#is this technically spoilers? cos the motorcycle?

[incorrect-all-for-the-game]

Cop: You’re receiving a ticket for having three people on one motorcycle.

Cat: Shit.

Jean: Wait, three?

Cop: Yeah?

Cat:

Jean:

Laila: OH MY GOD, JEREMY FELL OFF!!!

[my-mt-heart]

I may be wrong cos I don't follow spoiler sites but I thot I saw and/or heard that the last frame filmed was NR riding off on his motorcycle alone. It just feels to me like they aren't giving Caryl the final moment but instead are baiting an 'exciting' new adventure of Daryl solo. Am I missing something?

The DP posted a shot of Daryl riding his motorcycle alone and captioned it “Daryl Dixon's last ride” or something like that.   Technically we don’t know the context and they don’t film in order, but it would make sense if it’s exactly what it seems since, yeah, they’re gearing up for that silly spinoff. 

[aion-rsa]

Psych 2: Lassie Come Home Easter Egg and Reference Guide

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The following contains spoilers for Psych 2: Lassie Come Home.

As fun as 2017’s Psych: The Movie was, its 2020 sequel Psych 2: Lassie Come Home will likely supplant it in Psych-Os’ hearts, because it’s got 500% more Carlton Lassiter (Timothy Omundson). But how does it stack up to its predecessor in terms of Psych callbacks and pop culture homages? Using our Spencer powers of observation, we’ve tried to catch every recurring inside joke between Shawn (James Roday Rodriguez) and Gus (Dulé Hill), plus all the episodic-specific bits. It’s a feature-length Hitchcock homage, but it’s also the toughest Easter egg hunt of your life. C’mon, son!

Psych 2: Lassie Come Home Easter Eggs and References

The title is a reference to Lassie Come Home, the 1943 Lassie movie about the beloved dog making her way home from Scotland. A German-language remake came out early in 2020.

It’s always a treat to hear the Psych theme song “I Know, You Know,” performed by creator Steve Franks and his band The Friendly Indians.

Lassiter wakes up to Shawn and Gus hovering above him at the recovery clinic is a throwback to when they kidnapped him for his bachelor party in “Deez Nups” and he came to with them screaming “Surpriiise!”

Morrissey the rescue dog reprises his role from Psych: The Movie in being adorable, incredibly nosy, and oblivious to Shawn’s hissing commands.

Sarah Chalke’s nurse character Dolores is most likely a nod to San Francisco’s Mission Dolores church and cemetery, the location for Carlotta Valdes’ grave in Vertigo.

Right out the gate, Dolores is treated to the requisite Gus nickname: “My name is Shawn Spencer, and this is my partner Bill Poopingtons.” However, Shawn and Gus take a sidebar for a very meta argument about their ongoing bit (while fitting in another bit):

“Gus, don’t be the night your dad fell asleep inside your mom. We can’t just stop doing bits we’ve been doing for ten years. We have fans, they have expectations, there’ll be a huge backlash.”

“Shawn, we are two dumbasses, we do not have fans.”

Compromise: Gus gets right of refusal until they land on a nickname he prefers. And so:

Bill Poopingtons > All the Pips in One

Ding-Dong Ditch > Claude O’Dern > Big Poppa Pump > Lemon-a Lemon-a Lemon-a Liiime

Leggo My Eggo > Norman Brown Butter > Dijon Hounsou

Gus also calls himself Jermajesty, channeling some Jackson Five energy.

“Black Jello” was Gus’ nickname in their adult dodgeball league.

The Herschel House is likely a nod to Herschel Daugherty, who directed over two dozen episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents…

Gus and Shawn are still bickering over driving the drivers ed car, even if we don’t see it in the movie. They do manage to be just as bad at turning the right direction when riding a motorcycle together.

“Now I know this ‘goofy little white guy/sexy black dude’ routine the two of you have going like the back of my scrubs.” Sarah Chalke played Elliot on Scrubs, whose JD/Turk bromance walked so that Shawn/Gus could run.

