Black Mask 2: City of Masks (2002)

Director:

Hark Tsui

Writers:

Hark Tsui (story) &
Julien Carbon (story) ...

Release Date:

9 January 2003 (Hong Kong)

Genre:

Action | Drama | Sci-Fi

Plot:

The Black Mask must stop a group intent on setting off a DNA bomb that could cause mutations to the human race.

Plot Keywords:

Super Villainess | Nudity | Man Beast | Super Strength | Super Villain

Cast

Tobin Bell	...	Moloch
Jon Polito	...	Mr. King
Teresa Herrera	...	Dr. Marco Leung
Tyler Mane	...	Thorn
Andrew Bryniarski	...	Iguana / Daniel Martinez
Scott Adkins	...	Lang
Rob Van Dam	...	The Claw
Sean Marquette	...	Raymond
Oris Erhuero	...	Wolf
Robert Allen Mukes	...	Snake
Michael Bailey Smith	...	Ross (Hellraiser)
Traci Lords	...	Chameleon (as Traci Elizabeth Lords)
Andy On	...	Black Mask / Kang Fung
Silvio Simac	...	General Troy
Sau Leung 'Blacky' Ko	...	Sergeant

Also Known As:

Hak hap 2 (Hong Kong: Cantonese title)
Hei xia 2 (Hong Kong: Mandarin title)
Mascara negra 2: La noche de bestias (USA: Spanish title) (TV title)

MPAA:

Rated R for violence.

Runtime:

Hong Kong:102 min (DVD)

Country:

Hong Kong | USA

Language:

English | Japanese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

South Korea:15 | Finland:K-15 | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:AA (Ontario) | Germany:18 | Hong Kong:IIB | Norway:18 | Singapore:NC-16 | UK:15 | USA:R | Iceland:16

Filming Locations:

Thailand

Company:

China Star Entertainment

Trivia:

The movie was released in Hong Kong in early January 2003, and featured a dubbed Cantonese soundtrack with many HK celebrities in the main roles. Most notably, Andy Lau was the voice of Black Mask and Jordan Chan voiced bad guy Lang. In an amusing turn, Cecilia Cheung provided the voice of Raymond, the annoying little kid. Other roles were filled out by Louis Koo, Lau Ching-Wan, Cherrie Ying, Chapman To, Michael Tse, Patrick Tam and Raymond Wong Ho-Yin.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: As Moloch is escaping from the guys outside the storage facility, he turns into his animal form. He then goes back to the hotel room, where Dr. Marco Leung is trying to work on a cure to his condition, and on a close up of Moloch you can see his real iris' behind the fake cat eye lenses he is wearing.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Intergalactic Combat (2007)

Soundtrack:

City of Masks

An unprecedented "masterpiece" and more than likely the most audacious comic book-like movie ever made.

This is no Batman, Spiderman, Sin City, Power Ranges, X-Men... this film's comic book-like effect is achieved by the inverted strategy of incorporating all the elements of a live-action into the codes of a typical comic book. Totally unprecedented mix of stylism!

What's the most fascinating that this film is using extremely subversive methods challenging the constraints of the movie (or genre) language and also our own reality by creating an artificiality in a futuristic multi-cultural highly advanced purely philosophical dimension that somehow represents the world of our wildest imagination, subconscious desires and illogical dreams, and de-facto reflecting our modern social thinking and time of the globalization... especially of the Asian and American cinema, the film is wittingly dealing with the mix of American (Californium, Iridium) and Asian (all the victims of this transformation) sensibilities and letting their main characters fighting for their own identity and searching for their own cultural roots. From this perspective the film is a pure philosophy encapsulated in a visual form contemplating the materialistic world we might be coming closer every day by our impulse for escaping from the reality... now be it the materialism in terms of the video games, computers, films or any other fascinations with the unknown that have no basis in the reality...

Why i used to call this an "unprecedented masterpiece"? Well, probably because this film clearly and perfectly meets all the criteria it has brought on itself (see above). This film practically reaches to such distant borders very few average moviegoers could even catch on to. To them the credit of a "masterpiece" is still just related to the sort of artistic "pretentiousness" (if you know what i mean) but in my mind this word's meaning is not as limited when considering the infinite possibilities of the film language.