Bizarrely a sequel to a film no one saw, about boxing, only this time it's about kickboxing. Now surely there must be more to the plot? Well no, it is essentially an excuse to have some downright superb fight scenes. Michael Jai White stars as George "the Ice Man" Chambers, played in the original by Ving Rhames. He's not playing the Wesley Snipes character as we might have assumed, considering White has been rumoured to be replacement Blade for Snipes, and after all Snipes and White are both martial arts demon's.

Anyway director Isaac Florentine has always shown a knack for filming fight scenes, without ever really getting the rest particularly right. Similarly his films never really look too polished, unable to look beyond their clearly meagre budgets. Similarly Florentine's previous films tended have bizarre mixes of time periods, costumes etc, to create non descript worlds, which just came out as strange on film. Bridge Of Dragon's for example was a pretty bog standard kind of fairy tale action movie. Also his use of cartoony sound effects for every movement, no matter how small, become tiresome in previous flicks. For example someone would raise an eyebrow and it would be accompanied by a "whoosh!" Having said all that I enjoyed his previous films for the action and the cheesiness of them. But Florentine has reigned himself in here, and in what is probably his most high profile and lavish production, he has produced a kick ass action film. Previously too he never really got any particularly good performances form his cast, be manages to here. White doe okay, and has the build and a certain amount of charisma that makes you wonder why he's not competing in the DTV wars with the top dogs like Seagal, Snipes and Van Damme. Strangely he's not much of an action star despite the huge muscular frame and martial arts prowess. Ben Cross also appears and as he did in the Lundgren flick, the Mechanik, he adds class to proceedings, because he can act. He does well in making his supporting part memorable in a fairly tragic kind of role, and he gives it some humanity and some humour. Ken Lerner too makes a welcome appearance playing a role we've seen many times before from him, and he of course he'll always be remembered as the agent, Arnold stabs in the back with a pen, in Running Man. Eli Danker is also superb.

However the real star of this piece is Scott Adkins, the British born, Kickboxer/Gymnast, here playing a Russian prison tournament champ. Adkin's not only has a good screen presence but like White is built like a brick outhouse, and to add to that he's an amazing athlete for a guy so huge. If marketed right Adkins could be the next big action star, he's got the ability to be one of the best. Adkin's performs some amazing gymnastic feats here. He's not a bad actor either and I think people will actually assume he's Russian, so he does a good job here, despite playing a comically two dimensional villains worthy of Ivan Drago himself. The fights are really well done. They feel unique too, much down to Adkin's himself but also the great photography, dolly and steadi-cam work.

This may have a plot that could have been written on the back of a match box, probably reading something along the lines of "Michael Jai White is forced to fight Scott Adkin's, twice!" However the film looks polished thanks to Ross Clarkson's photography, while Florentine is allowed to show some auterism that many DTV directors for hire aren't allowed to. It's simply a few situations that are thrown in to lead into fights, but the fights come thick and fast, and as well as that they are original, and pretty awesome. Thankfully the cast are good enough to rise above the trite situations which is why it's important in these films to include guys like Ben Cross, who can act.

Overall this is a film that will no doubt gain cult status amongst martial arts fan's. It's the most Drive-ish film since Drive, something simple yet for what it is, brilliantly delivered. There's rumours of another sequel, which I'd hope to see, but truthfully if it didn't have Adkin's it would be sorely lacking a one man special effect. Adkin's is even better than Kong! ***

"Undisputed 2" is a sequel to "Undisputed" starring Wesley Snipes and Ving Rhames. In the original movie Ving Rhames plays the antagonist; a cocky professional boxer named George "Iceman" Chambers. In the sequel we get a more sculpted Michael Jai White as George Chambers and he's the protagonist.

Chambers was in Russia to promote some alcohol when he got set up on drug possession charges. The entire set up was pretty ham-fisted, but that's what they went with to get him in a Russian prison. A Russian mobster was behind the set up as he needed a proper opponent for the Russian fight king Yuri Boyka (Scott Adkins). Yuri Boyka was running through opponents and it was costing the mobster a lot of money. Though he protested, Chambers would have to fight to earn his freedom, and no one is so tough that they'd remain in a Russian prison just to stick it to the man.

My thoughts about the movie for the first two thirds were, "Why do I care if either of these guys win?" Boyka and Chambers were both contemptible with Boyka being slightly more loathsome because he liked to injure his sparring partners (what kind of sense does that make?). Eventually, Chambers would emerge as the more sympathetic character and someone to clearly root for.

I wouldn't say I like the sequel better because all things being equal I'll always favor the original. Having said that, in the end, U2 was a solid follow up to "Undisputed."

Former heavyweight champion, George 'The Iceman' Chambers (Micheal Jai White, taking over for Ving Rhames) is sent to a Russian gulag on trumped-up charges where he must fight. Once you get past that this movie is less of a sequel than a remake (one that misses the whole crux of the original I might add). Once you surrender to the fact that Walter Hill is the Undisputed winner in directing. You'll find that this direct to DVD movie is actually pretty good in a brainless action movie kind of way. White does the best with what he's been given and the fight scenes are well staged. One could find worse ways to spend around an hour and a half, can't vouch for the film being very memorable though. To sum up, more in common with the Penitentiary films of days of yore than a sequel to Undisputed, but it's still solid.

My Grade: C+