Shawn calls Dolores “the nurse from Color of Night,” the 1994 Bruce Willis erotic mystery thriller that won a Golden Raspberry for Worst Picture.

The boys get Jamba Juice because you never turn down an opportunity for a Jamba.

Shawn likens Gus’ pubic hair to Eddie Murphy’s mustache in his 1987 stand-up film Raw.

Shawn offers the dismembered hand to Gus to “knuck it up softly,” per their penchant for fist-bumping. 

They later do fist-bump outside the old Psych offices, but not before channeling Han Solo and Chewbacca in Star Wars: The Force Awakens: “Gus, we’re home.” “[Wookiee sound]”

Psych has become a French-themed cat café… for now, at least. It’s not an alternative universe from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, but the current subletter’s pop-up business. The proprietor (not the girl from Orphan) is played by Allison Miller, James Roday Rodriguez’s co-star in A Million Little Things.

“I am a psychic. He is a sympathetic pooper.” Poor Gus’ intestinal system gets called out again.

Henry’s (Corbin Bernsen) put-on voice gets compared to Tom Waits, Kathleen Turner, Harvey Fierstein, and Diedrich Bader.

Shawn neglected to tell his landlord that he’d moved, which tracks with his behavior in the series finale “The Break-Up.”

Henry reveals that in addition to telenovelas, he enjoys zeitgeist-y sobfests: “You left behind a slow cooker with a three-pound roast in it. You nearly This Is Us-ed the entire block.”

“This Is Us—Dad, why are you watching that show? They have the same show on ABC but newer”: Shawn’s shoutout to A Million Little Things.

Lassiter mistakes Reese Kessler, his supposed shooter, for country music singer Conway Twitty.

Lassiter’s to-do list includes “tape Galavant,” the short-lived musical comedy fantasy series created by Dan Fogelman (This Is Us), in which Timothy Omundson played King Richard. It also includes items poking fun at Lassiter’s crankiness (“yell at nature,” “chirping bird d-day plan”) and tenacity (“solve black dahlia”), and heartstring-tugging items (“pre-register for ironman” as in the triathlon). He also has written down Shawn’s S.E.I.Z.E. mantra from his short-lived career as Lassiter’s life coach in “S.E.I.Z.E. the Day”: Seize Eggs I don’t know Zebra Eighties.

Juliet (Maggie Lawson) lying to Shawn sounds strange, though not as strange as Lupita Nyong’o—the Tethered Lupita—in Jordan Peele’s Us.

Shawn’s “romantic dinner” for Jules is the menu from A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (jelly beans, pretzels, buttered toast, popcorn, and ice cream sundaes) because it’s all they had at the gas station on the way home.

That prompts an iconic “C’mon, son!” from Gus.

Gus’ ringtone is “I’m Mr. Bootyman,” which is both Henry’s ringtone and the song featured in Buzz McNab’s bachelorette party stripper routine in “Deez Nups.”

Gus’ (technically Jules’) green snuggie bears a striking resemblance to official Psych contest merch.

Lassiter spotting mysterious bleeding figures out his window is an homage to Rear Window.

Richard Schiff (as Dr. Herschel) was Dulé Hill’s co-star in The West Wing.

Potterhead Gus wants to know if there are any people hiding in the pipes of the Herschel House, “speaking in their own tongue, perhaps Parsel.”

The Psych boys’ map of suspects briefly includes the Hell Hag from Gus’ dreams in “A Nightmare on State Street.”

Shawn has only been to Norway once with his brother-in-law Ewan O’Hara (John Cena), but they don’t talk about that… Maybe that’s where Psych: The Movie went after its cliffhanger ending?

Ova’s Norwegian song/chant toast at the Viking’s Ice Den is very similar to the Swedish toast in “Right Turn or Left for Dead.”

Ova’s violent son Per is first described as “the bearded Daryl Hannah.”

Shawn’s excuse to Detective Buzz McNab (Sage Brocklebank) for being in Santa Barbara is that he forgot a frisbee signed by German writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.

