Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

Kill Zone 2 Blu-ray Movie Review

Invasion of the body snatchers.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 19, 2016

It’s probably somewhat fortuitous that I had little recollection of Kill Zone when I came to Kill Zone 2, for despite it bearing an obviously linked name and even a couple of the same actors (albeit in different roles), this “second” Kill Zone film is in fact only very tangentially linked to the first outing. In reviewing my Kill Zone Blu-ray review (so to speak), I reacquainted myself with the fact that the first Kill Zone was a decidedly ambiguous affair from a moral standpoint, positing supposed “good guys” who trafficked in a number of questionable activities, making any differentiation between them and the ostensible villains of the piece a study in relativity. There’s little of that ambiguity on display in Kill Zone 2, a film that instead is almost ridiculously contrived at times as it wends its way through an almost comical series of coincidences that fold subplots about human organ harvesting, corrupt prison officials and a well meaning father needing a bone marrow transplant for his mortally ill daughter into one surprisingly satisfying whole. The film’s plot mechanics are completely outrageous, and one simply needs to surrender to near cosmic levels of synchronicity that sometimes attend various developments, but the film is graced with several (literal and figurative) knockout fight sequences and also manages to ply something at least close to honest human emotion in its depiction of an emotionally fraught father doing whatever is necessary to save his adorable little girl.

Perhaps because certain elements of the narrative are so patently ludicrous, scenarists Leung Lai-yin and Wong Ying, along with director Soi Cheang, deconstruct things to keep the audience guessing, at least in the early going. There are certain temporal leaps that are disjunctive as various characters are introduced, but in a way the chaos simply adds to the film’s precipitous momentum. A guy named Chatchai (Tony Jaa) has taken his little girl Sa (Unda Kunteera Yhordchanng) ice skating, but when a trail of blood suddenly dots the ice, he’s forced to run the girl to a hospital, where it turns out she’s been regularly treated for a life threatening disease which is in fact threatening her even more now. In the meantime, a series of rather disturbing vignettes has been offered detailing the kidnappings of various innocent bystanders as part of a nefarious organ harvesting program whose motives are initially unclear. Among the hapless victims is a woman who is four months pregnant, not that her “condition” is of any major concern to her captors.

A number of other cartwheeling events occur, leading to the denouement that at least some of the organ harvesting victims are being held in a grimy prison overseen by a nattily dressed warden named Ko Chun (Zhang Jin). Chatchai has already learned there’s a suitable bone marrow donor for his little girl, though the prospective helper has been incommunicado. Chatchai takes things into his own hands and steals the donor’s contact information, hoping to get through to the guy himself. In one of the absurd contrivances of the film’s goofy plot, it of course turns out that the prospective donor has been kidnapped as part of Ko Chun’s nefarious scheming, with his cell phone thrown into the drink. But, wait, you also get —it then turns out that Chatchai is a guard at the prison and (yep, there’s an “and”) the prospective donor is actually an undercover cop named Kit (Wu Jing), an agent who had been tasked with investigating the whole criminal enterprise of the kidnappings and organ harvesting. In one of the few real connections to Kill Zone (aside from the casting of Wu), Kit is a somewhat morally ambiguous character who has taken his undercover role as a drug addict a little too seriously.

There’s very little question about where all of this is going, but rather incredibly the film continues to pile on even more coincidences and unlikely happenings (just one salient example: Chinese cell phones evidently withstand rather lengthy immersion better than domestic ones). But Kill Zone 2 moves so quickly through its improbabilities that many viewers probably either won’t have time to think about the increasing levels of the ridiculous, or in fact perhaps won’t care even if they do. Some elements, like a “nightmare” Sa has involving a wolf add a bit of mystical import to the proceedings, but in essence this is the Chinese equivalent of a “popcorn flick”, and needs to be appreciated as such. It’s brisk, often bracingly violent (a couple of standout set pieces are spectacularly staged), and in the whole weirdly enjoyable despite its tendency to stretch suspension of disbelief to the breaking point.

Kill Zone 2 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Kill Zone 2 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. The IMDb lists this as a Red Epic shot production, finished at a 2K DI. Aside from a few transitory banding issues (you'll notice the first in the "red sea" little Sa is swimming in), this is by and large a really nice looking transfer. The imagery is consistently sharp, clear and extremely well detailed, especially in the many numerous extreme close-ups. A number of moments have been intentionally tweaked to resemble either raw video feeds or at the least a somewhat "distressed" appearance (see screenshot 6), and during these typically rather brief scenes detail levels are understandably lessened. A number of scenes have been both pretty garishly lit and then graded toward a greenish yellow that is kind of sickly looking, especially with regard to flesh tones, but which does not materially affect detail levels.

Kill Zone 2 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Our audio specs above are a tad misleading, since Kill Zone 2's original soundtrack version features a variety of different languages being spoken, including Cantonese, Mandarin and Thai. One way or the other, my personal recommendation is to stick with the original multi-language DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track, not just for "purity"'s sake, but also because the overall mix is somewhat more vibrant than the passable English dub that's also available in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. The original language(s) mix is expectedly robust in the fight sequences, where all sorts of discrete channelization helps to envelop the listener in the hustle and bustle of bones being snapped to pieces, and there are a number of other interesting ambient environmental effects that dot the surround channels in other moments. Sa's nightmare about the wolf provides a little growly low end, but there's more than ample actual LFE in any number of action sequences. Fidelity is top notch with no problems of any kind to report.

Kill Zone 2 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Making Of includes:

  The Story (1080p; 2:26)

  The Fights (1080p; 3:15)

  The Vision (1080p; 2:47)

• Deleted Scenes include:

  Welcome to Rehab (1080p; 1:40)

  Police Harassment (1080p; 1:32)

  Kit's Apartment (1080p; 2:19)

  Kit: Undercover Cop (1080p; 1:52)

  Prison Punishment (1080p; 3:39)

  Chai Reads Sa's Letter (1080p; 1:57)

  Wa's Warning (1080p; 3:11)

  Sa's Song (1080p; 00:59)

• Trailer (1080p; 1:33)

Kill Zone 2 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Kill Zone 2 may ultimately not make one whit of sense, but it hardly matters as the film careens through a number of wonderfully staged fight sequences and pretends to care about at least a couple of its characters. It's all resolutely silly, but it's also all immensely enjoyable. Technical merits are generally strong, and Kill Zone 2 comes Recommended.