Intentionally bulking up for the role once he heard he’d be squaring off against Jai White, at one point a character describes him as “an upside down pyramid”, which I don’t think I could improve upon as a visual of his physical stature. Adkins plays Boyka as a palpable ball of rage, where the threat of violence seems only one wrong stare away, and he cuts a physically imposing figure. While it seems almost a cliché to say that Adkins nails the role of Boyka, as someone that skipped straight to Undisputed 3 in which his confidence is in tatters, seeing his performance in Undisputed 2 was something of a revelation. The champion of the prison, which sees Adkins in the role of Boyka, has been itching for a worthy opponent to prove his belief that he’s “the most complete fighter in the world”, and so the pair are set on a collision course with each other.
When the local mob boss learns Jai White is in town, he decides to have him framed for drug possession, so that he can force him to partake in an illegal fighting tournament run out of a mob owned prison.
#Undisputed 2 last man standing tv#
This time around Jai White takes the character of George ‘The Iceman’ Chambers, and plays him as a disgraced former heavyweight champion who we meet in Russia, reduced to appearing in local TV commercials for a brand of vodka (if only he could pronounce his Russian correctly). Much like Undisputed 3 would make the sequels antagonist the protagonist, so Undisputed 2 pulled the same trick first, by having Jai White play the role that Rhames played 4 years earlier. While many point out that the sequel can be enjoyed as a standalone story, it’s also worth pointing out that it is a continuation of Hill’s production.
#Undisputed 2 last man standing movie#
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Undisputed 2 though, is that it’s surely the first time in history that a DTV sequel has surpassed in popularity its A-list original, a 2002 boxing movie directed by none other than Walter Hill, which starred Wesley Snipes and Ving Rhames. A shudder worthy thought if ever there was one. I would daresay that without Undisputed 2, there would be no Black Dynamite. Likewise for Michael Jai White, while his post-2000 filmography had seen him facing off against the likes of Steven Seagal in Exit Wounds, and Michelle Yeoh in Silver Hawk (don’t mention Kill Bill), it was Undisputed 2 that really let him loose. Undisputed 2 put an end to his British TV career, and started his rise to be the king of DTV action. However he was still paying the bills by featuring in local British TV drama series, such as Holly Oaks and Holby City. Until Undisputed 2 Adkins had been honing his action talents with the best Hong Kong had to offer, taking minor but high impact roles in the likes of The Accidental Spy, Extreme Challenge, Black Mask 2: City of Masks, The Medallion, and Unleashed. While Adkins was used sparingly in their previous collaboration, here he was thrust into co-star status. Isaac Florentine’s 8th movie, up until this point he’d largely been considered an unremarkable director of DTV action flicks, however in the movie he made prior, Special Forces, he discovered the talents of British martial artist Scott Adkins. Made at a time when the American martial arts B-movie was all but dead (Seagal and Van Damme released trash like Attack Force and The Hard Corps the same year), there’s no argument it was the production responsible for putting its stars and director firmly on the map for action fans. In many ways Undisputed 2 is one of those movies thats reputation precedes it. It wasn’t until the release of Accident Man, which features a stellar throwdown between Adkins and Jai White, that my curiosity was finally piqued.
So it was, I never felt the urge to hunt down Undisputed 2, after all, why would I when I already knew the ending!? It seemed the only prior knowledge needed to enjoy Undisputed 3 was that Boyka, the iconic character played by Scott Adkins, gets his knee broken by Michael Jai White in the finale of the sequel. Let’s be clear, the fight action was amazing, but (and it’s a big but), the plot felt very perfunctory – it was moving us from one fight in the ring to the next. However back in 2010, even I found myself caught up in the hype for Undisputed 3: Redemption, and dutifully found myself checking it out as soon as it was released. But in my defence, I have my reasons, the biggest one being I’m simply not a fan of the whole underground tournament genre. I confess I’m late to the party with Undisputed 2: Last Man Standing, 12 years late to be precise.
“Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” Japanese DVD PosterĬast: Michael Jai White, Scott Adkins, Ben Cross, Eli Danker, Mark Ivanir, Ken Lerner, Daisy Lang, Silvio Simac, Ivaylo Geraskov, Valentin Ganev, Atanas Srebrev
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