Shawn’s first reaction to Jules potentially being pregnant: “You know the windows in the loft don’t even fully close, right? I’m gonna have to replace them, otherwise this is Baby’s Day Out all over again.” As Gus reassures him, he always did get worked up over John Hughes’ worst idea.

At the old Psych offices, Shawn pulls out the jousting lance from “100 Clues”—as well as a pineapple! He looks about to ask, “Should we cut this up for the road?” (his question during the pineapple’s first appearance in the pilot, plus at the end of Psych: The Movie) but stops himself.

When Lassie believes that fellow patient Mr. Wilkerson (Kadeem Hardison) has been walking around, Shawn and Gus have to go “full Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” to interrogate the supposedly catatonic patient.

Shoutout to Jessie Spano’s infamous “I’m so excited, I’m so excited, I’m so scared!” speed speech from Saved by the Bell.

If it’s not Scrubs, the boys are getting compared to Ren and Stimpy.

Mary Lightly (Jimmi Simpson) returns in another incredible, extra-hallucinatory look into Shawn’s brain… this time as a baby, since Shawn’s got fatherhood on the brain.

“We got jackaled!” Gus shouts upon learning that Wilkerson can walk—a reference to “hitting the jackal switch,” or going into stealth mode.

Shawn has always had a thing for singer Jewel, even after the Civil War movie (1999’s Ride with the Devil) and the Bollywood song.

Of course there’s a nasty dance when Shawn and Gus figure out who they think is behind everything.

Gus declares that “I am not going to let you shoot Shules’ baby!” only for the Chief (Kirsten Nelson) to ask, “What’s a Shules?” That’s the fans’ name for Shawn/Jules, a cute nod to a series OTP.

And of course, we can’t forget the fact that Jazmyn Simon, who plays Selene, is Dulé Hill’s real-life wife.

More than once, Shawn quotes The Handmaid’s Tale in reference to Gus and Selene’s baby: “Praise be” and “Blessed is the fruit.”

Dolores compliments Lassiter’s “chest of hair plentiful enough to wake all of Destiny’s Child.”

Shawn comes up with possible names for Gus’ child: Shaft, Shaftie, or D’Shaft—just like Gus’ nickname Sh’Dynasty (with a “God’s comma,” or apostrophe) from “Santabarbaratown.”

They also both coo “c’mon son” to Selene’s womb.

Selene’s proposal to Gus includes his negotiation that he and Shawn have adjacent homes with connecting pools, a callback to Shawn and Gus talking about their dream setup in “The Break-Up”; as well as Pluto! She asks, “Will you make me the happiest woman on this planet, on Eres, and Pluto?”

Shawn tells Juliet that “you’re my person,” the iconic Grey’s Anatomy line (though one would argue that Gus more accurately is his person).

When Lassiter stands (shut up, you’re crying) to meet Marlowe (Kristy Swanson), they place their palms together—like they did when he would visit her in jail, like they did at their wedding. My heart.

Join us on the Easter egg hunt—let us know what references we missed!

The post Psych 2: Lassie Come Home Easter Egg and Reference Guide appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[nagatsukinura119]

Ramble and thoughts on V route

[A bit of (or maybe huge) spoiler alert for those who haven’t played/finished the route]

I just finished V’s route and got the Normal Ending. I have to say that I have so many thoughts and feelings that leave me like an empty shell. 

Okay, I already knew from the start that Zen wasn’t gonna be involved too deep with the story besides sharing what he feels or thinks about the current situation in chat rooms (and babysitting Yoosung). But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t disappointed that he, Yoosung and Jaehee were practically thrown aside. Technically Jaehee was still kept close because of her position as Jumin’s assistant, but nevertheless I still feel that the Casual Story members were regarded very little in V’s route. But it can’t really be helped because I knew from the start that Zen’s involvement with RFA was a bit too “eeeh”. Sure, he’s indebted to V for saving his life during a motorcycle accident and that’s why he joined RFA, but I still felt like he was a bit off from the rest of the group. I mean, the next member I’d say is a bit of “eeeh” within the group is Yoosung. He might be in the group because he’s Rika’s cousin and that she feels comfortable for a family to be a part of what she loves to do. And perhaps they needed someone who’s familiar with a group of people of his age and class to know what they think about charity fundraising parties (I don’t know what I’m rambling about here). But what can Zen do to help RFA since he was just a mediocre musical actor? I guess like Yoosung, all he could do was just tell his (hopefully rich) co-workers about the parties. I’m guessing they were just satisfied to get as many hands to help as possible. And then I recalled in V’s route that Yoosung said that so far, they’ve conducted 2 parties, and the latest one would be the previous year. So I wondered how successful was RFA, really, if not including their small charity events?

