. Further intrigue awaits when another minion shows up minus his hand, but with a new steel claw instead! Chin-Ho has the men practice their kung-fu to ready themselves for an upcoming tournament, and to see this claw in action. Later, Chin-Ho receives news of his brother - he is dead! Yep, his sibling was the notorious Silver Fox, bandit extraordinaire, laid out in the first film by heroes Shao and Sheng. Chin-Ho swears revenge as he removes his brother's shoes to find the map to the Silver Fox's treasure horde.

Meanwhile, Sheng's brother Ye-Wu and Ying-Yan practice their art at the temple. Both Shao and Sheng are on missions ordered by the village master, so the brothers are protecting the town in their absence. Ms. Chin takes a liking to Ye-Wu, and gives him her grandfather's protection talisman. But Chin-Ho makes a deal with local assassin Sing-Ye to kill the brothers and force Sheng to return, thereby setting the hero up for a vengeful Chin-Ho. The wily villain also works on a contingency plan in case Sing-Ye fails...

Ye-Wu shows compassion to a disorderly ruffian, allowing him to live after he kicks his butt instead of breaking his neck. A returning Shao applauds his action, and the two practice to be an unbeatable duo like Shao was with Sheng. Meanwhile, Chin-Ho has his assassins train, visualizing the utter defeat of Shao and Sheng. The warlord also realizes that Ye-Wu has a diagram unknowingly in his possession, which is needed to locate the Silver Fox's silver stash. Two of his lackeys find poor Ying-Yan, and despite the boys' best effort, kill Sheng's youngest brother. Ye-Wu finds his body and swears revenge; he tracks down the killers and the fight is on! Meanwhile, Shao works to clean up corruption in a nearby village, foiling the mad plans of Chow and his gang. But after disposing of them, Shao is attacked by Chin-Ho's other two lackeys...one of whom has the steel claw. And Sing-Ye still is lurking in the shadows, waiting for his chance to punish Shao and Ye-Wu. Have Chin-Ho's plans for vengeance come to pass? Or can Shao and Ye-Wu overcome the increasingly bad odds to take down the Silver Fox's brother? And let's not forget about the map to the million dollars in silver the Fox hid...

In the first SECRET RIVALS the writers spend a lot of effort to fully realize the characters, balancing the film's story and action sequences very carefully. In SECRET RIVALS 2, that's thrown out the proverbial window. Plot is tossed aside for fights; characters are introduced and discarded at will (and everybody has a brother! Oy!). I spent the first half trying to figure out who was who. The whole set-up about the silver is never resolved, and the movie just kind of ends abruptly. The acting is acceptable, but nothing memorable. If SECRET RIVALS was a 50/50 story to fight ratio, SECRET RIVALS 2 is about 90/10. If there's no actual fighting, it's practicing and posing. Mind you, the action scenes are very well staged and exciting, so who needs a plot anyway I guess? If only the producers had followed the balanced formula of their first film, SECRET RIVALS 2 may have been a martial arts classic. Instead, it's just another dud sequel.

As with the original, SECRET RIVALS 2 is a disaster on DVD. The film is slightly better in quality without as much snow, grain and scratches, but the audio is right down the tank. A hum is evident throughout the film, and the sound synch is so off it's almost laughable (man gets hit and falls - two seconds later we hear the THWACK!). The dubbing is O.K. and the voices do fit the characters. Still, the film should have been given some TLC. It's a shame when a movie is just slapped on to disc without care - it's a disservice to the original producers and especially the fans. Yup, it's all about customer service, folks.

The DVD for SECRET RIVALS 2 has the exact same features as the first film; same production notes, same trailers. The notes, so vital to the original feature, only mention SECRET RIVALS 2 in passing, so they're pretty useless for this flick.

SECRET RIVALS 2 is the spawn of one of the landmark films in martial arts cinema. However, instead of standing next to its predecessor in the annuals of history, it's only a pale imitation. Lots of fist-flying and high-kicking action can't make up for the lack of story and poor release quality of this DVD. So I'm afraid it's the closet of lousy sequels for SECRET RIVALS 2. But at least it will have plenty of company (see JAWS 2,3 & 4, the POLICE ACADEMY series, Freddy, Jason, and the rest on "Lousy Sequel Island")