In 2017, Well Go USA brought the epic war film God of War to the US starring Vincent Zhao, Wan Qian, Koide Keisuke, Kurata Yasuaki and martial arts icon Sammo Hung. I loved that film so was obviously excited to hear the follow-up aptly titled God of War II was getting released starring Charles Lin, Yuxi Liu, a guest appearance from David Wu and Yinghao Sheng in his feature film debut. Could this film bring more of the same gritty martial arts war drama and action as the original or will it fail to breach the gates?
 

God of War II follows Lü Bu who has no memory of his hellish early life as a test subject for a ruthless imperial sorceress years after escaping. Now, he is feared across the land as the conquering general under warlord Dong Zhuo, for whom he has blazed a trail of victories on the battlefield. But when a woman arrives at the palace claiming to be his long-lost love, the facade begins to fade, and he begins to realize that his closest allies may yet be his most dangerous foes.
 

Heading into this film I revisited the original to get more hyped up so was understandably upset to realize that this new film has nothing to do with the previous film in anyway. This is another case of taking a different film and slapping a sequel title onto it for marketing as that is the only connection it has with the original. This is made all the worst by not only not living up to what the original had to offer, but just not being all that good at all. The visuals of the film itself are beautiful to behold and a lot more vibrant than the originals gritty tone.
 

Right out the gate you know this is a different kind of film as it dives right into some supernatural aspects and almost soap opera like narratives. They use way too much CGI that doesn’t work very well giving it a fake look more often than not. The visuals to it feel like something that might have been on TV instead of a feature especially comparing it to the original film.
 

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