Sorry, that was getting off the topic that I intended to talk about.

Back to V’s Normal Ending and some parts of the story, I’m just gonna say that although it’s generally a happy ending for MC since we’re shown that 2 years after the incident with Rika, her exploded apartment as well as Mint Eye’s fall, MC and V are living together, and as V said, they’re in love. It’s all happy for V and MC in the end, but I can’t say that I am happy. At least not wholly because, hey, the man deserved happiness after all the shit he went through.

First of all, I’ve got so many questions stuck in my head up until now. Like, if V’s route was set 1 year before the current story (I’m guessing the Deep Story since it’s been theorized as the True Story if you’re in Seven’s route), then, the events happened in Seven’s route where V was shot and died, did that happen in a parallel world or something? I think I’ve missed and skipped a lot of info that I needed to answer these questions (I avoided Tumblr and any place that could give me spoilers while I played the game). However! The disappearance of Ray and the appearance of Unknown (Saeran) implied that because MC decided to shag with V, Ray lost the person whom he claimed to really care, and apparently fell in love with. Because of this, as well as Rika’s changes of plans that involved the MC, pushed Ray so hard that his dangerous split persona resurfaced, and I believe this Unknown is the Unknown that we got introduced to in the Casual and Deep Story, which makes me believe that the Normal Ending is somewhat still connected to the world that we know. But, here’s the catch, if the Normal Ending leads to the current story, then what happened to V, who appeared to get his happy ending with MC and with perfectly good eyes? Then what happened to the MC in his route? Did she get kidnapped, or died in an accident that involved him which led to his eyesight getting messed up? Is that why he was so persistent to not get any treatment? Because he felt so guilt ridden by MC’s death? And where does that leave us? Are we playing two different MC’s, one from V’s route and another from Casual/Deep Story? Because of this I actually believe that there are 2 MC’s in Mystic Messenger universe.

From the beginning, I never really thought Rika as the antagonist, at least not on purpose. In Day 10′s chat room, Rika was pleading so hard towards V and MC to let her stay with them (I’m not sure if she meant stay, as in just in the chat room, or physically). She was literally begging like a child. She said she would be a good girl, sit quietly in her room, listen to what MC and V tell her, she won’t cry, never throw a fit, won’t express her feelings, she would eat little without complaint, and basically won’t talk to other people and stay locked in the house. She would live lifelessly like a paper doll. Hell, she would even allow MC to end up with V!

Sure, this might be one of her tricks and guilt cards to make MC and V fall into her trap, like her constant plea towards MC to stay with her (though the situation felt almost too intense to be platonic). But I can’t help but feel that her pleas and cry for help is real. Think about it; she started of groveling for help and pleas not to leave her, and then a switch went off and her raging side came out and started telling MC and V and to give her sun back (I’m guessing the sun would be V), and even threatened them that she would exact her revenge on MC who stole V from her. BUT instantly she went back to begging like the beginning of this chat. What’s more is that, this time she even apologized for everything she had done. The emotional transition between her anguish and angry sides was just a bit too real for someone to be faking around. 

