Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

TOP FIGHTER 2: DEADLY FIGHTING DOLLS is a great documentary that celebrates the wealth of female fighters who were dominating Hong Kong action cinema at the time. This was made by Toby Russell, a martial arts film expert and son of famed director Ken. The film is mainly made up of clips which understandably show off the fighting talents of pretty much every female fighter ever to grace Hong Kong cinema, along with a few contemporary interview clips with some of the actresses themselves.The clips utilised tend to be quite poor quality, understandable given the lack of high quality DVD prints of many of the films at the time. My only complaint is that they fail to identify the films shown so if you end up liking a fight scene you'll have no idea where it comes from. Many of the films shown seem to be quite rare and some of them are jaw-dropping, like the nude fight with the western actress; I have no idea where that came from.The interview footage is very interesting and reveals many insights about the workings of Hong Kong cinema. Moon Lee, Michelle Yeoh, Yukari Oshima, and Cynthia Rothrock are all very verbose and engaging. TOP FIGHTER 2 goes back to the beginning by looking at the careers of Cheng Pei-Pei and Angela Mao before moving to the wealth of girls 'n' guns thrillers of the 1990s with Elaine Yui and Moon Lee covered extensively. It's great fun and hard to dislike.

....and that problem is that it doesn't tell you which movie each clip is coming from. I recognized quite a few of them, but that's not the point - it couldn't have been so difficult to have a title card at the start of each clip, just like they have for each person that appears on the screen. And this time, the titles aren't even mentioned during the closing credits. Thankfully, what "Top Fighter 2" lacks in informativeness it makes up for in sheer enjoyability. Practically all the big names of HK female action cinema get their screen time - and some smaller ones as well (like the underrated Sharon Yeung). And most of the women interviewed are extremely charming - I think I just fell in love with Judy Lee. But my favorite segment is easily the one devoted to the very sexy musclewomen Sophia Crawford and Michiko Nishiwaki: their interviews are shot in a gym, where we can also see them work out and spar with each other, and we also get to see parts of Sophia's incredible nude fight scene that has been cut from most copies of "Escape From The Brothel". I won't say this compilation is worth getting just for that - it's worth getting anyway - but it's certainly a nice little bonus. (***)

This strikes you as it could have been so much better. It is good to see the likes of Angela Mao and Judy Lee given the credit they so richly deserve but 1) why are the interviews so poor, often done in noisy, inappropriate locations 2) why are the clips not identified. You see a clip from a film and think, I would like to watch that film, but no title is given within the film, in the credits or as an insert 3) why are some of the clips so poor - Hapkido with Angela Mao for instance looks washed out. Any fan will argue, are the clips the best they could find for a particular star but this may have been limited by rights issues. It was good to see stars like Angela Mao are still alive (and still beautiful I might add) but none of them give much of an insight as to what it was like to be in such films or to work for Shaw Brothers or Golden Harvest at their peak. Interesting but could have been far better.

Better not watch this one with your parents around, kiddies.I kid. 'Top Fighter 2: Deadly Fighting Dolls' starts off a little risqué, with the first segment trying to convince us that Amy Yip is representative of female action stars. Apart from that, 'Top Fighter 2' is an action-heroine version of 'Top Fighter'.Essentially, this is just a list of (predominantly Asian) female action stars, complete with video clips and the odd interview. While it uses the same formula as 'Top Fighter', I must say that 'Top Fighter 2' is a better documentary. While 'Top Fighter' showcased a lot of now-famous stars, most of the women in 'Top Fighter 2' don't enjoy the same fame as their male counterparts, and so we get to learn more about these women and see more of their work.Michelle Yeoh, one of my favourite actresses, is interviewed and a clip of her kicking arse is shown. Although she is well-known now for roles in 'Tomorrow Never Dies' and 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon', when 'Top Fighter 2' was done in 1996, Michelle would have probably been a virtual unknown outside of Asia. Cynthia Rothrock gets her share of screen-time. After those two, 'Top Fighter 2' is a showcase for a lot of talented actresses from Hong Kong and Japan who may not be that well known at all. I was a little disappointed that someone like Amy Yip was shown while Etsuko Shihomi was left out completely.'Top Fighter 2' is a nice documentary, and a little better than the first. I reckon any fan of martial-arts movies should check it out - 7/10