The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

I remember this film when it came out on VHS in the UK... other people have commented on the gross marketing of the DVD by the American distributors; they are absolutely right! This film is in fact a feminist film (although directed by a man) about prostitution in the old West and the exploitation of, mainly immigrant, women. The way it deals with the "work" reminded me of "Working Girls", Lizzie Borden's film about the reality of prostitution. The lives of these women had much in common with those women today from eastern Europe and the third world who are victims of trafficking. The reaction to this film is always going to be mixed... a lot of people prefer the romantic view of prostitutes as "tarts with hearts"... but this is groundbreaking in its treatment of the subject and was probably ahead of its time. What really makes it stand out though is the incredible feel for time and place, the touching camaraderie between the women and the fantastic acting from the cast who all give brave and uncompromising performances. I really hope this film stays "out there".

Philip French Sunday 20 June 1999 guardian.co.ukPainted Angels (1998, 15, Artificial Eye, Rental/Retail) In Ride the High Country (1962), Sam Peckinpah put the whores into the horse opera, making the once taboo subject of frontier prostitution a proper theme for Westerns. Jon Sanders' unsentimental, non-prurient Painted Angela, one of the most realistic accounts of sex out West, concerns the girls in a brothel run by ruthless Irish madam Brenda Fricker on the fringe of a bleak prairie town in the 1880s. A socially detailed, achingly moving story of brutality and occasional tenderness is unfolded with considerable subtlety. The cast, headed by Kelly McGillis, is flawless.

If you are a sick, sadist.This has to be one of the worst films ever made. Luckily I watched this on Sky in the UK and didn't actually pay to see it because I would be in tears thinking of the money I had wasted to see this.There is no plot, no good acting and noting happens from start to finish.Please I beg you to stay clear of this film

The movie is slow, but it's nicely shot. And the slowness is like a metaphor, for their lives. Their lives were slow. What did people do in the prairies in the middle of winter in 1890? Nothing So,the film mimics their lives and forces us to slow down to their pace. Kelly McGillis is a sweetheart, she always has been and should have more leading roles than she does. She is my dream lady.