My theory: And speaking of her revenge on MC, I’m starting to think that the current MC (MC(A)) might be dead by Rika’s hands somewhere in the future (because we know Rika didn’t die in the explosion in order for her to still be alive in Deep Story) and that is also an act of revenge towards V who left her (hence explaining why she despised him in this story). This feels like too far-fetched but isn’t that what fan theories are all about? But if this theory is plausible, how would this explain the apartment that the MC from Casual/Deep Story (MC(B)) would be staying in, as well as no one’s memories of Rika being the antagonist or MC(A)’s existence? Also, the timeline wouldn’t make sense, because in Casual/Deep Story, Rika’s death was supposed to happen a year and a half before MC was introduced to RFA. And if at this point V was dating with MC(A) then why didn’t anyone mention this to MC(B)? So… theory debunked?

Now, I did say that I never see Rika as the bad guy, but I’m not saying that we can just forgive her and let bygones be bygone, but I’m not saying that she deserved all the stuff that happened to her either. Everyone in the game deserved to be happy.

I think she was just awfully lonely and needed love. We never know if she had genuine friends before meeting V. Then we learned that Rika had a good relationship with V for some time and she struck a friendship with Jumin along the way. We know that she is a fan of Zen (as she claimed) and it seems like she was a normal person. But turns out she had serious mental issues and this should remind us that some things that she did were things out of her control, especially when her mad and delusional side controlled her most of the time. What I see here is that she’s just a victim of mental issues and she needed help and shouldn’t be antagonized entirely. Her extreme acts should be blamed, but not her.

Playing this game while dealing with so many deadlines can be very emotionally draining and honestly sometimes I question my sanity like am I thinking about and caring for the characters in the game too much? What if the game is actually based on real people? What if we’re in the same situation like MC in V’s route, who was lured into this game by someone? These questions tend to keep me bedridden and feeling empty at times.

See what I mean? I was never considered having any mental problems or something like that, but here I am, questioning all these questions like a mad person. Maybe it’s because of the stress from my daily life? Who knows, but one thing for sure is that if I’m affected like this by just something so trivial like a game, imagine how Rika must have dealt with her legit health issues. And as for her withdrawing herself from V, I can only think that she was so used to having darkness (or to put simply, dark thoughts) within her and the belief that nobody wanted her must have been permanently scarred her mind and she believed that being unwanted makes up what she was. So, when V came in, she was really happy to be loved but later on the feeling was strange and unnatural for her, to the point that she thought the more she was loved, the more she was losing herself. Hence explaining why she chose to separate from V and embrace her ‘darkness’ which is basically herself. But at the same time, I think she was conflicted with her decision to either choose herself or being with V, because clearly she was also very in love with him. I think her fit of rage in Day 10 might be a possibility of her having Borderline Personality Disorder.

I’ll be honest that I wasn’t giving my 100% focus in the game and sometimes I’d just skim through at whatever popped in the chat rooms (the chats can be too long for my liking). That’s why I’m thinking to re-play the game and give it more focus and analyze V’s route with deeper thoughts so that I can actually accept the aftermath of his and Rika’s relationship. I’m also very curious to what the other endings would show us. Hell, if the Normal Ending is THIS happy and satisfying, I can just imagine what the actual Good Ending would offer (I’m still avoiding spoilers here).

Though to be honest I never wanted to play as an MC who would have a romantic relationship or story with V because I’ve come to believe that he was so blindly (pun intended) in love with Rika that it feels like it’s impossible for him to fall for a stranger within 11 days (but then again, this IS Mystic Messenger, where people get to fall in love quickly, even though you barely seeing each other). I’m not saying that he doesn’t have the right to love again, because he DOES. But personally, I just don’t think I have that capabilities to help him nor that I have so much maternal instincts to save him. That’s also why I never see or want Saeran in a romantic way. I just want to help them to be happy again as a platonic friend. Although V’s relationship with Rika was unhealthy, it can’t be denied that they WERE happy and shit just started and broke them apart. Being a helpless romantic, I always believed that there was still some hope for them to be happy together, and I actually hoped V’s route involved helping them to mend their relationship, if not just help to resolve their conflict. 

