Synopsis:

Tai Chi II is the story of a young Tai Chi Master who battles corrupt officials and evil English merchants who are polluting China with opium. All while fighting off jealous suitors who also seek to win the heart of the beautiful revolutionary that he too has fallen deeply in love with. Martial Arts movies are generally light on scripting and heavy on action sequences. Tai Chi II is a typical martial arts movie. The fight scenes are reminiscent of the choreography from much earlier films like Shaolin Master, The Five Deadly Venoms and every Bruce Li (not Lee) picture. Simply put, its good Vs. Evil with tons of Wire-Fu. This is a great film that every fan of the genre will enjoy. Not having seen it's predecessor, Tai Chi, I cannot compare the two. However, if Tai Chi is anything like Tai Chi II, it's gotta be great!

Audio/Video:

The audio for the film is the general fare most martial arts films suffer from. Either a Mono platform or a 2-channel stereo disappointment. Here, Tai Chi II suffers from Mono on all three available audio tracks. (English, Mandarin, Cantonese) For the record, the English language track is very loud and easily understood. The problem I found was with the quality of the track for all three languages. In addition to the mono platform, the film also suffered from a degree of background hiss that certainly detracted from the film's overall audio presentation. With it being mono, it really couldn't get any worse but the hissing in the tracks did actually make the presentation harder on the ears. The video is a widescreen presentation that looks as though its thirty years old even though it's only five years old. Every transfer error you can think of is on this disc. Hairs, scratches, pixelation, edge enhancement, you name it, this disc has it. The colors are on a scale of 1-10 roughly 5.5 in their presentation. The fleshtones are dull but appear natural in their presentation. Lastly, the film is presented in a non-anamorphic widescreen presentation.

Extras:

the only extras on the disc are trailers for: Wing Chun, The Heroic Trio, Organized Crime Bureau, Tai Chi II, The Bride with White Hair and the Bride with White Hair II.

Overall:

Tai Chi II is a classic martial arts film that is a joy to watch. The film is so much fun I really can't adequately describe it. Suffice it to say, if you enjoyed any of the titles namely, The Bride with White Hair, you will definitely enjoy this film. If I could a liken it to another martial arts film, I would lean towards Once upon a Time in China. Solely for action sequences, this film is very similar to Tai Chi II. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and know that if you love Wire-Fu flicks, this one needs to be in your collection as well! Due to its lack of extras and it's generally poor transfer I can't highly recommend it but I can recommend it so in the words of Monty Python…there it is.