And also, let’s not forget about Ray, Unknown’s gentler side personality. It can’t be helped that I also felt the need to save the sweet guy, and at the same time it was pretty worrying if I were to really fall for him I might actually have Stockholm Syndrome. Sure, MC wasn’t really kidnapped by force per say, but it can’t be denied that she was locked up in some unknown place that she was brought to with a blindfold. That alone was quite disturbing but then again, I DID play Shall We Date’s Blood in Roses and chose to shag with Rupert which eventually made me realize that maybe some MC’s in otome games need to have Stockholm Syndrome just to pull the player’s heartstring for the sake of what is called ‘romance’… Anyways, I wasn’t really sure what really happened to him in the end of Normal Ending. First, Rika apparently died in the explosion of her apartment, and so did Mint Eye’s building so where does that leave Ray (at this point Unknown)? Did he also supposedly get blown into bits? If so that is more depressing than what I actually expected because poor Seven would never know the truth about his brother.

[thephantomprojectionist]

Reviewnalysis: China O’Brien II (1990)

*SPOILERS AHEAD* Sequels aren't as common in martial arts cinema as other genres (at least not for U.S. fare), and ones within the direct-to-video realm are similarly rare. While China O’Brien II was shot simultaneously with its predecessor and therefore a guaranteed release, the original’s success assured that a sequel would indeed be in demand. Sadly, this is an instance where embarrassing stereotypes about sequels indeed apply. While the original China O'Brien was a simple but endearing adventure that established Cynthia Rothrock in America's martial arts movie scene, China O'Brien II rings hollwer. The circumstances behind its creation ensure that its production values and action content are as strong as its predecessor's, but an uneven story and an unambitious screenplay go a long way in making this the inferior flick.

The film opens at night with a low-key soundtrack and a convoy of cars making its way through a forested area. Things pick up soon, as the convoy divulges a slew of police officers who’re hunting the story's villain. Escaped convict C.Z. Baskin (Harlow Marks) - ex-Special Forces operative and drug smuggler - shoots several officers before turning up at a hideout with his sizeable gang of Vietnam veterans. He lays out his goals in a straightforward way: he wants to kill the judge, prosector, and detective responsible for sending him to prison, along with a former teammate who betrayed and stole $5 million from him. Barely five minutes into the movie and we already have enough information to determine that the hero-villain dynamics have flipped: whereas the first film featured our heroes attempting to topple a villain who’d entrenched himself in the system, this one casts the heroes as the establishment and the villains as outsiders. We'll see soon enough that such a reversal actually renders our protagonists more vulnerable than before. Baskin succeeds in having his personnel eliminate their first three targets in short order, treating us to a convoluted scene where the judge is murdered while participating in a magic act. The final victim, Frank Atkins (Frank Magner), is living under the Witness Protection Program in the same town where Lori "China" O'Brien (Rothrock) is receiving a commendation for ridding the place of organized crime. Also present are her returning cohorts Matt Conroy (Richard Norton) and Dakota (Keith Cooke), and we see that their collective problems have become significantly less drastic in recent times: while Dakota beats up a couple of men harassing a woman (one of them's future Mortal Kombat star Chris Casamassa), China and Matt drive off to arrest a bumbling mountain man called Chester (J.R. Glover) who made a mess of a local bar. The trio seems to have everything under control.

This impression continues even as the plot begins to move along and several of Baskin's men arrive to kidnap Frank and his wife Annie (Tricia Quai) during the July 4th celebration. Despite an ominous soundtrack, our heroes thoroughly kick the crud out of these guys. The would-be kidnappers flee, and China gets the cagey Frank to tell her about the situation...though he leaves out the bit about the stolen money. An unproductive call from his FBI keeper gets Frank into an uproar, but China shuts him down and forbids him from leaving town. Frank doesn’t like this. Unlike its predecessor, this film has almost nothing to say on gender roles or feminism, but there's a glorious moment where the impotent Frank whines "I bet you like beatin' up on men, don't you?!" It’s a not-so-subtle reminder that China is a subverter of norms and that men of questionable character can’t come to terms with this. Dakota is dating Frank’s stepdaughter Jill (Tiffany Soter), which is a little uncomfortable when you remember that Dakota is old enough to be in college but Jill appears to go to school with students in their mid-teens. He picks her up from the campus on his bike and brings her home, where Baskin and his men are lying in wait. Dakota puts up a fight, but he’s kidnapped along with Jill and Annie. Ironically, Baskin’s attempt to thus press Frank to surrender himself and the money almost goes wrong: Frank is in the process of skipping town when China happens upon him and finds out what’s going on. (Frank’s shame at being shown up by a woman is complete when he threatens her with a gun and she takes him down from the other side of a door.) She calls in Matt and her deputy Russell (Michael Anthony), and they hatch a plan to retrieve the hostages with Frank’s (forced?) cooperation. The next day, it’s put into effect: Frank meets with Baskin at a rock-crushing plant while China & Co. Sneak up , and following a massive fight scene that parallels the first film’s sawmill brawl, all the good guys escape. Baskin, who gets quickly taken out by China early in the fight, vows revenge. This fight scene, in which Dakota doesn’t actively participate, is a demonstration of how he’s become estranged from the other lead protagonists. While neither his screen time nor his contribution to the action content has been reduced, he shares very few scenes with China or Matt and has no one-on-one time with them at all. What’s more, he’s become almost facetious to the story. While the original movie featured his quest for revenge as a major plot point and gave him moments wherein he at least helped China out of a jam, here he’s little more than a flashy side character. The importance of his kidnapping is diminished by China already being prepared to put herself on the line for Jill and Annie, and probably the most significant thing he does throughout the picture is rescue Jill from molestation by one of Baskin’s men (Douglas Caputo). I’ve heard that Keith Cooke was very discerning about only accepting roles that highlighted his onscreen presence; if this is true, then Dakota being indepdent of China and Matt probably appealed to Cooke, but the result is that the film could’ve largely been made without his character. The things he does and the things that happen to him don’t affect the plot much, and that’s disappointing.

Baskin effectively isolates the town by cutting phone lines, scrambling radio airwaves, and setting up roadblocks. The next day, his crew rolls in to flush out China and her allies, and the rest of the movie consists mainly of China, Matt, and Dakota taking out opponents throughout town. It’s a cool collection of fight scenes, including ones with a trio of specialty fighters (Billy Blanks, a whip-wielding Indiana Jones wannabe, and Toshihiro Obata wearing a pair of Freddy Krueger claws), but the whole affair is one-sided with our heroes rarely losing the upper hand. Things are a little more perilous for the characters who aren’t martial artists: Russell is shot to death trying to get help, China’s dispatcher Lucille (Cindy Clark) is killed when the police station is shot up, ol’ Chester is killed just shortly after being sprung from jail, and even Frank is gunned down by Baskin as his family and he try to escape with the money. Baskin grabs the suitcase of dough, ignoring the women, and is subsequently killed by Annie after she grabs Frank’s rifle. It’s surprising, a little disappointing, but also apt that the antagonist is taken down by a character who even the audience is meant to consider beneath notice. C.Z. Baskin is a more threatening and able villain than Edwin Sommers was, but in the end, they’re both eliminated by a former victim of their greed. TRIVIA: Filming had already wrapped when director Robert Clouse was told that the runtime had to be increased. Some additional action scenes were shot, including the one featuring Billy Blanks, who was cast at short notice. The film ends on a downer, with China and Matt leaving Frank’s funeral and mourning the loss of Lucille and Russell. Dakota’s there, but he doesn’t leave with his friends. Looking back at the whole picture, I get the impression that the filmmakers were intending for this to be a grittier and more perilous movie than the original – you get hints at a darker tone throughout via the soundtrack – but they failed to achieve the effect by reserving all of the more depressing stuff for the final 15 minutes. Sure, the movie collectively lacks the original’s upbeat tone, but it’d be comparable to shooting The Empire Strikes Back without the heroes facing any setbacks prior to Luke Skywalker losing his hand. It just feels uneven.

China O’Brien II is a typically inferior sequel in many ways, but its production circumstances make the situation a little weirder. The films were shot at the same time with much of the same crew and supporting cast, so their look and design are identical. That’s what makes it so disorienting that China O’Brien should be such an engaging romp while its follow-up is a distant exhibition. I don’t know nearly enough about the production to say more, but it goes to show just how delicate of a process it is to create a cult classic. It’s difficult to capture lightning twice, even when the bottles are standing right next to each other. Nevertheless, as technically the more mature film of the two, the sequel manages to make at least one narrative point about change and adaptation. The most obvious example of this is China’s relationship with firearms, which was laid down in the original film and even reinforced, here. China never uses a gun, even opting to use a hunting bow when in need of a long-range weapon, but she reluctantly approves of her allies using them. Russell uses a machine gun during the brawl at the plant and there’s a meaningful shot of China entrusting a gun to Frank, and even Matt takes control of a rifle at one point. (There’s also a recycled shot of Dakota riding his motorcycle with an M-16 strapped to his back.) The good guys kill people with these weapons – a signifier for lack of control and a major no-no in the past, but now an apparent necessity. There’s much to be said about taking a realistic look at self-defense and firearms, but in the context of the film, this underscores the effectiveness of the villains: they’re apparently so dangerous that they drive our heroes to desperation and put a dent in China’s ideals. In the aftermath, Sheriff O’Brien probably reflects on her worldview and how she intends to protect her town. It’s impossible to imagine her deputizing schoolchildren anymore.

The relationship Matt and China share with Dakota also comes under the header of change. The former two are now a couple, but Dakota is noticeably estranged. They still share friendly gestures and show concern for each other, but there are hints that the trio may be in the process of breaking up. Dakota’s status as a deputy is strictly voluntary, and after seeing him spend more time with Jill than his cohorts and not joining them after the funeral, I’m left with the impression that their dynamic is coming apart. Dakota doesn’t hint at his plans and I don’t want to make unfounded predictions, but as China admits that she’ll miss her fallen friends, perhaps the unspoken message is that she’ll also miss Dakota, now that he’s beyond her inner circle. One aspect that I wish had been taken greater advantage of is the rest of the town’s involvement in defending itself. The movie starts off with the place feeling as organic as before, but as the film progresses, we see less and less of the citizens. By the time the big finale occurs, the streets are empty. The film’s trailer promises us that “This time, [China] will need to have the whole town cooking,” but the most we see of this is an out-of-the-blue scene where a couple of Baskin’s thugs are thwarted by two chefs armed with cleavers. Perhaps that bit was inserted to pad out the runtime, but seriously – where have all of the extras gone? I can see China advising the townspeople to stay in their homes off-screen, but the impression this makes is that, despite their successful rallying of the community in the past, China and her friends are eventually on their own when it comes to facing danger. Despite its drawbacks, I still recommend China O’Brien II – not to just anybody, but probably to general martial arts fans and definitely to Cynthia Rothrock devotees. The fight scenes are top-notch, and there are enough entertaining moments to make it worth your while. The movie has plenty of problems, but it avoids the most common sin of sequels by not merely rehashing the last flick. This one’s yet to be released digitally or on DVD, and while it may not be worth buying a VCR for, it’s definitely worth digging an old model out of the basement.

China O’Brien II (1990) Directed by Robert Clouse Written by Robert Clouse, Craig Clyde (The Wild Stallion), James Hennessy (Wind Dancer). Sandra Weintraub receives a “based on a story by” credit, but it’s unclear whether this just refers to her work on the previous film. Starring Cynthia Rothrock, Richard Norton, Keith Cooke, and Frank Magner – all of who appeared in the original China O’Brien. Cool costars: Chris Casamassa, Billy Blanks (The King of the Kickboxers), Toshihiro Obata (Rage and Honor). Donre Sampson plays one of the more noticeable henchmen, and while not particularly distinguished, he did appear in the super cool Revenge of the Ninja and therefore merits a mention. Title refers to: Cynthia Rothrock’s character. Content warning: Violence against women, group violence, kidnapping Copyright Pan-Pacific Productions, Inc. / Imperial Entertainment Corp.